Epidemiology

Another analysis of the Swedish population registry reveals significantly more substance abuse and consequences—including substance-related death—in people with TS \citep{33229038}. This result was not explained by other psychiatric illness nor by familial effects (assessed by comparison with their siblings without TS). This result adds substance-related death to suicide and accidental deaths previously found by this same group to be elevated in TS, and suggests clinicians should assess substance use in patients and arrange appropriate treatment.
Still from the same group, they show that serious transport accidents occur more frequently in people with TS/CTD but that this is largely explained by comorbid ADHD \cite{Mataix-Cols2021}.
Fernández de la Cruz and Mataix-Cols review the emerging data on higher rates of general medical illness and mortality in TS based on their comprehensive work using the afore-mentioned Swedish population registry  \citep*{33188819}.
The question whether the prevalence of TS might vary across the globe remains open. Previous studies suggested that TS might be rarer in Sub-Saharian Africa (also Japan) than in North America and Europe, where most epidemiological studies have been conducted so far. Rodin et al. challenge this assumption, rather proposing that adequate training and increased public awareness might result in higher recognition of TS in Uganda and elsewhere. This seems to be a sensible proposition, given that TS was considered ultra-rare just a few decades ago in North America and Europa \citep{Rodin2021}.