Update-Autism & Vitamin D...3 Swedish papers published this month support the vit D theory of autism

The Vitamin D Newsletter April 2010

Update on Autism and Vitamin D -- John Jacob Cannell, MD

SWEDISH RESEARCHERS ON THE RIGHT TRAIL

I continue to get encouraging emails—like the one at the end of this newsletter—from parents of autistic children. At the same time, some researchers in the USA continue to deride my theory while scientists in Sweden are starting to piece it together. Three Swedish papers were published this month that support the Vitamin D Theory of Autism.

In the first paper, Dr. Mats Humble and his colleagues—at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm—measured vitamin D levels on 117 adult psychiatric outpatients. They found that the 10 adult patients with autism had the lowest 25(OH)D levels of any of the other groups, including the patients with schizophrenia and depression, an average of about 12 ng/mL (30 nmol/L), a level known to cause rickets in children and osteomalacia in adults. Even more interesting, they reported that some of the patients with depression and schizophrenia seemed to improve when treated with an average of about 4,000 IU of vitamin D per day. They did not say if they treated any of the vitamin D deficient autism patients. ¹

Mothers of autistic children have very low 25(OH)D levels

The second paper, by Dr. Elisbeth Fernell and colleagues—from various institutions in Sweden—measured vitamin D levels in mothers about six years after they had given birth to a child now diagnosed with autism. The Somali mothers had very low vitamin D levels, less than 10 ng/mL (25 nmol/L). The trend was in the direction of lower vitamin D levels for Somali mothers with autistic children, compared to Somali mothers without an autistic child. ²

Another scientist endorses the vitamin D theory of autism

The third paper, an invited editorial in Acta Paediatrica by Dr. Darryl Eyles of the University of Queensland was more interesting, at least to me. He issued an outright endorsement of my autism theory, not that it is proven, but that it is parsimonious, a word and concept I love.

Darryl is a prolific researcher and was involved in many of the rat studies that showed gestational vitamin D deficiency damages the brains of the infant rat pups. It was the work of Dr. Eyles, together with that of Dr. John McGrath, which helped me formulate my vitamin D theory of autism. I wrote about their research in 2005, before I realized that the human brain damage I wrote about was manifesitng itself as the autism epidemic. Shortly after I wrote the July 2005 Vitamin D Newsletter (PDF format), I saw an autistic child at the shopping mall and started my research into autism and vitamin D.

Anyway, this month Dr. Eyles said, "Low maternal vitamin D remains a highly parsimonious explanation for certain prominent features of autism," explaining how well their animal data fits with human data on autism. Perfect parsimony is when one theory explains all the known facts, and if there is one major autism fact the vitamin D theory of autism cannot explain, I have yet to locate it. ³

Pregnant women need 5,000 IU/day
...
LETTERS FROM A MOTHER OF AN AUTISTIC CHILD
...
Finally, expect anger and defensiveness from many in the medical profession. Remember, if I'm right, it was not the evil power plants, or the mercury polluters, or the vaccine industry that caused your son's autism. It was the CDC, the NIH, the AMA, and all the other committees and organizations that fell for the dermatologists' calculations (the cosmetic industry will give me a larger grant if I warn about sunlight) and who then blasphemed the Sun God. That is, the worst charge you can level against medicine, "You have violated your primary duty; you have caused harm." If I am right, the current autism epidemic is the worst iatrogenic disease in human history.
...

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Link to Apr 24, 2009 Scientific American and other vit D research: "What If Vitamin D Deficiency Is a Cause of Autism?"
DU comments on vit D and autism: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=222&topic_id=58436

 

 

tissues other than bone. (See System and Tissue Distribution of Vitamin D Receptors (VDR)) This mapping occurred a few years after the current Vitamin D standards had been set in 1997 (400IU/d, 2000IU-TUIL, which were recently deemed "grossly inadequate" at the 2009 AACE 18th Ann Meet & Clin Congress).

p.91 "In recent years Vitamin D receptors have been found in tissues not associated with the traditional role of calcium metabolism" Vitamins in animal and human nnutrition, 2nd edition, Aug 10 2000, Lee Russell McDowell

"The crucial role of vitamin D in the innate immune system was discovered only very recently." John Cannell, H1N1 flu and Vitamin D, May 2009

Knowing "where", researchers could hypothesize and target investigations into Vitamin D effects wherever VDR was expressed. A spate of discoveries ensued and continues.

 

Humans make thousands of units of vitamin D within minutes of whole body exposure to sunlight. From what we know of nature, it is unlikely such a system evolved by chance.
  — Dr. John Cannell, Executive Director, Vitamin D Council.

If you think of it evolutionarily, it's the oldest hormone on this Earth. I don't think that this is going to be a flash in the pan.
  — Dr. Michael F. Holick, Vitamin D expert.

 

I was surprised upon learning last summer from a restaurant manager -- whom I encouraged to urge his Kaiser doctor requisition for him a vit D status test -- when he returned from his checkup and told me he didn't need to ask...the test was included.

Why would Kaiser do this, when other health insurers legislate restrictions on obligation to reimburse vit D test expenses? See http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=222&topic_id=85668&mesg_id=85721 . 

 

"Mothers get as much sunlight as mothers 15 years ago."   Post-1995 saw the American Academy of Pediatricians getting into the "avoid the sun" medical act by directly targeting infants with its own special professsional advice -- i.e., another iatrogenic factor, on top of earlier, general "stay out of the sun as much as possible" warnings for mothers and their children from dermatologists and the AMA .

Perhaps a situation of autism tendency in infants due to low vitamin d status 'inherited' from mothers became compounded after 1999 by the unintentional post-delivery continued-suppression of infant innate immune systems through wide adherence to the AAP warnings advising sun-protective clothing and sunscreens and a finer directive to always stay out of direct sunlight and to minimize sunlight exposure altogether. (Presumably paralleling pediatrician 'prescription' of such recommendations beginning 1999 would have been increases in sales and usage of sunscreens not only for babies/infants/children but also by expectant women following skin-protection advice. Maybe mothers are not, in fact, getting as much effective sunlight, i.e. UVB, as 15 years ago.)

"All of the sudden these children are just D deficient?" As per above, after 1999, the situation with children perhaps became something more than 'just D deficiency' transferred from the mother: Already-compromised-at-birth innate immune systems might have remained so (or worsened) widely across the cohort because of AAP sun-protection-for-infants warnings that initiated widespread, highly-effective shielding not only from the negative effects of UV but also from beneficial effects of UVB on vitamin D status.

Another possible angle: Infant's Multivitamin (infants to 12 months) Vitamin A composition (and usage relevancy for low vit-D status infants?)
1: Vitamin A (as Retinyl Palmitate) 1250 IU 104% (1-3 years: 2 servings, 2500 IU)
2: Vitamin A (as Beta-Carotene ) 1250 IU 83%
3: Vitamin A (as Retinyl Palmitate) 1500 IU 100%



Finally, expect anger and defensiveness from many in the medical profession. Remember, if I'm right, it was not the evil power plants, or the mercury polluters, or the vaccine industry that caused your son's autism. It was the CDC, the NIH, the AMA, and all the other committees and organizations that fell for the dermatologists' calculations (the cosmetic industry will give me a larger grant if I warn about sunlight) and who then blasphemed the Sun God. That is, the worst charge you can level against medicine, "You have violated your primary duty; you have caused harm." If I am right, the current autism epidemic is the worst iatrogenic disease in human history — John Cannell, MD