do you consider autism to be a disorder or a mere neurotype?

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Yeah. Once my bride was doing something in the kitchen with lots of cilantro (which she loves ) and I was on the floor above and there was a strong, strong odor coming up the steps. I yelled down the steps "Are you scrubbing the kitchen?!" (I thought she was using far too much soap!)

Apparently some of us can smell and taste the aldehydes in cilantro and other people cannot. Personally I think the folk who don't notice the aldehydes are the defective ones...how can you not notice that your food has an ingredient that is closely related to formaldehyde?!

Formaldehyde and its adducts are ubiquitous in living organisms because it is produced naturally. Food may contain formaldehyde at level 1-100 mg/kg. Formaldehyde, formed in the metabolism of the amino acids serine and threonine, is found in the bloodstream of humans and other primates at concentrations of approximately 0.1 millimolar. Experiments in which animals are exposed to an atmosphere containing isotopically labeled formaldehyde have demonstrated that even in deliberately exposed animals, the majority of formaldehyde-DNA adducts found in non-respiratory tissues are derived from endogenously produced formaldehyde.

Formaldehyde does not accumulate in the environment, because it is broken down within a few hours by sunlight or by bacteria present in soil or water. Humans metabolize formaldehyde quickly, converting it to formic acid, so it does not accumulate. It nonetheless presents significant health concerns, as a contaminant.