Vitamin D Deficiency During Pregnancy Linked To Autism (newatlas.com) 216
New submitter future guy quotes a report from New Atlas: The researchers examined around 4,200 blood samples from pregnant women and their children and discovered a link between autism and low levels of vitamin D. More specifically, they found that pregnant women who were vitamin D deficient at 20 weeks gestation were more likely to have a child with autistic traits by the age of six. Rather than taking in more sunlight and the heightened risk of skin cancer that it carries, the researchers suggest that making inexpensive and safe vitamin D supplements available to at-risk groups may be a better path forward. "This study provides further evidence that low vitamin D is associated with neurodevelopmental disorders," says Professor John McGrath from the University of Queensland. "Just as taking folate in pregnancy has reduced the incidence of spina bifida, the result of this study suggests that prenatal vitamin D supplements may reduce the incidence of autism." The research was published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry.
Shots (Score:2)
Can't they just get some vitamin shots for this?
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That's the recipe for Aspergers!
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Just 'cause your cousin looks like a sheep doesn't mean she is one.
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Can't they just get some vitamin shots for this?
A Vitamin D vaccine? Hell no! Vaccines cause autisim! Jenny McCarthy told me so.
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Yeah! You can't expect us to believe hard science when a Hollywood bimbo tells us it's not!
Some times. I think it would take Sophia Vergara level hottnitude to get me that dumb.
Where is the news? (Score:5, Interesting)
Where is the news?
This seems to just confirm previous data, which is important to researchers, but not that interesting to the public.
The vitamin-D hypothesis has been around for years. It would be interesting if a causal link, or treatment, could be demonstrated,
e.g. a randomised placebo controlled trial of supplements during pregnancy. But there seems to be none of that yet.
Re:Where is the news? (Score:5, Informative)
Where is the news?
This seems to just confirm previous data, which is important to researchers, but not that interesting to the public.
Well, this is how science works. Overall, it is extremely rare to make astounding, new discoveries; most scientific research is about confirming what we already know or improving our observations - even the Higgs boson was just a confirmation of what we already knew, really. It is easy to get the idea that all science is making sensational finds, if you only read the popular science stuff, and it gives you the completely wrong picture. Important science is mostly routine. It has to be - the scientific method dictates that you must keep testing, because the only certainty you can achieve lies in falsifying predictions. That is why there still are people who keep finding new ways of testing that gravity still works as predicted; next time it might not - that is of course taking it to the extreme, but it is scientifically very valid to keep asking the question.
The vitamin-D hypothesis has been around for years. It would be interesting if a causal link, or treatment, could be demonstrated, e.g. a randomised placebo controlled trial of supplements during pregnancy. But there seems to be none of that yet.
I think you are getting things mixed up a bit. Randomised trials are meant specifically for testing the efficacy of new medicines. The method would work for vitamin D, of course, but it would be ethically unsound to deliberately expose groups of people to the well-documented risks that this deficiency would cause, and it would be extremely difficult to control the parameters, I think; you get vitamin D from many sources, such as exposure to sunlight, and you would have to keep large groups of pregnant women confined indoors for 9 months, and so on. Can't be done practically.
But it isn't really necessary. Firstly, I think we have confirmed that the correlation is real, not spurious, so presumably we now have a confirmed pattern of vitamin D deficiency correlating to a certain increase in the risk of developing autism. Secondly, other research seems to point to plausible mechanisms - we know something about what goes on in an autistic brain, and we know that vitamin D probably plays an important role in the development of certain features that appear to be important in connection with autism.
But you are right, this is not a surprising, new discovery; we are simply inching closer to understanding how autism develops.
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Bullshit, with a large enough cohort, and without telling them it's vitamin D just a new drug, you would have baseline control probably close enough to the average rate of autism that you could discern any potential benefits from vitamin D. That assumes, of course, that this report itself doesn't spur a large amount of mothers to start taking large vitamin D supplements, thus changing the average prior to any trials if the link actually exists.
Re:Where is the news? (Score:4, Insightful)
Bullshit, with a large enough cohort, and without telling them it's vitamin D just a new drug, you would have baseline control probably close enough to the average rate of autism that you could discern any potential benefits from vitamin D. That assumes, of course, that this report itself doesn't spur a large amount of mothers to start taking large vitamin D supplements, thus changing the average prior to any trials if the link actually exists.
