Having Your Tonsils Out as a Child May Have a Drastic Impact on Your Life

HEALTH

21 December 2024

By DAVID NIELD

In the US alone, around 300,000 children each year have their tonsils surgically removed to improve breathing while sleeping or reduce recurrent infection.

A study by an international team of researchers now suggests this relatively common procedure could increase a patient's risk of developing an anxiety-related disorder later in life.

Scientists Guangxi Medical University in China and the Karolinska Institute in Sweden analyzed data on over a million people held in a Swedish health registry, finding that a tonsillectomy was linked to a 43 percent increased risk of developing conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, or anxiety.

Disorder incidence was tracked over time. (Xiao et al., JAMA Network Open, 2024)

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