Heavy metals may cause autism

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

A new French study indicates that heavy metal exposure may cause autism in children, prompting researchers to wonder if autism could be treated by flushing heavy metals out of the body.

 

The study examined urine samples from hundreds of French children and discovered that the levels of some byproducts of heavy metal exposure were up to 2.6 times more concentrated in children with autism. It is unknown whether this is a symptom or a cause of autism, as researchers are continuing to investigate.

 

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg19025535.400&feedId=online-news_rss20

[swansont]

A new French study indicates that heavy metal exposure may cause autism in children' date=' prompting researchers to wonder if autism could be treated by flushing heavy metals out of the body.

 

The study examined urine samples from hundreds of French children and discovered that the levels of some byproducts of heavy metal exposure were up to 2.6 times more concentrated in children with autism. It is unknown whether this is a symptom or a cause of autism, as researchers are continuing to investigate.

 

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg19025535.400&feedId=online-news_rss20[/quote']

 

It would be nice if the quoted researcher had not been quite so forceful in his conclusion ("It's highly likely that heavy metals are responsible for childhood autistic disorder in a majority of cases"). Based on this short summary, he's shown correlation, not causation.

[bascule]

This month's Time Magazine talked a lot more about the supposed genetic causes. I'm much more likely to believe that... the cause, they allege, is that small groups of brain structures are able to communicate highly effectively, but overall communication between the groups remains stunted. I think this is a difficult balance that natural selection has been trying to tune for sometime.

 

Then there's all the parents convinced that mercury in vaccines is responsible, even though cessation of the mercury additives does not lower incidence of autism, and studies conducted by both the WHO and FDA failed to find any evidence of a vaccine/autism link.

 

I most certainly lean towards a genetic cause.

[Heretic]

It would be nice if the quoted researcher had not been quite so forceful in his conclusion ("It's highly likely that heavy metals are responsible for childhood autistic disorder in a majority of cases"). Based on this short summary, he's shown correlation, not causation.

 

After reading over the article I realise they aren't even wholly sure if heavy metals are causing the results they're seeing. It's been shown heavy metals effect the levels of porphyrins in urine. Heavy metals themselves were not found in high concentration. Hence high levels of porphyrins themselves may be a result of Autism not heavy metal exposure.

 

I'm going to look into what else might cause porphyrins in urine.

[swansont]

I will admit I have not read extensively on the topic, but I am not aware of any data of how much, if any, of the increase in Autism diagnoses is due to the medical community doing a better job of diagnosing it. I was under the impression that one of the complaints in the past was that Autism was, at times, misdiagnosed as being some other malady.

[Heretic]

Just an update, they've found the mercury in vaccines (Thimerosal I believe) has no impact on autism at all... How they found this out so quickly I'm still a bit puzzled about...