Its rather amusing that a person who calls bullshit is so full of it.
You weren't by any chance involved in the Tuskegee syphilis experiments were you?
And just how many experimental trials were you involved in?
This isn't the 1940's any more. Any medical experimentation is subject to ethical review, and before you get to even start the experiment. There is absolutely no way that a trial that involves purposefully causing a vitamin deficiency in a selected group will ever make it through an ethics review.
Sorry Dr Mengele, you can't do your twin vivisection experiments any more.
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Bullshit, with a large enough cohort, and without telling them it's vitamin D just a new drug, you would have baseline control probably close enough to the average rate of autism that you could discern any potential benefits from vitamin D. That assumes, of course, that this report itself doesn't spur a large amount of mothers to start taking large vitamin D supplements, thus changing the average prior to any trials if the link actually exists.
Its rather amusing that a person who calls bullshit is so full of it.
You weren't by any chance involved in the Tuskegee syphilis experiments were you?
And just how many experimental trials were you involved in?
This isn't the 1940's any more. Any medical experimentation is subject to ethical review, and before you get to even start the experiment. There is absolutely no way that a trial that involves purposefully causing a vitamin deficiency in a selected group will ever make it through an ethics review.
Sorry Dr Mengele, you can't do your twin vivisection experiments any more.
I don't think he means intentionally depriving them of vitamin D, rather I think he means simply creating a control group being given a placebo (pills of sugar, perhaps), and another group being given pills of vitamin D. The control group would have no worse outcomes than the average pregnant women would have, while the experimental group should show some improvement.
However, your point still stands; you wouldn't be able to easily control for lifestyle choices, and those have much more of an impact on vi
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I don't think he means intentionally depriving them of vitamin D, rather I think he means simply creating a control group being given a placebo (pills of sugar, perhaps), and another group being given pills of vitamin D. The control group would have no worse outcomes than the average pregnant women would have, while the experimental group should show some improvement.
That wouldn't be a proper experiment according to his wishes. You can't prove that a deficiencey causes something unless you create that deficiency. Because if you geive people extra Vitamin D, and less or no autistic children are born, he'll be screaming "Correlation!=Causation" because you have to prove lack of something causes something. And there is enough variation in human activity to cast doubt on the exactitude of any experiment. You have to specifically cause the problem to determine if a problem i
Re:Where is the news? (Score:5, Informative)
It would be 'ethical' to find a population that's already deficient, then supplement half of them.
Okay, let me give you a few cites so that you know where I'm coming from.
https://sciencebasedmedicine.o... [sciencebasedmedicine.org]
There was a time when we had a pretty awful approach to medical experimentatino on humans. The Tuskegee syphilis experiment is one of the worst examples. There was another STD experiment called the Guatamalan syphilis Experiment. And by the way, given the nature of the experiments, good luck in getting cooperation from dark pigmented people as they have a well earned distrust of medical experimentation. And Black women in northern climates are probably the number one risk group.
You will probably really stand up for the experiments on children during the mid-1960's At the Willwbrook State School in Staten Island, a school for the mentally deficient, they intentionally injected children with Hepatitis in order to see if Gamma Globulin could cure it. That's pretty sweet and kindly.
http://ethics.iit.edu/eelibrar... [iit.edu]
Anyhow, they rationalized it by declaring that since so many of the children became infected with Hep, it wasn't a big deal. Oddly enough, it was never made clear why they didn't test Gamma Globulin on the children who already contracted hepatitis.
In 1948 REsearchers gave over 800 pregnant women "vitamin drinks" that contained radioactive iron to examine the placental/ mother's blood transfer. At the Massachusetts based Walter E. Fernald State School, the AEC and Quaker Oats performed a experiment of given them oatmeal with radioactive Calcium in it to track digestion of Calcium. The students were told they were joining a science club.
There are a lot more, but when these abuses - and I seriously hope you would also consider them abuses, a lot of ethical concerns, and eventually ethics committees and regulations came into existence.
