Life Expectancy for ASD

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sometimes someone gets murdered. especially lately, it appears that a lot of racist, sexist, homophobic, fatphobic, and ableist murders allegedly killed someone.

plenty of precious lil "people" have been calling me "Chino", and "fa***t". sometimes i am afraid that they might have the nerve to vandalize or exterminate my worthless corpse.

there are plenty of them and just one of me.

outnumbered overpowered outsmarted

when two parties have a competition, the one with more resources (skill, physical strength/speed, intelligence, lil cronies, authority) wins. the factual accuracy, logic, legality or morality, affects the outcome of the competition, less than which party has greater resources.

i am 39 years old and have taken testosterone to transition from female to male for over five years. however, the impact on my appearance is negligible. 36c breast size. sports bras only conceal so much. my day job is in the middle of a homeless encampment. i am a Lot Lizard. i push shopping carts and load merchandise. numerous times, someone almost ran over my worthless corpse with a car. another Lot Lizard, Tattletale Tom, allegedly got hit by a car. someone that appeared to have been on a travel bus (that picks up customers in the parking lot), appeared to have gotten hit by a car. last year, in real time, i saw a car hit-and-run a bicyclist. in the past year, i have gotten bitten by three separate dogs. in my whole "life", bitten by five dogs total. wildly disproportionate.

plenty of suspicious looking characters lurking around.

plenty of day laborers (sometimes about 30) lurking in the parking lot at work. sometimes i am afraid they might rape me. the parking lot has a sign "no loitering, no soliciting, no trespassing". the building has cops on standby at all times, security, and loss prevention. once in a while, a security guard tells all the day laborers to leave the parking lot. then they just stand right on the border for a couple minutes, then come back in. some of the day laborers look sketchy and unusual.

every time i try to push shopping carts, i have to go past them.

according to the signs in the parking lot, they are not even supposed to be in the parking lot.

in my "life", i have been called "Chino" or "Chinito" eight times. seven of them were at work. six of them were day laborers. all eight times were in the past two years. however, i have been chinese for 39 years. and i have been living in my current address, for 29 of those years. and i have interacted with numerous spanish speakers.

plenty of precious lil "people" much faster, stronger, smarter/skilled, heavier than me.

there are plenty of them and just one of me.

i just feel so fragile/vulnerable. esp at work.

the security guard told me "be aware of your surroundings", which is correct, but you could only be aware of so many things at one time. the parking lot is often loud. customers rude. and et cetera. tripping over potholes.

FWIW, My AS grandpa passed 90, his AS son lasted at least 70 on skid row, and my AS mother went out with Cancer at 88 while still durable otherwise. The other side of my family died early. I have healthy habits and have always looked young for my years, even with the stress.
My contemporaries and I don't expect conditions on earth to stop deteriorating within any reasonable lifetime, so we often close out topics of discussion with "It's good to be old." We have seen the world population triple, people go to space, and the computer age, while writing our times in the fossil record as the dawn of the anthropocene. That seems like plenty.

In that case it's not exactly life expectancy for the ASD community, it's just for those with or without ASD and the health conditions you listed.

Take the money you spend on not-so-healthy food, and spend it on healthy food. If where you live, healthy food costs more per serving, then this means you won't be able to buy as much food. But if you want to lose the 100 lbs, that would be the whole point: Eat less --- and eating mostly healthy food in less quantity than cheap junk food would result in weight loss.

Bulk whole grains, per serving, cost less than fast food. Replace soda with water. Snack on popcorn, not candy. It may be difficult psychologically to shell out $4/pound for peaches, but, when you think about it, it usually costs more to eat two servings of junk food than one serving of healthy food.

Exercise should be done 12 months/year, even if you can't go outdoors due to cold. I don't know how much gyms cost in Canada, but a gym isn't necessary. You can buy cheap exercise implements online. A home gym can actually fit inside a single crate.

