Autism Linked to Unusual Shapes in Lungs

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aghogday
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01 Nov 2011, 6:19 pm

Joe90 wrote:
I hope this doesn't mean Autistic people can just drop dead at any age for no reason (except for this lung thing).


They made it clear in the first article that there was nothing that parents should be concerned about and no need to test children for the lung anamoly.

So there do not appear to be any serious health concerns related to this issue.



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01 Nov 2011, 7:35 pm

Janissy wrote:
MrXxx wrote:
"Then she noticed that these patients all had something else in common: 'Every single one has autism, or autism spectrum disorder," she says.'"

I do find that a little suspicious. How on earth do you look at the airways of 49 separate patients, and NOT notice throughout that entire period that ALL of them are Autistic?
.


You could actually not notice until after the fact. The kids would have been sedated so any mannerisms or ways of talking that would be noticeably autistic would not be seen. There aren't consistent physical features. It would be in the medical record of course. But to a pulmonologist doing a bronchoscopy that would be the least important piece of information on the medical record- something noticed but not focused on as relevent. It would be the sort of thing you'd realize was consistent among all the patients who had the doublet formation only after you got over the oddness of the doublet formation in the first place.

You'd think that the pulmonologist would have a chance to consult with the kid while awake, but not necessarily so. Sometimes doctors breeze in after the patient is already sedated- specialists especially.

They need to get an embryologist in on this to go over what neurological development is happening while the bronchioles are developing. There may be a pinpointable time in development when the structure of both brain and lungs veers away from what is typical.

For comparative data, they've got visual records of all the kids who have been bronched at that hospital. With parental permission, perhaps they can go back over those records and see if this is consistent across their patients. It's worth a look.


edited to add: now that I read ahogday's post right before this one I see that they did exactly that and found this formation consistently missing from the visual records of bronchoscopies on non-autistic patients. So I think it's meaningful.


Yeah, I get that now. The article was pretty poorly written IMHO, and didn't seem to offer anything as clearly. But then, reports about stuff like this are almost always poorly portrayed, especially when it comes to any explanations of any actual statistics involved.

Anyway, it does seem pretty clear that what she found was undoubtedly significant enough to warrant further studies, and does strongly indicate the studies are likely to support what she found at least somewhat.

"Significant" is also likely to be the best word to ever apply to this particular theory. I'm still fairly convinced there are MANY causes of Autism, and that several different indicators will be found eventually like this. I think they will find many people with the same abnormality that are not Autistic too. I don't think anyone will ever find any "aha" indicator that works every time. I truly believe Autism, it's causes and effective treatments, are far more complex than anyone imagines.

This, to me though, does look worth looking into in detail. At least until it's blown out of the water. And I have a strong feeling that won't happen.


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Joe90
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02 Nov 2011, 5:56 am

peaceloveerin wrote:
UGH, please PLEASE stop it with all these stupid connections between autism and something else!! Its really driving me crazy! :x


It is me aswell. Tomorrow we'll probably find a thread claiming an article about Autistics having a deformed stomach or something.


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02 Nov 2011, 6:22 am

Compromised digestion is common :wink:



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02 Nov 2011, 7:55 am

Joe90 wrote:
Well I know loads of parents of NT children who were born with breathing difficulties. My brother actually did. He had to be kept in hospital for a couple of days after birth, under one of those breathing things. I actually wasn't born with breathing difficulties. (Funny how I haven't got any of the physical BS what gets mentioned on here...)


The difference doesn't by itself seem to be clinically significant, so it doesn't necessarily cause breathing difficulties. Also, not having it doesn't mean not having breathing difficulties.

Also, you don't actually know whether you have lungs like this or not. I would say that the vast majority of members here at WP have no idea whether they have these "doublets" or not. If this research is correct though, it would probably be a safe bet that anyone here who's autistic has doublets in their lungs.