While there might be some clandestine stuff still going on, any program such as one that is aimed at studying autism causes is going to be closely studied for three reasons. One is that it's an obvious one, to possibly help children avoid becoming autistic. The second one is that it involves mothers and children at all, so it will have ahigh priority. The thirs is a bit of an embarrassment, because people who for some reason are heavily invested in the belief that vaccines cause autism, will want to debunk the experiments in any way possible. If you don't believe me, just look at what happened when they removed the original "cause of autism" th emerthiolate from vaccines, and it had no effect. So without any proof, the anti vaxxers just decided it was "something else".
Test it with existing data. If it's true, populations more likely to be vitamin D deficient (darker skins at higher latitudes) will already have higher autism rates. Do black folks in Chicago have higher autism rates than in the south? (Where we know the population migrated from, mostly less than 100 years ago.)
Data will be called racist, so compare dark skinned folks at different latitudes.
Good luck with African descent people to agree with any test like you suggest. They don't trust the medical profession in that way, and they have a good reason not to.
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Or are you asking why the research was done at all? Maybe because the researchers were not as confident of the correlation between vitamin D de
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What is your question exactly? Are you asking why this is being published on Slashdot? Because there exist people who believe that autism is caused by something else, and being able to point at something and say, "Hey look, real evidence showing that it might be this thing instead of that make-believe thing" is a useful bit of information to share with the public.
Exactly this! One of the arguments I used that always shut the vaccine assholes up, was pointing out how fixated they were on first that merthiolate was the cause, then something else was the cause after merthiolate was removed, then drug companies were in a conspiracy even after it was proven that the only conspiracy was between the asshole that started the whole thing and a lawyer who were going to capitalize on the sympathetic victim effect in the courts.
It always ended up with the statement "Your vac
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Where is the news? This seems to just confirm previous data, which is important to researchers, but not that interesting to the public.
The vitamin-D hypothesis has been around for years. It would be interesting if a causal link, or treatment, could be demonstrated, e.g. a randomised placebo controlled trial of supplements during pregnancy. But there seems to be none of that yet.
Severe ethics and social problem there. Its just about impossible to have trials of medicine with pregnant women or young children involved, as any birth defects or developmental problems and the people running the tests will be crucified.
You won't ever see any test like that, the closest thing they can do is do analysis after the fact, when they are not held responsible for any problems.
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Severe ethics and social problem there. Its just about impossible to have trials of medicine with pregnant women
Many pregnant women already take supplements which include vitamin D. It is approved, and any serious negative effects should already be visible.
For a trial, you exclude those women. Then give group A daily pill containing folate and iron, group B get folate, iron and vitamin D. randomised, double-blind. Then come back in a few years and see how they are doing.
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Severe ethics and social problem there. Its just about impossible to have trials of medicine with pregnant women
Many pregnant women already take supplements which include vitamin D. It is approved, and any serious negative effects should already be visible. For a trial, you exclude those women. Then give group A daily pill containing folate and iron, group B get folate, iron and vitamin D. randomised, double-blind. Then come back in a few years and see how they are doing.
The problem of course, is that you actually have to create the autism. Otherwise you have no exact causation. If there is one thing you won't find, it is a company or government that would ever sponsor such a test. That's why you don't see many drugs designed for pregnant women. One birth defect, not necessarily even caused by the drug test, and as they say "You are well and Truly fucked". Your ass would be hauled into court, and you'll be painted as the big conspiratorial Pharma, while the weeping mother a
Another possibility (Score:2, Interesting)
1. Autism is primarily genetic
2. Autistic individuals seem to have real problems metabolizing some vitamins and minerals from food. Vitamin B-12 is one well-known example... basically, autistic individuals aren't able to adequately metabolize forms like cyanocobalamin into something that can cross the blood-brain barrier, but giving them injectable methylcobalamin (which CAN cross the BBB) can reduce some symptoms of autism by giving their brain access to a vitamin it would otherwise be deficient in.
3. By e
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Whether autism is "primarily genetic" is still a matter of a lot of debate, not least because we don't really understand enough about genes in general to determine whether things are due to variations in DNA or due to epigenetics - ie the interface between environment and DNA. It is not at all implausible that differences in the availability of vitamin D can have a profound impact on the expression of genes, IMO. Also, it has to be added that no study is suggesting that autism is caused exclusively by any o
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>This would not effect city dwellers because slow moving and stopped cars produce almost no exhaust when compared to highway driving.