Getting shot or run over by a bus has nothing to do with the statistic that autistics have shorter lifespans. Autistics are not more likely to get shot or hit by a bus, last I checked. I didn't say anything about guarantees. It's all about variables and risks. Yes, I can get hit by a truck and croak from the injuries, and so can a really out of shape person, so can an Olympic athlete, so can a squirrel. It's a constant, not a variable, and should be excluded from the equation.

The variables are lifestyle CHOICES. Nobody chooses to get gunned down or run over by a bus or die in a plane crash. But people CHOOSE to smoke, drink, load up on high sodium junk food, guzzle sugary sodas every day and avoid aerobic exercise and strength exercise. You don't need an expensive gym to do weight-bearing and cardio exercise. I hate when people use the excuse that they can't afford a gym. What gyms are they looking at? There's a chain out here that has a $10/month membership. But even if you can't find a cheap gym, you can still work out at home.

As for getting hit by a bus, if I'm very strong and fit, I'm more likely to survive the collision than if I were soft, flabby and had weak bones. But then again.....a freak accident is a constant in the equation since unhealthy people, too, can get run over by a bus. This constant doesn't belong in the equation.

Where did you check?

I think autistic people could be more likely to die by being shot at or hit by buses.

There could be socioeconomic factors at work. Also, autistic people are more likely to be the target of severe bullying because they are different AND often fail to read the cues that they are in danger in some way.

They could be more likely to get hit by buses due to ADHD symptoms and fixating on special interests rather than traffic.

I’d need to see some clear studies to decide one way or the other, but I could easily see how autistic individuals may be at an increased risk for violence and accidents.

When I was younger, I'd ride my bike year 'round. Now I put it on a stand driving a generator in the winter, but I could get plenty of exercise just from vigorous dancing. When it snows, I shovel extra sidewalk. If I could arrange, I'd go help unload trucks. My mother used the same jumping around exercise program for fifty years, combined with swimming when available. Tai Chi combines exercise with balance and stretching. There are whole books on stretching, but what is important is to notice what feels tight, and to stretch it the right amount to loosen up.

"I don't know, but I've been told - if you keep on dancing, you'll never get old."
- Steve Miller in "Dance, Dance, Dance"

Ok, been needed a reason to ditch this. Thanks for the non-responses and being ignored.

Last edited by Kasab740 on 26 Jul 2022, 10:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.

There's no data on pedestrian-car collisions for autistics vs NTs. But...newly licensed autistic young autistic drivers are less likely than same-age NTs to crash the car. Here's the study.
https://www.chop.edu/news/newly-license ... ng-drivers

Autistic children are more likely to drown or choke than NT children.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-heal ... SKBN1792BQ

And yes, the rate of school bullying is high.

There is no data supporting the idea that autistics are more likely to get gunned down. One might argue that a student-shooter might deliberately shoot the "weird kid" (who's autistic), but this has not happened often enough to contribute to the low life expectancy of autists. If anything, student-shooters ARE the outcast kids, like the Columbine killers (but this doesn't mean they were autistic).

Look, it's all about swinging the odds in your favor for a long life. Maintaining low blood pressure and low triglycerides and LDL cholesterol go a LONG way at lowering cardiovascular risk. So does avoiding smoking. And eating a low-sodium diet. These really swing the odds in favor of a longer life. So though the healthy, fit, nonsmoking, nondrinking autist may get run over by a van on his morning jog, that's beside the point. This is about health and fitness, not accidents or murder.

There are articles that propose reasons why autists have a shortened lifespan. Autism, itself, is not a risk factor for stroke, heart attack, diabetes, etc.

The healthier you look, the less likely you are to get mugged. Of course, looking confident and purposeful help too, and that does not come from diet and exercise as surely.

Well it seems that I'm not at risk of dying young then because I'm very jumpy so my reactions to potential danger are extremely quick. I'm all eyes and ears when I'm out and about, and even when I'm on my phone I can look where I'm going at the same time and follow the conversation.

If an autistic person is likely to get hit by a vehicle then surely they shouldn't be out near busy roads without a carer.

