The increasingly common condition that puts you at risk of dementia

People with autism are at much greater risk of developing dementia, according to a major new study.

Researchers from Drexel University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, linked the fast-growing condition to a four- to eight-fold higher risk of the memory-robbing disorder compared to the general population.

The authors reviewed two studies: A 2019 study on ASD and dementia among autistic adults enrolled in Medicare and a 2021 study on the incidence of early-onset dementia in adults with ASD enrolled in Medicaid.

They analyzed data from 114,600 people aged 30 or older from 2008 to 2017 diagnosed with ASD and ASD plus another intellectual disability (ID).

About one in 36 American children and one in 45 adults have autism, according to the CDC — although that number is growing rapidly — and previous research has identified a “known link between intellectual disabilities (ID) and dementia.”

Overall, the review found that dementia diagnoses were present in eight percent of people previously diagnosed with ASD and in almost nine percent of people with ASD plus another ID.

By 2022, four percent of all adults aged 65 and over had ever been diagnosed with dementia – with Alzheimer’s disease disease the most common form of dementia, diagnosed in nearly 7 million Americans.

The 2025 judgement also found that the likelihood of a dementia diagnosis increased with age.

Among people aged 65 and older, 35 percent of people in the ASD-only group and 31 percent of people in the ASD plus another ID group had dementia.

The researchers acknowledged that a limitation of their study was that the data covered a wide time frame and said there was a need for more research.

Additionally, they wrote, “Our data highlight the importance of health policy efforts for the growing ASD population at risk for or affected by dementia.

‘Future research should focus on factors that may contribute to the co-occurrence of neurological and neurodegenerative disorders, including barriers to accessing educational and social opportunities, as well as biological mechanisms of shared pathophysiology.’

Independently, the 2019 study found that women with autism were 8.5 times more likely to have some form of cognitive condition, including dementia, compared to women without ASD.

Men with the condition were also 8.2 percent more likely to have a cognitive disorder, which also included delirium, memory loss and ‘other’ cognitive conditions.

However, these researchers acknowledged that other studies have found that older autistic adults are equally or less likely to experience age-related cognitive changes, saying discrepancies exist because of the methodology used and the group of people studied, which vary in age, an important contributes. to cognitive disorders.

In the 2021 study, researchers found that the prevalence of dementia among adults with ASD was just four percent and five percent among people with both ASD and other ID, compared to one percent of people without ASD or ID.

Researchers aren’t sure why there is a link between the two conditions, but the 2021 study suggests there may be a ‘potential overlap’ in the factors that cause both dementia and ASD, including shared genetic mutations.

And anti-dementia medications have been observed to work in reducing cognitive and communication functioning in adults with ASD, which could indicate a shared cause.

In addition, a separate 2021 study found that a number of genes and proteins have been linked to both ASD and Alzheimer’s disease, and that the two conditions share several symptoms, including insomnia, poor neuromuscular function and dementia.

Data shows that autism diagnoses in America have increased dramatically over the past decade, and dementia diagnoses are expected to do the same. While 7 million Americans currently have Alzheimer’s disease, that number is expected to double by 2030.

In general, most people with ASD are diagnosed by age five, although some can be tested as early as age two and dementia is most common in seniors.

A recent analysis of millions of medical records across all age groups shows that the rate of autism diagnoses rose 175 percent between 2011 and 2022, from 2.3 to 6.3 per 1,000 people.

The biggest increase was among young adults aged 26 to 34, with a 450 per cent increase, although children aged five to eight are still the most likely group to be diagnosed – at a rate of 30 per 1,000.

Although experts don’t know what causes the condition, recent research suggests that environmental factors such as pollution, illnesses during pregnancy and older parental age may be to blame.

Better screening, greater awareness and broader diagnostic criteria could also be behind the autism wave.

There is no cure for either condition, but there are medications, procedures, and therapies available to control symptoms.