Seems unlikely, have you ever paid attention to gas mileage numbers, either from the manufacturers or in-car metering? Highway driving is considerably more efficient than stop-and-go city driving, and worse mileage means you're producing more exhaust per car-mile in the city. Then there's the fact that city roads tend to have a lot more cars per mile, and that there's a *
And schizophrenia. (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't forget schizophrenia too. Vitamin D3 deficiency (Calcitriol) is why black mothers who give birth in winter months have a significantly high percentage of having a child that develops schizophrenia. D3 has a strong catalytic effect on glutathione production in the brain (PMID 10428085), and without adequate glutathione the body will not have a way to control reactive oxygen species. This oxidative stress then irrevocably damages the brain during fetal development and you end up with a wide range of problems down the road like Autism and mental health problems.
Also don't forget that the half-life for the active metabolite of vitamin D is on the order of 21 days. That means it takes about 5 months to reach steady state. One of the best advice I can recommend is that all pregnant women take at least 2,000 IU of D3 per day, with a 21 day 4,000 I.U. loading dose.
Re:And schizophrenia. (Score:5, Informative)
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There is a world of difference between bias based on prejudice and scientific observation based on fact.
The truth is there are certain medically significant differences between races. In this case, the increased skin melanin in black individuals is well known to lead to increased incidence of Vitamin D deficiency, which can be linked with certain other problems. Also people of Asian decent are more likely to be lactose intolerant. There are probably more differences but these are commonly known ones.
It d
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"The numbers also were striking for their newborns - 92.4 percent of African-American babies and 66.1 percent of white infants were found to have insufficient vitamin D at birth." Source [schizophrenia.com]
It affects all mothers, but black mothers more. Scientific research supports that conclusion. I'll admit it was odd in this context to single out black mothers in the GP's comment (the schizophrenia link to vitamin d deficiency was the interesting part), but you'll have to provide an argument as to why it's racist.
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It affects all mothers, but black mothers more. Scientific research supports that conclusion. I'll admit it was odd in this context to single out black mothers in the GP's comment (the schizophrenia link to vitamin d deficiency was the interesting part), but you'll have to provide an argument as to why it's racist.
Good grief! The issue is race based, but it surely isn't racist.
It all has to do with skin pigmentation. Groups who evolved in areas with a lot higher sun exposure were capable of generating enough vitamin D from insolation. When they move to an area with a lot less insolation, they tend to have trouble generating enough Vitamin D.
I caught a report on NPR that noted that people with dark pigmentation (note this can be either African or Indian) living in a northern city like Detroit, Michigan cannot c
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why would anyone associate 'African' with race, it is a content? you are designating a specific population. Would you be being racist if you said Europeans have a higher rate of depression then Australians?
That being said, it is kind of a misnomer, it seems like there should be better ways of accurately speaking about genetic profiles that are tied to specific geographic origins. After all I there are quite a few 3rd and 4th generation African's of European descent.
Race is an entirely made up construct
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That being said, it is kind of a misnomer, it seems like there should be better ways of accurately speaking about genetic profiles that are tied to specific geographic origins.
Which is why I try to refer to it as skin pigmentation. Because you don't have to be African to have a lot of melanin.
After all I there are quite a few 3rd and 4th generation African's of European descent.
Race is an entirely made up construct , it just doesn't exist and the sooner everyone starts acting that way the better off we will all be.
But there are important issues of genetics involved, many people of African descent and some Mediterraneans have a genetic profilee that allowed them to be resistant to Malaria. Obviously a good evolutionary trait in an area where Malaria is common. However, it also leaves them susceptible to Sickle cell anemia. Now My ass is so lily white that no one owuld ever consider testing me for SSA
3-4X autism in Somali immigrant childern in Sweden (Score:5, Interesting)
This is consistent with studies going back to the late 1990's.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/vitamin-d-and-autism/
>... Swedish researchers published a study in Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology that found the prevalence of autism and related disorders was three to four times higher among Somali immigrants than non-Somalis in Stockholm. The study reviewed the records of 2,437 children, born between 1988 and 1998 in Stockholm, in response to parents and teachers who had raised concerns about whether children with a Somali background were overrepresented in the total group of children with autism.
