Could Autism Be Caused by Lack of Vitamin D?

Could Autism Be Caused by Lack of Vitamin D?

health.usnews.com

Could autism be caused by low levels of vitamin D? That’s a new idea that’s just starting to emerge, sparked by the large number of autism cases among children of Somali immigrants living in Sweden and Minnesota.

The mothers and young children are exposed to much less sunshine in their new homes than they were back in Somalia.

(visit the link for the full news article)

This is the first that I've heard of Autism amongst immigrant populations.

For years, people have been discussing the reasons for autism. We've had increased in autism.

Could there be a relationship between the use of sun screen and autism. I know that we were very protective of our children when they were young so that they wouldn't get sun burned.

Could we be harming our children by not allowing them enough contact with sunlight?



health.usnews.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

I think having low vitamin-d levels is related to autism, but not the direct cause. Vitamin-d status is related to the immune system. I think what this shows is that autistics are under a heavy bombardment of pathogens that drain certain immune system's limiting factors.

I've heard that autism had to do with the body's inability to detoxify heavy metals. Specifically, I think it's a malfunction of metallothionein production. It's genetic, but has an environmental expression. Under normal cirumstances...let's say preindustrial environmental exposure levels, and NO vaccinations containing mercury, aluminum, etc..most people with autie genes would lead fairly normal lives.

I'm not certain about this, but it's what I believe.

This may be, however do look at this time line in relation to food plus chemicals.
In 1998 there were 75,500 synthetic chemicals registered as appearing in consumer products, agriculture and industry.
You have to wonder just exactly is in baby food. For one thing GM soy is in that baby formula that most babies get these days.

hundred year lie

I am tempted to associate the increase in diagnosis of Autism to more than one factor.

First off, it is an 'easy out' for the medical community, much like ADD and ADHD. I'm not saying the illness is not real, just that it is used as a cover to avoid the unprofitable practice of narrowing down what may be a more 'treatable' condition.

I know that sounds harsh, but that, I believe it is a commercial reality.

Second, we are continually exposing ourselves to 'technology' which was NOT part of the evolutionary paradigm. Therefore our general physical state is lagging in adapting to what it can only interpret as an increasingly toxic environment. I think the human body is most sensitive to the environment during gestation. In civilized places we bombard ourselves with petrochemicals and engineered substances, vainly confident that they are harmless, because we are told so. And we pay for the privilege.

Sorry.... I didn't mean to rant.

Originally posted by OhZone
This may be, however do look at this time line in relation to food plus chemicals.
In 1998 there were 75,500 synthetic chemicals registered as appearing in consumer products, agriculture and industry.
You have to wonder just exactly is in baby food. For one thing GM soy is in that baby formula that most babies get these days.

hundred year lie

If you look at autism rates you will find that they have increased approximately 2000% since mercury was introduced to inoculations. In social environments where children do not receive inoculations such as the Amish and Quakers Autism is all but non-existent. Take the time to look up the statistics from 1973 to 2007 and you will see an amazing rise in autism rates.

The gene that triggers autism may be genetic, but as one of the posters stated, I personally believe it to be directly related to mercury.

reply to post by DarrylGalasso


There's no way to ignore the facts. The correlation is evident. The question is, if it is so evident, why do we tolerate it in our government policies?

Or is it that commerce is more important? If so, to whom?

Originally posted by Maxmars
I am tempted to associate the increase in diagnosis of Autism to more than one factor.

First off, it is an 'easy out' for the medical community, much like ADD and ADHD. I'm not saying the illness is not real, just that it is used as a cover to avoid the unprofitable practice of narrowing down what may be a more 'treatable' condition.

I know that sounds harsh, but that, I believe it is a commercial reality.

Second, we are continually exposing ourselves to 'technology' which was NOT part of the evolutionary paradigm. Therefore our general physical state is lagging in adapting to what it can only interpret as an increasingly toxic environment. I think the human body is most sensitive to the environment during gestation. In civilized places we bombard ourselves with petrochemicals and engineered substances, vainly confident that they are harmless, because we are told so. And we pay for the privilege.

Sorry.... I didn't mean to rant.

As a psychologist I take exception to that; however, I am not here to tell you what to think or believe. As far as ADD and ADHD, I can concur completely with that, but also those are perhaps the most misdiagnosed diseases in the history of mankind. There are way too many people that make the diagnosis such as Md's. I respect the education that a Md has; however, they are not qualified to make this diagnosis unless their Md. is in psychiatry.

