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More Evidence of Increase in Profound Autism
I am Jack's username writes "The New York times has an article (no registration required) about an increase in profound autism in California of 273% between 1987 and 1998. Between 1999 and 2001 more than 6 500 cases were reported, similar to the number reported between 1970 to 1995. The increase cannot be accounted for by misdiagnosis, increased awareness, childhood immunizations, emigration, birth injuries, and genetics. Some autism experts think the actual cases to be dramatically more than reported in the UC study. See also previous discussions about high-function geek rich areas like silicon valley."
I mean they say that a baby breaths in twice the carsinogens in thre first day of life in california than what has been deemed safe for a life time.
what is the autism rate in other parts of the country or the world?
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
I'm not trying to be humourous here, but I honestly feel that somewhere right under the Genius level of intelligence lies a gray area in which many folks with autism tend to lie.
Bill Gates is partially autistic, as are several students who do research here at my university. Autism isn't fatal, but it can have a troubling effect on one's social life. Many Normal folks don't quite understand it and laugh/point fingers at those with autism.
It's nothing more than just an enhanced perception of life, but I guess it is technically a disease of sort.
This new epidemic in California is probably just a bunch of really smart people having children together. It's too bad that the children, though they will be absolutely brilliant, will have to suffer their entire lives as unattractive and anti-social.
The chain will continue with their children's children, etc...
Department of Physics and Atmospheric Science, Dalhousie University, Halifax, N.S., Canada, B3H 3J5
I'll bite ...
... but they are certainly peer-reviewed, and not completely anecdotal!)
...
What economic motives are there for vaccine makers to produce a product that could cause autism?
Just FYI, most of the employees at the vaccine company I am familiar with insist on their families being inoculated with the vaccine produced by that company. They are aware of the stringent testing, QA/QC and improvements in the products made by the company. Of course, all vaccine manufacturers have to meet an extremely high standard of quality now, but it shows you the loyalty and security that these employees feel about their employer's products.
As for searching the newsgroups, I have to just laugh. What an unbiased and peer-reviewed source! (Admittedly, not all scientific publications can be regarded as unbiased
With the recent upsurge of panicked parents refusing to let their children be vaccinated, I'm (pessimistically) awaiting the return of the scourges that our grandparents used to fear
YS
"Arrr! The laws of science be a harsh mistress." -- Bender
Look we need to de-generalize this thread a bit. Austism ranges from the profoundly disfunctional to the almost normal.
Some studies suggest a genetic link, others suggest environmental triggers. I suspect both will be validated at some point. Consider that autism has been around and documented for centuries - "idiot savants" - yet why a huge increase now?
Some suspect the MMR vaccine since the disease manifests around that time period.
As far as the autism spectrum goes it covers several "disorders". My son is either Asperger's or PDD-NOS (pervasive development disorder not otherwise specified) but seems normal to most people at surface glance. He is high-strung, and needs support for social situations but is extremely bright. He was reading at age 3 and doing base 2 math, multiplication and division at age 5.
In today's world he will be academically very gifted and socially completely disadvantaged. Yet the strange thing is that he is simply expressing traits my wife and I both possess more strongly than we did.
Once I starting reading the literature dealing with my son's condition it became obvious that I expressed many of these traits as a child. My wife was gifted but not as socially challenged. Once I figured things out I was able to appear mostly normal....well that's subjective I suppose.
So - my suspicion based on my experience and that of the parents around us in our support groups is one of two possibilities:
1. That autistic traits are caused by genetic and environmental factors and the environmental factors are increasing in severity....
OR
2. It is genetic and becoming more prevalent because male and female "geeks" are now allowed to co-exist. Perhaps this is nothing more than a result of women's equality allowing women and men to meet their true peers. Consider that in the "old days" women that were mentally gifted did not become doctors or computer programmers. Even 30 years ago it was not common to see female doctors or lawyers - yes they existed but compared to today where parity is finally beginning to show...
I suspect number 2 is more likely and unfortunately since evolution is currently suppressed for humanity thanks to our advances we cannot tell how this will affect our race. Our son will do well aside from some challenges socially, but do we tell him to marry someone dumb or not to have kids?