>
> In Sweden, the 15,000-strong Somali community calls autism "the Swedish disease," says Elisabeth Fernell, a researcher at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm and a co-author of the study.
In Minnesota, where there are an estimated 60,000 Somali immigrants, the situation was quite similar: There, health officials noted reports of autism among Somali refugees, who began arriving in 1993, comparable to those found in Sweden. Within several years of arrival, dozens of the Somali families whose children were born in the U.S. found themselves grappling with autism, says Huda Farah, a Somali-born molecular biologist who works on refugee resettlement issues with Minnesota health officials. The number of Somali children in the city's autism programs jumped from zero in 1999 to 43 in 2007, says Ann Fox, director of special education programs for Minneapolis schools. The number of Somali-speaking children in the Minneapolis school district increased from 1,773 to 2,029 during the same period.
Sounds *very* plausible. (Score:2)
I'm - as I suspect most of us are here - your classic nerdy/geeky semi-ADHD/Auspergers type. But generally speaking AFAICT nutrition has been linked to this condition and personality type more than once (look for the book "The LCP Solution"). My mother told me she was practically addicted to licorice during her pregnancy with me. This could have been a "self-medication" attempt of her body to mitigate the lack of vitamin D which she recently noticed. And, fittingly enough, excess licorice consumption during
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I'm - as I suspect most of us are here - your classic nerdy/geeky semi-ADHD/Auspergers type. But generally speaking AFAICT nutrition has been linked to this condition and personality type more than once (look for the book "The LCP Solution"). My mother told me she was practically addicted to licorice during her pregnancy with me. This could have been a "self-medication" attempt of her body to mitigate the lack of vitamin D which she recently noticed. And, fittingly enough, excess licorice consumption during pregnancy is actually in fact one of those rare things that has been found to correlate with ADHD symptoms in the child.
As for vitamin D I haven't had a bloodwork in more than a decade but I'd bet money that I've got a vitamin D deficiency, as any indoor computer expert guy probably has. My mom herself is of the nerd/shut-in/bookworm type and ADHD disposition runs on my mothers side of the family.
I myself don't drink alcohol, eat meat very rarely and live quite healthy aside from the fact that I am basically a sugar-addict. A thing I certainly link to my mothers excess licorice consumption during her pregnancy. I also notice that as soon as I actively curb my sugar addiction and lean towards a more organic balanced, whole & fresh foods diet, my awareness hightens notably and I get cooler/calmer than I usually am. If you're a nerdy type, try it out and go full organic & balanced for 8 weeks. The difference you'll notice is palpable.
I'm coping pretty well and wouldn't call my ADHD a disfunction rather than a disposition ... "Hunter/Gatherer in a Farmer/Settler society, Rebel/Adventurer/Leader disposition, etc, jada-jada" ... you probably know the evolutionary theories concerning ADHD. That aside I truely believe backed by what I've read and experienced nutrition is the biggest leverage any ADHD/Aspergers candidate has, aside from regular excercise and a diversified daily routine.
My 2 cents.
It probably played a role, but something else to consider might also be a genetic component. This can roll two ways; potentially, there might be a gene that weakens your ability to synthesize vitamin D from the sun, which is the primary manner of how we obtain it, or there could be a gene that simply gives you the condition directly. If such a thing were to be the case, it wouldn't matter how your mother raised you, but it would simply be something you were born with - and your children may inherit, should
Cod liver oil (Score:2)
If you don't like the taste look for mint flavored cod liver oil.
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How about putting that stuff into flavorless pills instead? Like it's done...
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flavorless when you swallow it. Not later when you get all eructatey.
CORRELATION != CAUSATION (Score:2)
Eve
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There are various ways in which we could strengthen or disprove this association.
1. One could be to survey 1000 pregnant women for Vitamin D status. Then (accounting for status) provide half with a Vitamin D supplement for the duration of their pregnancy and look at the results. Since vitamin D supplementation is not a routine pre-natal practice no one would be at increased risk of Autism (assuming that the
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I agree that the data is insufficient to make a scientifically sound claim that vitamin D deficiency is causally linked to increased autism risks, but I disagree that the authors should have avoided making a recommendation.
