Curious Research

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Another curious new study.

Many of us had inner ear infections as children and therefore more exposure to antibiotics. However, if antibiotics do prevent the secretion of mercury from the body causing levels to build up, does this mercury have an effect integral to autism? Or is it yet another "trait"?

If more kids with autism get more infections and therefore use more antibiotics, is this buildup of mercury a cause, effect, or something circular?

People want a simple cause and effect, but many diseases are multi-factorial. Heart disease is a good example. What causes heart disease? Lots of things are risk factors - poor diet, lack of exercise, smoking, stress, excess alcohol, genetics, chronic inflammation, lack of sleep, gum disease, environmental toxins, etc etc etc.

Because mercury itself is neurotoxic, I would suspect it plays a role in the disease. Not saying it is THE CAUSE, but may be one of many factors. While antibiotics may reduce elimination of mercury through the gut, does it also reduce elimination through the hair? Dont' know. Is there a genetic component that makes auties more likely to have infections and get antibiotics? Maybe. Could some of us just hang on to more mercury for genetic reasons? Possibly.

This doesn't rule out other risk factors or 'causes' including genetics, dietary intolerances (gluten, dairy, etc), changes in estrogen/testosterone ratios during gestation or childhood, etc etc.

Greater maternal exposure to mercury linked to autism. Less mercury in hair linked to higher risk and severity of autism (!) - apparently, in auties, it isn't eliminated to the hair but remains in the body.

Very curious indeed!

Anecdotal contribution; my mothers teeth are a mercury filled bombsite, and i suffered from massive ear, nose and throat infections in early childhood, which it is more than likely i received antibiotic treatment for. My sis prob has some deg of AS too. (My german aunt , autistic, was born with hairlip for which received crude surgical treatment, and which prevented her breastfeeding apparently; her autism almost got her taken away to "camp", extermination kind, aswell).

However my 8 year old son has PDD/AS of some kind ( broken language, 5 year old social and body hygiene skills etc etc), but has never received antibiotic treatment, nor vaccinations, and by the time he was conceived 4 of my 6 fillings had fallen out (during long period of super-healthy eating and fasting etc) leaving hollowed but healthy teeth behind.
So mercury not so likely to be involved there.

Very interesting tho; thanks ! Like you say, multi-factor.
hmm

Good questions. Your mention of methylation sparked a few neurons in my brain. I read a book a decade or so ago claiming that most modern diets are deficient in methyl donors, and that this contributes to many diseases. Just looked on Pubmed and saw this study, which does raise the issue of whether some supplements might help.

There's a good review I have somewhere that proposes oxidation as a central issue in autism which can then affect the immune system. I'll see if I can find it. I don't remember if it was available free fulltext or not. But I'll at least look up its reference info if you're interested.

I'm interested!! Would love to read that.

I've only got it in hard copy (paper) at the moment, so I'll need to go rummaging for it.

Here's one on the oxidative stress factors in autism:

I've always wondered about this very subject. At my request (which I regret like crazy now) I asked for prophylactic antiobiotics for my son's constant ear infections. He was on these antibiotics (very low levels of amoxicillin, taken daily) for almost two years. I've always felt like this might have contributed to his syndrome, rather than MMR shots -- he didn't get ALL of those at the usual time, and even when he did, he did not have any reactions to them as other people have described with their children.

I've read about the high number of other children who have had LOTS of antiobiotics in their young lives and then been diagnosed with autism. It's one of those things -- what came first -- the ear infections, or the antiobiotics, and THEN the autism . . .

Kris

Yeah, as for antibiotics, a child can't live with inner ear infections. Those can be dangerous. So, sadly, using antibiotics is the lesser of two evils. I was on amoxycillin for the first two years of my life.

As for the article, yes, that's the one:

Chauhan, A., Chauhan, V. (2006). Oxidative stress in autism. Pathophysiology, 13, 171-181.

I don't currently have this in an electronic version and I see it's not available fulltext free. But if anyone is attached to a university, you can request it through them.