Pooled review links ADHD medication to lower all-cause mortality
HealthUnverifiedUpdated:
A review covering more than 15.9 million people reportedly links prescribed ADHD medication with lower all-cause mortality. The pooled evidence is large, but it cannot establish that medication caused the difference.
Reviewing nineteen studies and pooling mortality data from twelve
ScienceAlert described a review of 19 studies published from 2012 to 2025, spanning populations in the US, Canada, Sweden, Taiwan, the UK, Finland, and Denmark. Twelve studies were pooled for mortality estimates. The article reports that people with ADHD had higher all-cause, suicide, injury, and natural-cause mortality associations than people without ADHD, and that prescribed ADHD medication was associated with lower all-cause mortality in ADHD populations.
An earlier review did not find evidence of higher mortality from natural causes among people with ADHD. The supplied report does not provide a before-to-now comparison for the medication association.
The reported meta-analysis adds an association between ADHD medication and lower all-cause mortality within ADHD populations, while also finding elevated mortality associations for ADHD across several causes of death.
The pooled evidence brings together a very large participant base and separates several mortality categories. But the review found substantial variation across studies, and its associations should not be read as proof that ADHD or medication caused the outcomes.
Sources
- ScienceAlertADHD Drugs May Reduce The Risk of Early Death, Major Study FindsRead source →