Consider: essentially they're recommending to people that they take supplements for a deficiency that we know most people have, and that we know will help reduce lots of other health and developmental issues, and *might* help reduce the risks of a very unlikely condition that gets a ridic
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I consider this irresponsible because they have not confirmed that their recommendation does not constitute the lower risk option. They have just assumed that action is better than inaction, which is not a safe assumption.
A good example of thi
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Ok, lets be clear this is a retrospective cohort study. That means that no experimental treatments were applied, so cause and effect cannot be determined on the basis of this trial.
Welcome to the ethics of dealing with humans, and especially with children.
This is a clear example of what is wrong with most people's understanding of "BIG DATA".
Hardly clear. Perhaps you are having a little difficulty dealing with trying to apply rigorous scientific experimentation to woarking with humans and medical issues. Would you take responsibility for assigning test subjects a protocol that might kill them and you know it might kill them? Good luck getting subjects willing to have you assign death or disability to their children.
So we are left with the data. There are certainly prop
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Having one group proceed as they would normal (change in risk of precisely ZERO), and have one group take a Vitamin D supplement. You can balance for pre-existing Vitamin D status so that the two groups are similar before starting. The Vitamin D supplement would constitute an altered risk (an
Re: Vitamin D Deficiency During Pregnancy Linked T (Score:2)
Again, another issue - whether proven or not, that indicates that pre-natal vitamins ARE THE BEST THING YOU CAN INVEST IN FOR THE HEALTH AND FUTURE OF YOUR IN-UTERO DEVELOPING CHILD ! ! !
It's a shame that these supplements are not covered as a matter of course for EVERY pregnant woman in the world.
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Considering that an overdose of some vitamins is actually harmful to you (and in turn a potential fetus growing inside of you), you might want to reconsider that.
I agree that a sensible level of all essential substances you might need is a good thing, but simply saying "pump as much of that stuff into your body" isn't going to cut it. That's like watching an anorexic woman giving birth to a sick child and concluding that every pregnant woman should drink a few gallons of fat every day, even if she looks lik
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Please note that I said PRE-NATAL VITAMINS - - - implicitly referring to medically prescribed levels of vitamins and supplements.
Agreed, dosing the body with massive supplements is bad, and in many cases is tantamount to self-poisoning, along the same lines of taking arsenic to restore youthful appearance. Without medically approved control of vitamins and supplements, you may as well eat a bullet - - - at least that would be quicker and more painless than the damage you can do to your body by gulping mass
Finally, a real correlation with weather (Score:2)
If Vitamin D is a culprit, then we should see more autism in places like the UK, which are historically deficient in sunlight. Furthermore, this correlation should be strongest in specific locales where a modern supplemented diet does not predominate.
I thought pregnant women take vitamins? (Score:2)
Taking supplements insufficient (Score:3)
All I can think of... (Score:3)
Reading this, all I can think of is how much sooner would we have figured this out if we hadn't wasted millions of man-hours and 10s of millions of dollars fighting against all the anti-vaccine idiocy.
Re:Autistic People Not Needed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Autistic People Not Needed (Score:5, Informative)
No, you look after them for the rest of their lives, just like any responsible society does for those not able to look after themselves.
Many of them can look after themselves, especially if they get some help to get started. In America, 80% of autistic people are not employed. But with coaching, and targeted help, most autistic people are employable. Some countries do a far better job of this than others. The Economist recently had an article [economist.com] about the effectiveness of education and employment policies for autistic people.
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As an autistic person I find your comment far more offensive and ignorant than the obvious flamebait above it. Autistic people who cannot take care of themselves are a minority of a minority of a minority.
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Well, as an austenitic person I find your sub-912C body temperature and non-FCC crystal structure to be disturbing and unnatural.
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Humans... all our EMP and magnetic rays couldn't harm them, but a simple stick can easily kill them.
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magnetic rays
Magnets don't make rays, magnetic fields have divergence of 0
obsessively_correcting_factual_errors_while_substantially_missing_actual_point
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magnetic rays
Magnets don't make rays, magnetic fields have divergence of 0
obsessively_correcting_factual_errors while_substantially_missing_actual_point
I see you haven't uncovered the existence of my secret doomsday weapon powered by magnetic monopoles [phys.org]...
Re: Autistic People Not Needed (Score:3)
Not everyone with autism is an 'antisocial nerd' that's living in the gutter, thank you very much. People with autism may be even more productive in some areas than neurotypical people.
