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March 2023
Autism linked with increased risk of developing cardiometabolic disorders
By Melanie Hinze
Autism may be associated with a higher risk of developing diabetes, dyslipidaemia and heart disease, according to research published in JAMA Pediatrics.
The study authors conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of 34 studies over one year from 2021 to 2022 to examine the association between autism and cardiometabolic disorders. The studies included 276,173 individuals with autism and 7,733,306 individuals without (47% female; mean age 31.2 years, range 3.7 to 72.8 years).
An autism diagnosis was found to be associated with a 146.7% increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes, a 64.1% increased risk of developing type 1 diabetes and a 57.3% increased risk of developing diabetes overall compared with controls without autism. It was also associated with a 69.4% increased risk of developing dyslipidaemia and a 45.9% increased risk of atherosclerotic heart disease.
The risks were even higher among children with autism, who had a 184.2% increased risk of developing diabetes and a 153.7% increased risk of developing hypertension compared with those without autism. This was despite the overall risk of hypertension not being significantly increased among people of all ages who had autism.
The authors also found that the risk of developing diabetes and hypertension was significantly higher among children with autism when compared with adults.
People with autism also had significantly low HDL-cholesterol and high triglyceride levels compared with people without autism.
Professor Andrew Whitehouse, Angela Wright Bennett Chair of Autism Research at Telethon Kids Institute and The University of Western Australia, Perth, said that this was an important study that validated clinical observations made over many years.
‘We now need to know what may be driving the association between autism and cardiometabolic disease,’ he said.
‘If this relates to the high rates of obesity we see in autistic children, then that has important clinical implications for ongoing management.’
The authors recommended that clinicians vigilantly monitored individuals with autism for early signs of cardiometabolic diseases and their complications.