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An investigation of the diet, exercise, sleep, BMI, and health outcomes of autistic adults
BACKGROUND: Studies of autistic children suggest that restricted eating, reduced physical activity, and sleep disorders are common; however, no studies attempt to broadly describe the diet, exercise, and sleep patterns of autistic adults or consider relationships between lifestyle behaviors and the...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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BioMed Central
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8106173/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33964967 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13229-021-00441-x |
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author | Weir, Elizabeth Allison, Carrie Ong, Ken K. Baron-Cohen, Simon |
author_facet | Weir, Elizabeth Allison, Carrie Ong, Ken K. Baron-Cohen, Simon |
author_sort | Weir, Elizabeth |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Studies of autistic children suggest that restricted eating, reduced physical activity, and sleep disorders are common; however, no studies attempt to broadly describe the diet, exercise, and sleep patterns of autistic adults or consider relationships between lifestyle behaviors and the widely reported increased risks of obesity and chronic conditions. To address this, the authors developed the largest study of lifestyle patterns of autistic adults and assessed their relationships to body mass index, health outcomes, and family history. METHODS: We administered an anonymized, online survey to n = 2386 adults (n = 1183 autistic) aged 16–90 years of age. We employed Fisher’s exact tests and binomial logistic regression to describe diet, exercise, and sleep patterns; mediation of seizure disorders on sleep; body mass index (BMI); relationships of lifestyle factors to BMI, cardiovascular conditions, and diabetic conditions; and sex differences among autistic adults. RESULTS: Autistic adults, and particularly autistic females, exhibit unhealthy diet, exercise, and sleep patterns; they are also more likely to be underweight or obese. Limited sleep duration and high rates of sleep disturbances cannot be accounted for by epilepsy or seizure disorders. Lifestyle factors are positively related to higher risk of cardiovascular conditions among autistic males, even more than family history. LIMITATIONS: Our sample may not be representative of all autistic and non-autistic people, as it primarily comprised individuals who are white, female, have a high school education or higher, and reside in the UK. Our sampling methods may also exclude some individuals on the autism spectrum, and particularly those with moderate to severe intellectual disability. This is a cross-sectional sample that can test for relationships between factors (e.g., lifestyle factors and health outcomes) but cannot assess the direction of these relationships. CONCLUSIONS: Autistic adults are less likely to meet minimal health recommendations for diet, exercise, and sleep—and these unhealthy behaviors may relate to excess risk of cardiovascular conditions. Although the present study can only provide preliminary, correlational evidence, our findings suggest that diet, exercise, and sleep should be considered and further investigated as key targets for reducing the now widely reported and dramatically increased risks of health comorbidity and premature death among autistic individuals compared to others. Physicians should work cooperatively with patients to provide health education and develop individualized strategies for how to better manage challenges with diet, exercise, and sleep. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13229-021-00441-x. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8106173 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-81061732021-05-10 An investigation of the diet, exercise, sleep, BMI, and health outcomes of autistic adults Weir, Elizabeth Allison, Carrie Ong, Ken K. Baron-Cohen, Simon Mol Autism Research BACKGROUND: Studies of autistic children suggest that restricted eating, reduced physical activity, and sleep disorders are common; however, no studies attempt to broadly describe the diet, exercise, and sleep patterns of autistic adults or consider relationships between lifestyle behaviors and the widely reported increased risks of obesity and chronic conditions. To address this, the authors developed the largest study of lifestyle patterns of autistic adults and assessed their relationships to body mass index, health outcomes, and family history. METHODS: We administered an anonymized, online survey to n = 2386 adults (n = 1183 autistic) aged 16–90 years of age. We employed Fisher’s exact tests and binomial logistic regression to describe diet, exercise, and sleep patterns; mediation of seizure disorders on sleep; body mass index (BMI); relationships of lifestyle factors to BMI, cardiovascular conditions, and diabetic conditions; and sex differences among autistic adults. RESULTS: Autistic adults, and particularly autistic females, exhibit unhealthy diet, exercise, and sleep patterns; they are also more likely to be underweight or obese. Limited sleep duration and high rates of sleep disturbances cannot be accounted for by epilepsy or seizure disorders. Lifestyle factors are positively related to higher risk of cardiovascular conditions among autistic males, even more than family history. LIMITATIONS: Our sample may not be representative of all autistic and non-autistic people, as it primarily comprised individuals who are white, female, have a high school education or higher, and reside in the UK. Our sampling methods may also exclude some individuals on the autism spectrum, and particularly those with moderate to severe intellectual disability. This is a cross-sectional sample that can test for relationships between factors (e.g., lifestyle factors and health outcomes) but cannot assess the direction of these relationships. CONCLUSIONS: Autistic adults are less likely to meet minimal health recommendations for diet, exercise, and sleep—and these unhealthy behaviors may relate to excess risk of cardiovascular conditions. Although the present study can only provide preliminary, correlational evidence, our findings suggest that diet, exercise, and sleep should be considered and further investigated as key targets for reducing the now widely reported and dramatically increased risks of health comorbidity and premature death among autistic individuals compared to others. Physicians should work cooperatively with patients to provide health education and develop individualized strategies for how to better manage challenges with diet, exercise, and sleep. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13229-021-00441-x. BioMed Central 2021-05-08 /pmc/articles/PMC8106173/ /pubmed/33964967 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13229-021-00441-x Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data. |
spellingShingle | Research Weir, Elizabeth Allison, Carrie Ong, Ken K. Baron-Cohen, Simon An investigation of the diet, exercise, sleep, BMI, and health outcomes of autistic adults |
title | An investigation of the diet, exercise, sleep, BMI, and health outcomes of autistic adults |
title_full | An investigation of the diet, exercise, sleep, BMI, and health outcomes of autistic adults |
title_fullStr | An investigation of the diet, exercise, sleep, BMI, and health outcomes of autistic adults |
title_full_unstemmed | An investigation of the diet, exercise, sleep, BMI, and health outcomes of autistic adults |
title_short | An investigation of the diet, exercise, sleep, BMI, and health outcomes of autistic adults |
title_sort | investigation of the diet, exercise, sleep, bmi, and health outcomes of autistic adults |
topic | Research |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8106173/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33964967 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13229-021-00441-x |
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