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Not everyone with autism is an 'antisocial nerd' that's living in the gutter, thank you very much. People with autism may be even more productive in some areas than neurotypical people.
And so many people don't get this. As the "autism epidemic" took hold - mainly by expanding the definition to include more people, they started including people who might have been just a little different than neurotypicals.
People with say, Asperger's syndrome are often wildly productive. I have a few friends with the syndrome, and they aren't remotely disabled. They are differently abled. Sometimes much better abled for what interests them.
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Let them rot in the gutter?
Everybody's tripping over themselves to demonstrate to the world how un-empathetic they are. Weird way to go about getting respect.
But in short, you're a skidmark, and should you ever find yourself in need of assistance, I hope to fuck you don't get it.
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Eventually, the Market will sort all that out. People with autism will choose to be born in countries that have better public health care, which will bankrupt themselves by subsidizing the weak and useless. America will become greater by not having so many autistic people born here. Of course, once they're born, we won't let them in, unless they can get an H1B visa.
Glad to see the births, lives, and deaths of people can be summed up as "the Market". Also, glad to see eugenics is back in fashion. Also, factually disprovable because the highest rates for autism in the world belong to Denmark, Sweden, and Japan, all countries with vastly higher standards of living and far more robust economies than the USA, which comes just after.
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Eventually, the Market will sort all that out. People with autism will choose to be born in countries that have better public health care, which will bankrupt themselves by subsidizing the weak and useless. America will become greater by not having so many autistic people born here. Of course, once they're born, we won't let them in, unless they can get an H1B visa.
Glad to see the births, lives, and deaths of people can be summed up as "the Market". Also, glad to see eugenics is back in fashion. Also, factually disprovable because the highest rates for autism in the world belong to Denmark, Sweden, and Japan, all countries with vastly higher standards of living and far more robust economies than the USA, which comes just after.
Ummmm, whoosh? Do you really think the AC thought that people with autism would CHOOSE where they get born?
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But, but because of Freedom we must create and make comprehensive public health system and research with free prenatal guidance and support for mothers!
FTFY
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When you look at the lyrics of "Human Behaviour" by Bjork, it sure reads like an Asperger's view of humanity...
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Presumably peoples who live at the extreme latitudes near the poles, who would get a lot less sunlight in winter, would have a seasonally higher incidence of autism?
People who live near the poles tend to each a lot of oily fish that have a plenty of vitamin D.
Re: Tell mom's to drink their milk. (Score:4, Insightful)
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Maybe something crazy like taking inexpensive vitamin D pills
Maybe, and hopefully, but it appears they have not yet determined if it is causation or just correlation. It may be that whatever causes Vitamin D deficiency also increases risk of Autism.
Re: Tell mom's to drink their milk. (Score:5, Insightful)
Because the amount of vitamin D available in food sources is piss poor in general. The effective natural way to get it is to go on the sun. This has orders of magnitude more effect than diet.
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The effective natural way to get it is to go on the sun. This has orders of magnitude more effect than diet.
Kinda hard to get much outdoor time when most people work indoors during the day and employers wont allow the rank-and-file a good work/life balance.
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Then people should expect wide spread of autism in China when the fog is there all year round.
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Probably not - clouds don't actually block all that much UV, which is the component of sunlight used for synthesizing vitamin D. It's quite possible to get a very nasty sunburn on a dismally overcast day (source, personal experience).
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That's true, but fewer people go outside on cloudy ugly days than when the weather is nice and the sky is blue.
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Generally true, but not necessarily applicable to places where cloudiness is the norm. (cue Oregon joke: there is no bad weather in Oregon, only bad rain gear)
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Not for several reasons.
a) Fog doesn't block nearly as much UV as you think it does.
b) China's climate in general is far sunnier and has a far higher UV rating hitting the ground than most of Europe.
c) Genetic predisposition has not been studied here and outside of Vitamin D / sunlight there can be many other influences on autism. You've not only decided on causality ruling out alternatives, but your causality is done via an intermediate variable as well. Bad science!
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Kinda hard to get much outdoor time when most people work indoors during the day and employers wont allow the rank-and-file a good work/life balance.
Hence why we're talking supplements.
