People on the Autism Spectrum are dying earlier than the general population.  The charity Autistica says that the fact many of those deaths are due to suicide and epilepsy makes it a "enormous hidden crisis".

"The inequality in outcomes for autistic people shown in this data is shameful," said Autistica's chief executive Jon Spiers.

Sweden's Karolinska Institute compared the health records of 27,000 adults with autism to a control group of 2.7 million people.  Their findings, published in the British Journal of Psychiatry, suggested autistic people die on average 16 years early.  And people with autism plus an associated learning disability died more than 30 years early - with the average age of death being at age 39.

Scientists cannot explain the link between autism and epilepsy.  So, Austistica wants to raise almost AU$20 Million over the next five years to enable more research.