The last part of your statement also carries much weight. I have a few Md. friends that I golf with occasionally and I have heard both of them say at times that they were told this or that by their drug rep. and they speak it as if it were gospel. I would like to think within their education they were taught as I was to research for themselves and not take an unqualified person's word for anything. Unfortunately as you said, too many people try to take the easy way out of everything.

One more thing that everyone needs to keep in mind. If you have attended a university, you will understand completely what I am about to say. Approximately one in 5 students do exceptionally well in college, most are more concerned with chasing women or the everlasting party, clubs, social circles, fraternities...etc. Very few put their best effort into learning while there. So what we are left with is one in five in basically every profession that has invested the appropriate amount of effort to be knowledgeable in their fields. For those that have attended a university; how many times did you ask yourself "Wow, how could this person possibly have made it through high school let alone their undergraduate courses?" Somewhere in close proximity to wherever you live there is a doctor that barely made it through med school, and he may be seeing your child tomorrow.

How many times have you heard a person speak to you about what their doctor told them as if they were told by God himself? Just some advice for everyone; you don't believe anything you are told by anyone without getting outside verification. If you can preform this yourself that is the ideal scenario, if not, you get 2 or 3 more opinions. The odds say if you talk to 5 people in a particular field that at least one will be sufficiently knowledgeable.

It is axiomatic to say that if you have had a long relationship with your physician that you should already have a good idea of his or her level of competence.

Just some food for thought.

Originally posted by Maxmars
The question is, if it is so evident, why do we tolerate it in our government policies?

That my friend is in fact the million dollar question. But to take it a step further, why do we tolerate a lot of things the government has done?

reply to post by DarrylGalasso


I sincerely apologize for the offense, none was intended. I should make it clear that I speak only in generalities. I know that the industrialization of your trade, or practice, is in no way representative of you or your talents and motivations.

However, I have become tired of disregarding the fact that your predecessors, colleagues, and teaching institutions are failing; and your profession is the only one that can police itself; but it doesn't.

Much the same can be said of the lawyers in our community (who, let's face it, ARE our government), as well as our chief academicians who unerringly seek out political relevance over nurturing a noble profession.

Perhaps it can be called a childish need to believe that the whole point of being a doctor (of anything) was to live a life that expresses the field in its finest light. But so few actually do anymore.

I think that is where all the problems began. When the art of healing, and the expression of it's practice, was replaced by commercial activity.

Oh but I digress.

The apology is sincerely offered, I speak ill of no person, only a deepening trend separating healers from patients.

I agree that I have met many MANY folks who despite their formal education, manage to remain classless buffoons (with the power of a degree), but not all are like that. There are too few exceptions though. Far too few.

Autism is 100% caused by mercury poisoning.

It really is that simple.

It's not the first time an industry has destroyed countless kids just to make a buck.

The other time it happened was with mercury based teething powders that mostly only affected the relatively affluent that could afford the fancy teething powders.

There were countless RED HERRINGS during the PINK DISEASE era, just like this story. The outbreaks didn't go away until those particular types of teething powders ceased to be used.

The rampant autism being experienced will also not go away until manufacturers stop using MERCURY compounds in some innoculations... simply to extend the shelf life of 100% useless medical treatments...

Vaccines don't do anything but make money for the medical/pharma industries.

This is the Age of Absurdism... Quite frankly MDs are at the head of the pack of Absurdists.

An immediate side effect of MERCURY POISONING is the rapid decline of the immune system via the substanstial damage done to the small intestine.

If you don't want your kids to have autism, don't let them get innoculated.

It's really that simple.

One other thing, the Absurdists split autistics into dozens of categories depending on the degree of damage to the central nervous system/with the matching dysfunction.

It's all highly subjective...

The mercury is highly toxic... ESPECIALLY TO RAPIDLY DEVELOPING/ADVANCED DEVELOPMENT CHILDREN.

Don't let your child get made into another bleeding hearts poster child... And if your family tends to be smart (mostly manifested by the onset of early speech)... DO NOT, DO NOT, DO NOT let your child get brain fried.

It is so barbaric, it makes the Nazis look like Girl Scouts.

[edit on 24-4-2009 by golemina]

reply to post by Maxmars


There is no offense taken my friend. I am quite dedicated to my work and money was not a motivating factor for me, if it were I would be a Md. myself as the pay difference between a PhD. and Md. is enormous (I am still working towards my PhD., its not necessary for my profession; however, it is my father's dream and although he is now gone, I will fulfill it. I finished graduate school nearly 12 years ago and didn't go back for the doctorate until my father died. This is my biggest regret in life, I wish I could have made him proud while he was still alive). I would completely agree with you as well. The majority does appear to be the boneheads; however, there are still people that love what they do in these fields and actually do it to help people instead of for the mighty dollar.