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Because the amount of vitamin D available in food sources is piss poor in general. The effective natural way to get it is to go on the sun. This has orders of magnitude more effect than diet.
Pretty much this. I'm gonna go into a "when I was a kid" thing now.
When I was a kid, we all got a lot of outside time, including the adults.
Then the sun and outdoors became our enemy. Relentlessly we were taught that even one sunburn could kill us http://www.dailymail.co.uk/hea... [dailymail.co.uk]
Which of course is unmitigated bullshit.
But today, mothers, if they even allow their children to go outdoors, slather them in sunscreen because even if the child's skin turns pink, they are presumably killing the kid.
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It's not so simple of an issue. The colour of our skin has evolved - taking into account clothing, which we've been wearing for quite some time - relative to our environment's sun exposure. Melanin is our natural sunscreen. People in sunny locations tend to evolve darker skin because melanoma was more of a threat than vitamin D deficiency. People in dim locations tended to evolve lighter skin because vitamin D deficiency was more of a threat (high latitudes strike doubly, as people wear more clothes to
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People in sunny locations tend to evolve darker skin because melanoma was more of a threat than vitamin D deficiency. People in dim locations tended to evolve lighter skin because vitamin D deficiency was more of a threat (high latitudes strike doubly, as people wear more clothes to stay warm).
Yup, the people who aren't adapted propely tend to die a lot sooner.
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Why not just utilize the originals sources, such as fatty fish, beef liver, cheese, and egg yolks.
Um, by 'original source' I think you mean the sun - that's where most people get their D from. As mentioned, the amount of D in food is unreliable, a supplement is probably the best choice to ensure enough D is obtained.
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Have you noticed how civilizations in history have most of the time been located near waters abundant in fish?
Did you know fish is very important for health, especially for the health of our brains?
Have you wondered what would happen to a human population where fish is all but cut out from their diets?
Why people living inland away from seas, lakes and great rivers seem stupider on average?
Yes, I have noticed this. Thankfully, those advanced Polynesian islanders will use their advanced techno-wizardry to bring their fishy goodness to backward, impoverished places like Switzerland in the near future.
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What "people living inland away from seas, lakes and great rivers"? The reason you see populations of people near bodies of water is because water is essential for life, not because it contains fish. Ancient Egyptian civilization was by the Nile because its floods provided water and nutrients to their crops, not because some lack of fish would have transformed them into blithering idiots. Same with Mesopotamia. Same with the Indus valley. Same with the early Chinese civilizations.
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"Have you noticed how civilizations in history have most of the time been located near waters abundant in fish?"
That's because they needed water to drink, fish are just a nuisance, they piss into that water.
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As has been mentioned elsewhere, even vitamin D rich foods are a poor source of vitamin D. The efficient source is sunlight exposure (even if it's overcast, UV mostly passes right through clouds). So, even assuming your correlation is correct, it probably has more to do with the fact that coastal cultures tend to wear less clothing and spend more time in the sun than with their diet.
Re: Tell mom's to drink their milk. (Score:4, Informative)
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If you think the vegans are bad you should meet the raw vegan subset.
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You could also just take it with food.
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Physics was not one of your best subjects in high school, was it?
Re:And this is why blacks... (Score:5, Informative)
Physics was not one of your best subjects in high school, was it?
Melanin make skin dark, and does indeed cause more light to be absorbed, but the light is absorbed before it generates vitamin D. People with darker skin living in northern climates are more likely to be vitamin D deficient.
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Thanks for enlightening me.
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Re:MMR Virus (Score:4, Informative)
And the vaccine contains mercury...
Oh wait, both those statements are bollocks.
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As long as people avoid MMS they should be fine.
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Romania might disagree [outbreaknewstoday.com].
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Agreed. It cannot.
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No, why would it?
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There's some theories that a number of brain development issues are caused by autoimmune responses to virus exposure (vaccine or otherwise). It's too early to say yes or no to it, but it's really interesting at the very least.
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That depends heavily on your definition of "alive" - a concept for which surprisingly enough there's not actually any clear definition, much less a widely agreed upon one. The medical profession doesn't even have a clear line to tell us when a particular person is alive or dead - it's all fairly arbitrary "rules of thumb" (currently brain death, including the brain stem, is the accepted threshold in the US)