This sig contains a manual self-destruct. Kindly please put your foot through your monitor in 8 seconds.
What about other areas with a high density of intelligent people? OR what does Silicon Valley have that no other area does?
I have no idea what causes the problem but neither does anyone else.
Now that there are theories that heat proteins (like hsp90?) can buffer "mutations" until there is a significant change in environment, punctuated evolution theories have a lot more grounding and seem to make much more sense than long term slight evolution.
--- I do not moderate.
I have a feeling that the answer to this question is going to shock and dismay us all.
Actually, I read an article once on how children (boys especially) of programmers and engineers tended to display autistic behaviors, often leading to a misdiagnosis of autism. I was interested because my own nephew, at over two years old, still had not spoken one word. The doctors were heading toward an autistic condition. But the article went on to explain how even though they tend to display these early symptoms that can last from birth to five years old, they are just fine, and tend to end up very smart bordering on genius level. The most common thread under these conditions was that they were children of programmers or engineers. My brother is a programmer, so I thought it was rather interesting. (and yes I do think my nephew (who is now 6) is quite a little genius. He could read some words at two but couldn't talk. A few months in speech therapy fixed that. He bypassed kids books by age four and has been reading encyclopedia style books on anything to do with fish, bugs, snakes or animals of any kind. At 6 he can tell you what an estuary is, knows everything about anything that lives in the deep sea, will gladly explain about any 'aquatic animals' found in a zoo, including their eating and 'reproductive' habits and sound out words like carnivorous'. His hero is Steve Erwin, Crocodile Hunter, of course.
Just search for autism engineer.
Here's a clip
A couple of years ago the UK magazine Professional Engineering published an article entitled "Is there a bit of the Rain Man in every engineer?" linking engineers with children who have autism. Autistic children don't develop normal social relationships and they tend to wander off by themselves and play with mechanical things. The article said that engineers and autistic children shared various characteristics including strong visualisation skills, strong affinity with physical objects and being "less interested in social activities and communication.
Another
Simon Baron-Cohen, an autism researcher at the University of Cambridge, found that there were 2 ½ times as many engineers in the family history of people with autism.
A couple of years ago I heard a story on All Things Considered that was about a gentleman who had opened what is basically a free/open repository of genome info on families with autism.
The reason he'd done this is because his son was autistic, and he discovered that biomed research firms were fscking patenting autistic genes to ensure that if a cure was ever found they'd reap huge profits from the treatment. This landrush for intellectual property also had the nasty side effect of killing just about any collaborative research effort for a cure or treatment... no one could get samples to work with. And the companies doing this weren't even trying to protect their own research projects.... they were just sitting on the damn knowledge (or rather, rights to the knowledge).
Now we've got stuff like the CAN Foundation and AGRE, so hopefully there's a shot at developing an answer other than, "Uhhhh.... just stick Rain Man in the looney bin and get on with your life." Hopefully a cure can be found, and failing that a treatment or at least we can figure out what the fsck causes it.
But I can't help but wonder if this "epidemic" might not have been preventable (or at least mitigated) if some greedy bastards had actually used their talents to help other people instead of making the downpayment on the Lexus.
Funny this has come up now, as I've been thinking about autism, in particular the high functioning versions for a while now, as it appears I have something called Asperger's Syndrome.
Basically it's a mild form of autism - check this out:
Many individuals with Asperger's lead highly productive lives, in highly specialised fields such as academia. Nevertheless, their behaviour is often slightly abnormal - perhaps lacking social skills even if they are more socially aware and willing to interact than people with other kinds of autism. Often someone with Asperger's may be obsessed with complex topics such as music, history, or the weather, and have above average verbal skills. But in some cases, the voice appears to be flat and lacking in emotion, speech can be stilted and repetitive, and conversations tend to revolve around self rather than others. Many have dyslexia or writing problems - and can appear to lack common sense.
...Now is it just me or does that sound like the average geek??
Now.. dotcom boom, THOUSANDS of geeks emigrate to California and in particular the Silicon Valley area. Many of these people were part of failed dotcom startups and relocated to other areas; some were part of successful startups and relocated to other areas. These people have children, and as autism disorders are typically hereditary, I find it as no surprise that their children have a high probability of having autistic disorders.
