Jan. 23, 2025 – Living with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder comes with unique challenges, and new insights are shedding light on its potential long-term effects.
The life expectancy of people with ADHD may be significantly shorter than that of people who don’t have the disorder, a new study suggests. The lives of men with ADHD may be about seven years shorter, and the difference for women may be nearly nine years.
“It is deeply concerning that some adults with diagnosed ADHD are living shorter lives than they should,” study author Josh Stott, PhD, a professor of aging and clinical psychology at University College London, said in a news release. “People with ADHD have many strengths and can thrive with the right support and treatment. However, they often lack support and are more likely to experience stressful life events and social exclusion, negatively impacting their health and self-esteem.”
The life expectancy calculations had some uncertainty about the exact duration; the shortened lifespan for men may be as small as 4.5 years or as large as nine years, and for women the range is a reduction of 6.5 years to 11 years.
It isn’t clear what causes ADHD, but experts believe genetics, environment, and developmental problems involving the central nervous system may play important roles. Adults with ADHD may have a range of symptoms that can include impatience that can reveal itself, for example, while they're waiting in line or driving in traffic. Other symptoms are disorganization, poor time management, a hard time focusing on a task, restlessness, mood swings, poor stress management, and a hot temper.
In their report, published this week in TheBritish Journal of Psychiatry, the authors noted that people with ADHD often have reduced outcomes in the areas of education and work, as well as worse physical and mental health than people without the disorder.
The results are based on data from 30,039 adults with ADHD in the United Kingdom who were established patients at primary care clinics between 2000 and 2019, as well as a comparison group of more than 300,000 U.K. adult primary care patients who didn’t have ADHD diagnoses.
In the U.S., an estimated 6% of adults have ADHD, and half of them are diagnosed when they are age 18 or older. More people are believed to have the disorder but aren't diagnosed. The authors of this latest study estimated that less 1 in 9 people who have the disorder are diagnosed in their lifetime.
The underdiagnosis problem means these latest life expectancy estimates may be inaccurate and could overestimate the gap between people with and without ADHD, the authors noted. They wrote that their findings warrant “urgent attention” because people with ADHD clearly have unmet needs and appear to be attempting to self-manage their condition and the mental health problems that often come with it through substance use, smoking, excess risk-taking, and compulsive behavior.
The researchers couldn't tell whether the causes of death among people with ADHD differed from those of people without the condition, and they called for further study on the topic.