I'm curious to know if there are any studies assessing a correlation between healthcare discrimination and premature death among people with ASD, where the cause of death is related to other medical conditions that were poorly treated or monitored in the first place.

Lots of people with ASD live with comorbid health conditions, some of those conditions being directly related to autism itself. Healthcare discrimination against autistic patients, along with disability discrimination for physical health concerns in general, is a serious problem in the United States.
Regarding healthcare discrimination in autism, there seems to be this stereotype in healthcare functions that autistic patients cannot understand their bodies, and do not know what's best for themselves. I've often heard of this in the form of telling patients they are fixating too much over a physical health variable, or pigeon-holing autism as the direct cause of someone's suffering, before properly ruling out other underlying medical conditions.
Outright stigmatization, physical barriers, or triggers for distress (forms of sensory overload) could also dissuade autistic patients from going to see providers in the first place.

As an individual with significant comorbid health conditions, I've had to deal with denial of care, medical gaslighting, and other forms of healthcare discrimination that have delayed my ability to access needed treatment or diagnostics. Providers have demonized me for being autistic, refused to accommodate me due to mobility impairments, and have relied on stigmatizing misdiagnoses that mischaracterize autism AND the underlying medical complaints. My medical issues, and their causative factors, could have lead to premature death had I not done my own research and gotten myself out of lethal situations on my own. My healthcare network, at no point, helped me through this process or even acknowledged I was ill.

Around here, my AS contributes quite a lot to the troubles I've had over accessing health care, but the health care is done for the sake of the employed, not the patient, who is kept in play as long as possible. The result is that there is only a tiny chance of being helped, and a near certainty of being made miserable. If I had a meltdown, care would turn hostile for sure.

Doctors have been known to downplay a patient's complaints because they're "too young" to have a certain disease, or, a doctor is quick to blame obesity on the symptoms instead of doing a thorough workup.

Women have also said that their symptoms were dismissed because "it's a MAN'S disease." This is most prevalent with chest pain and concerns of a looming heart attack, and being told, "You're a woman in your 40s. You have nothing to worry about." Yet about 9,000 U.S. women in their 40's every year have a heart attack.

Doctors don't always know a patient is autistic and thus, wouldn't think, "He's autistic; he doesn't know his body."

In other cases, they know of the ASD diagnosis or other diagnosis such as schizophrenia or bipolar.

The health network I belong to takes VERY SERIOUSLY all complaints and can even be "medically defensive," ordering a slew of tests which seem unnecessary. If you just whisper, "I'm having chest pain lately," they'll want you in RIGHT AWAY for a workup, even if you're a thin woman.

There is no disease process that is directly caused by autism. An autistic person may be at higher risk for stroke, for example, because an autistic person is more likely to have uncontrolled blood pressure or be obese and underactive (three strong risk factors for stroke AND heart disease).

But the autistic wiring of the brain itself is not linked to an increased risk, let alone direct cause, of any of the top 10 medical killers (top five are heart disease, cancer, stroke, medical mistakes and COVID-19). Other top 10s include liver disease, kidney disease and pneumonia.

Another thing I and my female friends have been told is: 'it's all just part of being a woman.' Not everything is though! Or symptoms are dismissed as related to menstruation and menopause, but they aren't necessarily.

There is a complaint department here, too, but all it can do is to irritate the incompetent. They are a solid majority, and can't be replaced, so I didn't dare complain, in case I might be taken in while incapacitated. I once pointed out that the head nurse had made a mistake, and she seems to consider that a capital offence. Many solid citizens did complain about the hospital food, which would cause a riot if served in prison, and it took almost two years for any improvement to appear.

There are not enough incentives for medical people to produce health. If you follow the money, it is easy to see that for the system, the ideal patient outcome is an immortal, compliant vegetable reliant on expensive drugs, tests, and treatments. We are fed by companies that pay no attention to health, and medicated by companies that pay no attention to nutrition. Prevention is ignored.