It's possible to be so tied up in an ideological stance that one simply rejects all data, no matter how valid. If you're just calling "BS" on every bit of research that points to possible physical signs related to autism, you're basically doing the same thing you accuse everyone else of doing - except you're just rejecting any possible correlations rather than looking for them everywhere. Neither position is scientifically tenable, but at this point you're reacting to nothing - most of the threads you respond to don't say what you're objecting to, but you object anyway.



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02 Nov 2011, 9:41 am

Joe90 wrote:
I hope this doesn't mean Autistic people can just drop dead at any age for no reason (except for this lung thing).


Autistics and neurotypicals alike will all drop dead of something someday. :)


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Joe90
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02 Nov 2011, 9:44 am

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Neither position is scientifically tenable, but at this point you're reacting to nothing - most of the threads you respond to don't say what you're objecting to, but you object anyway.


I only object to things said to be associated to Autism what doesn't make sense to be associated with Autism. When I was diagnosed, the doctor never checked any physical features on me, nor did my friend get checked who has ADHD. But my friend who has Soto's Syndrome did get checked for physical features, because people with Soto's Syndrome are known to have some possible physical features and they are specifically in the diagnostic criteria. But with Autism, something new is made up every week on the internet or in the papers, and I never know whether to believe it or not. The papers said it was going to be the hottest summer in the UK this century, but it wasn't exactly the hottest summer in the UK this century.


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aghogday
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02 Nov 2011, 12:25 pm

Joe90 wrote:
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Neither position is scientifically tenable, but at this point you're reacting to nothing - most of the threads you respond to don't say what you're objecting to, but you object anyway.


I only object to things said to be associated to Autism what doesn't make sense to be associated with Autism. When I was diagnosed, the doctor never checked any physical features on me, nor did my friend get checked who has ADHD. But my friend who has Soto's Syndrome did get checked for physical features, because people with Soto's Syndrome are known to have some possible physical features and they are specifically in the diagnostic criteria. But with Autism, something new is made up every week on the internet or in the papers, and I never know whether to believe it or not. The papers said it was going to be the hottest summer in the UK this century, but it wasn't exactly the hottest summer in the UK this century.


A good test is what papers it is reported in. If it is the "Daily Mail" or "Telegraph", I would look for another news source that replicated the information. In the US if it is the "Enquirer, or Star", I would pay it no mind at all.

In this case the article has been presented by US World & News Report, CBS News, Web Md, a Local TV Station where the Doctor is employed, and many other sources. More to the point it was referenced as presented at an annual "CHEST" medical conference held in Hawaii, which is verifiable information, along with the Research Doctor's credentials that did the study.

Regardless of what the feature is, the fact that it was observed in video evidence only in 49 autistic children, and not observed in 300 children without autism, is by far the most compelling evidence of any anatomical feature associated with autism to this point in time. There have been some statistical correlations in facial features, but nothing this specific and clear.

The fact though, remains that it hasn't been peer reviewed or replicated by other scientists, two necessary steps that remain to validate scientific finding. If it is peer reviewed as acceptable and replicated, this finding could lead to additional information that lead to a better understanding of the genetic causes of autism.



Andie09
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02 Nov 2011, 1:09 pm

As my old psych professor used to say, "Correlation does not imply causation".



aghogday
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02 Nov 2011, 2:54 pm

Andie09 wrote:
As my old psych professor used to say, "Correlation does not imply causation".


Even at this preliminary stage, the initial researcher has seen no evidence that this specific anamoly is a health issue of anykind. So by itself it is highly unlikely to cause any of the symptoms of autism.

However, it may lead clues to find additional genetic markers associated with autism that make up the genetic factors behind autism. It is commonly understood, within science, that autism is caused by genetics, at least in part, at this point in time. A finding like this may lead to additional evidence for this current understanding.

On the other hand it could be a result of environmental factors related to prenatal development rather than genetics. Further research could provide clarification on this, as well.