PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — In her weekly conversation with KYW Medical Editor Dr. Brian McDonough, KYW's Michelle Durham has a question from a listener about a study in Great Britain that found people diagnosed with ADHD have a shorter life expectancy than people without the diagnosis.
According to research published in the British Journal of Psychiatry, men with ADHD die about seven years earlier—and women, nine years earlier—than the average life expectancy of the greater population of men and women, respectively.
There are tens of thousands of Americans diagnosed with ADHD. When the report came out a couple of weeks ago, it really reverberated here in the United States.
Ask Dr. Brian
We look forward to answering more questions. It's been wonderful to see them come in. Email AskDrBrian@kywnewsradio.com
Michelle Durham: A listener named Kay asked about whether or not this was a bad prognosis for her child. So, what is ADHD exactly? And what are your thoughts about why it might affect life expectancy?
Dr. Brian McDonough: Sure, well, ADHD stands for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. These were the kids years ago who were just not even recognized.
They wouldn't necessarily get treatment that they needed because we didn't know a lot about it. As we learned more, we realized that there are things you can do to help these individuals, but it's a lifelong battle.
They just were, you know, moving all about. Maybe they didn't concentrate as well in school, they started to develop issues and they would often fall behind.
It's a situation where, if it's harder to do well in school, you might be put into certain courses that put you in situations where you might be with other people who are having trouble getting along in school, and it goes on throughout life.
And for certain individuals it puts them in a situation where they may have a harder life.
People with ADHD, if they don't get the support they need, are more prone to issues like alcohol abuse, cigarette smoking, drug abuse. They might go from job to job. So there's a lot of insecurity as far as financial issues.
So, the reason I think we're seeing people dying younger in this group, in this one study, is the association of everything else. I don't think they were saying that ADHD in and of itself caused people to die at younger ages, but it's the associated habits that you pick up that make a big difference.
I just want to stress that this is one study, and I know you and I talk about this all the time. It is one subset of a group of people. And also your point, Dr. Brian, that there are different circumstances. If you are in treatment for ADHD and you are receiving the proper supports and you're following through on your treatment, what does that do for the life expectancy? I don't want to scare people unnecessarily and I think this study scared people.
And I think you're making an excellent point.
What we know about any disease—this could be diabetes, it could be ADHD, it could be depression—is if you get treatment and you're able to control those symptoms, you do better over time. So this doesn't have to happen. If anything, it's a warning. Get into treatment and get that support you need.