Autism and Cancer
Background
Some studies suggest that autistic people may be more likely to die from cancer than non-autistic people (Hirvikoski et al., 2016). But research on whether autistic people actually develop cancer more (or less) often is limited and not consistent: some studies find little or no difference, while others suggest there may be a link (Liu et al., 2023). Differences in study methods make it hard to draw firm conclusions.
One possible reason is that some lifestyle factors linked with autism could affect cancer risk. For example, limited dietary variety is linked to colorectal cancer in the general population, and food selectivity in autism could potentially increase that risk. Hormonal differences that occur in some autistic people could also influence the risk of certain cancer types, either increasing or decreasing risk depending on the cancer.
Another possibility is that autistic people are not more likely to get cancer, but are more likely to be diagnosed later because of barriers to accessing healthcare (Weir et al., 2023). If so, higher cancer mortality could be driven by later detection rather than higher cancer rates.
A further challenge is that much of autism and health research focuses on younger adults. Many autistic people aged 50+ were historically underdiagnosed (O’Nions et al., 2023), which makes it harder to study cancer in older autistic groups. Cancer risk increases with age, so understanding cancer in older autistic populations is especially important.
Why We Are Doing This Research
This study will test whether autistic traits are linked to having cancer (and to factors that can increase or decrease cancer risk). Because many older autistic adults may not have a formal diagnosis, we will look at autistic traits in a large sample of older adults. We will examine whether people with higher autistic traits are at higher or lower risk of cancer overall, and we will also look at specific cancer types (e.g., breast, ovarian, prostate, lung, colorectal) and some tumour subtypes (e.g., epithelial).
Method
We will use data from UK Biobank. Around 139,000 people aged 50+ in this dataset completed the Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ), a questionnaire that measures traits commonly associated with autism (Baron-Cohen et al., 2001). Using this information, we will test whether higher autistic traits are linked to cancer diagnoses in older adults.
Potential Impact
If we find a link between autism (or autistic traits) and cancer, it will help make sense of the mixed results in the existing research. It could also support further work on cancer prevention, and on improving screening and early detection for autistic people.
Results
We expect results towards the end of 2026, with the work continuing into 2027. We will share a summary of the main findings on this page when they are available.
Staff:
- Professor Sir Simon Baron-Cohen
- Professor Carrie Allison
- Dr Jason Carroll
- Dr Matt Fysh
- Dr Alex Tsompanidis
- Dr Malini Dey
- Dr Xiaomeng Zhang
- Dr Joe Dennis