Do autistic people age faster?

Post Reply New Topic

Think about it, to stay looking young and to keep your youthful skin longer, it takes a healthy diet and exercise and there is skin care products and sun screen. The ability to do all this takes no problems with executive functioning and planning and remembering to do it. Plus stress makes you age faster too and imagine how much stress we have in our lives dealing with our issues and with people and the fact we tend to have less stamina so doing lot of tasks may overwhelm us but we have to do them so that adds to the stress.

The faceapp thinks I am going to be looking like an ugly old woman with so much wrinkles more than my mother but I hope that won't be me in the future because it gets my looks wrong as a child and teen. I just take this as a wake up call to start getting into my skincare routine and stop spreading my lips to smile and watch my forehead and start wearing sun screen everyday to save my skin so I won't get crepey skin and age spots and wrinkles. I am also thinking about a botox since it's not that expensive. I am also going to start wearing hats and buy a pair of sun glasses so I won't squint in the sun when I have to be out in it. Now I know why my mom was always wearing hats and sun glasses, it was not due to being sensitive to the sun but more like she was saving her skin from fine lines so her skin stays straight. At age 67, she has no wrinkles and people think she is in her early 50s. she also lacks smile lines too and laughing lines and has very little fore lines but you have to get close to her face to see them.

I am working on a routine so I won't have issues doing skin care. I don't want to look like an older woman by the age of 40 or even by the age of 37.

I also quit my energy drinks for good and back to drinking only water again. That should help my skin since lack of water ages your skin faster making you look older.

No.

It's possible that they might age slower, actually....

I'm 60; most people don't think I'm over 50.

Mentally and emotionally, I feel like I get younger with time. I have a joie de vivre and youthful personality which never seemed to age with my birthdays. Physically I look about 15 years younger than I am. Part of it is how I carry myself in a cheerful way, but I also think it's possibly part of autism. I've heard a lot of autistic people say that they look younger than they really are.

So autistic people are often said to look 10-20 years younger but we age quicker?

Looks like this is just one of those "I will ask before I think" questions, or one of those "this happens to me so it must be an autism thing" questions.

I wouldn’t say we age faster rather die younger.

Poor self care, stress, diet and co- morbid like epilepsy, cause us to die a lot sooner on average.

Even for hf autistics life expectancy is around mid fifties, roughly the same as the poorest districts of Glasgow or Russia that have poor diet, drugs and alcoholism.

Drinking water is OK. Drinking to much isn't good. The body needs to keep a level of salt in it's fluids. Drinking to much causes the body to get rid of the water by peeing more and with that to lose a lot of minerals and for this fluids and the skin gets more wrinkles. Drinking to much but preventing eating salt can even kill people.
You need sun light on your skin for generating vitamin D. But you don't have to stay for hours in the sun for that. Women who did prevent sun light to much have been found to develop more likely breast cancer. May be because their immune system was less trained for fighting damaged cells. But limiting sunlight and especially preventing sunburn is OK. Skipping stress and relaxing more often is a very good decision because to much stress may cause people to age a lot faster. Best is to keep anything that you do or eat and drink within a healthy amount.
For answering the question - that depends on each ones genes and life style.

Similar story with me. I'm 61 and most people are surprised when I tell them - they say I look more like late 40's.

I dont have a portrait of myself in the loft so it must be down to something else I guess.

I get pegged for being in my mid 20s more often than in my 30s.

Considering how poorly I take care of myself I'd probably look like a teenager if I actually tried to stay younger looking.

And yet all these articles I am reading by dermatologists are saying sun exposure creates wrinkles and lines on your skin and age spots, etc. and it's been freaking me out. My mom has tons of sun skin and I haven't started it yet. Now I hate my smile lines and laughing lines because the articles are saying those are wrinkles and now I am scared I am aging prematurely since teens are not supposed to have those and in your twenties.

I've seen people with "smile lines" who are in their 20s.....

That's nice to know.

I don't want to die in my 50s.

You're not going to die in your 50's if you take care of yourself. I haven't taken all that great care of myself. And I'm past my 50's.

I don't believe in the garbage that states that autistic people, in the absence of a comorbid genetic disorder that affects lifespan, have a reduced lifespan.

Perhaps mentally ? Stress and anxiety with depression is higher than the nt population.
So maybe things related to this. Just my thought though..

Ikr..

NT's go through depression and stress, too. And it sometimes leads to drastic measures. When you're lonely---whether or not you're autistic---you are more at risk for depression.

I'm not minimalizing suicide, or anything like that.

But to say that autistic people, inevitably, have a reduced lifespan is a wrong statement. And it distorts reality. And it makes people here have unfounded fear.

People with Down Syndrome have a reduced lifespan because of their physical problems.

Yes, I don't believe it all either. In the time I have been a member here there has always been threads saying about autistic people looking young for their age and youthful. And I don't believe stress shortens your lifespan, unless you're elderly, as stress or loneliness on an elderly person can cause more harm than stress in a younger person.
I can look after myself well anyway, I don't need to be reminded to eat or drink or whatever, and I don't smoke or drink alcohol. (I'm teetotal and an extreme anti-smoker).
Also with my anxiety disorder I know better than the average person to avoid danger.