Personally I chose psychology because I do not believe in drugging people to help them; however, you could find a half a million Md's that would disagree with that.

I believe that the human body is just as anything else in the physical world. I will define this as cause and effect.

Have you ever wondered how the body heats itself consistently (not exactly as there is fluctuation throughout the day and foreign invasion can also affect this) to 98.6 degrees and it is consistent no matter your race, gender, or demographic location? The body has to follow the same rules of physical science as anything else. Heat is a byproduct of the production of energy and friction. If your body temperature increases you will notice that your blood vessels swell up, most people believe this to be to dissipate heat and although this will dissipate some heat due to the increased area, its main purpose is to reduce resistance to flow and reduce friction which creates much of the heat. By lowering the friction, the body is better able to naturally dissipate heat. This is an example of the cause and effect I am speaking of.

I firmly believe that if there is something that causes disease, there is also something that eliminates it as well. I know of no disease that can be cured by drugs. Drugs mask symptoms and relieve pain, they do not cure, if they did the pharmaceuticals would be out of business or at the very least not the dominant force they have become.

Is it logical to think that we have the technology to clone a human being and yet we cannot cure one single disease?

Also you make a great point in that our professions do need to be policed. Internal policing will never work as there will always be factors present that are destructive to the act of self policing. Outside policing by an unassociated body(s) would be more ideal. As I am sure you are well aware, we pretty much have allowed our government to be self policing and that hasn't worked out so well.

So long as we live in a world where money and social classifications exists, self policing will not be a viable option.

Government, children, business... just about anything, even the church respond to lack of supervision the same way. I will use a child as the example because it is easier to see the correlation.

If you leave a child in a room on the other side of the house unsupervised for 2 hours, would you be surprised to walk into the room and see it destroyed?

These professions as well as our government has been unsupervised for decades perhaps centuries, is it any surprise how things turned out?

This is some research from the University of California, San Diego.
Whilst not revealing the source of autism, environmental/genetic, it does zero-in on what is , or in this case, is not taking place within the mind of an autistic person.

Autism Linked To Mirror Neuron Dysfunction
ScienceDaily (Apr. 18, 2005)

The human mirror neuron system is now thought to be involved not only in the execution and observation of movement, but also in higher cognitive processes -- language, for instance, or being able to imitate and learn from others' actions, or decode their intentions and empathize with their pain.

Because autism is characterized, in part, by deficits in exactly these sorts of social interaction and communication skills, previous research has suggested that a dysfunctional mirror neuron system may explain the observed pathology.

The current findings, the researchers say, lend substantial support to the hypothesis.

The current study, the researchers say, adds to understanding the neural basis of autism and may point the way to early diagnosis and to potential therapies.

Until we understand more about the cause(s) of autism , at least it may be identified early and reduce challenges associated with the disorder, disruptive behaviour etc, and provide some degree of independence.

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Has the rate of autism increased or has the rate of diagnoses increased ?

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reply to post by DarrylGalasso


Actually I wish to apologize for that entire post. It is off topic and has no business in this thread.

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Has the rate of autism increased or has the rate of diagnoses increased ?

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Autism is one of the easier disorders to diagnose, it is quite profound and evident in most cases; therefore, I would tend to believe that it is the rate itself that has increased and in a copious manner in comparison to the population's rate of increase.

I am going to reference a paper I wrote a couple months ago about the CDK5 enzyme. This is directly related to learning, and although this paper was done in regards to Alzheimer's disease, it could very well play an important role in Autism as well.

The ability to learn can be either enhanced or negated through either the introduction or removal of the enzyme CDK5 in the brain. The ability to learn is enhanced when lower or no level of CDK5 is present in the brain. Alzheimer’s disease is directly linked to the abundance of CDK5 in the brain (UT Southwestern Medical Center, 2007) which would indicate the direct link between learning and memory as Alzheimer’s disease is connected to the loss of memory. CDK5 works with another enzyme to break up a molecule called NR2B, which is found in nerve-cell membranes and stimulates the cell to fire when a nerve-cell-signaling molecule, or neurotransmitter, binds to it. NR2B previously has been implicated in the early stages of learning. The new research showed that when CDK5 is removed from the brain, the levels of NR2B significantly increase, thus enhancing learning abilities (UT Southwestern Medical Center, 2007). Because of the correlation between Alzheimer’s and the CDK5 enzyme, it would appear logical that this enzyme also has a negative impact upon memory, which is one of the foundations of learning.