What's changed in a big way in the last twenty years? Fast food. Tolerance for fat people.
On study I heard about suggested that the modern "fear of fat" - the fear of actually eating fat, not of being fat - was actually harming the development of children. Lack of fatty-acids imparing the development of brain tissue or something.
Do you mind, your karma has just run over my dogma.
My grandparents had their kids at 16, my parents had me around 20-22, my wife and I are 29-27 respectively. We haven't had children yet because we want to wait for things to become financially stable (we want our kids to have a good home)
:)
Out of all the factors in the article, it didn't seem to touch too much on the age factor. I read somewhere once that older parents can lead to all sorts of abnormalities with pregnancy. Could it be age is playing a role here?
There are a lot of similiar couples/singles my wife and I know, they're slowly approaching 30's, no children yet. Compared with our parents who all had thier kids in their 20's we're a bit behind
It seems that the older we have children, the more that can go wrong. Silicon valley is a tough place to live (financially) and the burden of buying a house here and paying the bills has made alot of my friend put off having children till their 30's. It's an enviromentally prompted response to make sure we give our successive generation a strong foothold in life.
I think the answer is as simple as, people in silicon valley have children at an older age, therefore more autistic children are born as a result.
Autism genes that enhance programming abilities may lead to less children for the autistic programmer (AP), but if the AP is programming in the area of, say, development of life-extending technology (e.g., beating old age, cancer etc.) then the AP genes may lead to greater disperal of human genes later down the road.
Sig:
Navy nuke sub lifestyle?
An abusive use of antibiotics, causing autoimmunities may very well be a contributing factor.
Regressive Autism May Be Linked to Autoimmune Enteropathy
NEW YORK (MedscapeWire) Apr 30 -- A regressive type of autism described in the April issue of Molecular Psychiatry may have an autoimmune basis, either directly or indirectly from an autoimmune enteropathy.
"We report findings of a novel form of enteropathy in children with autism, characterized by lymphocytic infiltration, increased crypt cell proliferation and enterocyte numbers, with co-localization of IgG and complement C1q on the enterocyte basolateral membrane," write F. Torrente, from Royal Free and University College Medical School in London, United Kingdom, and colleagues.
This comparative histologic study examined children with a form of autism characterized by regression in the second year of life after apparently normal early development. Earlier reports of immunologic abnormalities and unexpected bowel pathology in autistic children have come from this subgroup of affected patients. In this study, the researchers compared duodenal biopsies from 25 autistic children of this type with those from 11 children with celiac disease, 5 with cerebral palsy and mental retardation, and 18 histologically normal controls.
Compared with the normal and cerebral palsy control patients, the autistic children had increased numbers of enterocytes and Paneth cells, increased lymphocyte infiltration in epithelium and lamina propria, and upregulated crypt cell proliferation. Compared with those with celiac disease, the autistic children had fewer intraepithelial lymphocytes and lamina propria cells and more lamina propria T-cell populations. In 23 of 25 autistic children, but in none of the other subjects, there was IgG deposition on the basolateral epithelial surface, co-localizing with complement C1q.
Although these findings support an autoimmune basis for the unexpected bowel abnormalities in children with autism, the authors question the relevance of these findings to the general autistic population, because these children had more obvious bowel symptoms than are typically reported.
Interestingly, however, some children with regressive autism respond to enteric therapy. The bowel changes could also reflect a genetic condition affecting several systems, with brain symptoms more obvious than gastrointestinal symptoms. Although further research is needed to clarify the role of the "gut-brain axis" in autism, autoimmune mechanisms may suggest avenues for future treatment.
"It is possible that in the future there will be such a concept as 'autoimmune autism' within the autism spectrum," J. Licinio and colleagues from the University of California, Los Angeles, write in an accompanying editorial. "Other biological alterations may be the hallmarks of distinct disorders that may emerge from within our current classification of autism."
Rien n'est plus beau que le creux du 0.
The Globe and Mail (Saturday October 19, 2002) has a related article (with the title given in the subject line) in print and online.
They even have an "AQ" test to see where you are on the "autism spectrum".
I'm not sure I share the enthusiasm some of the quoted experts have for the idea that a number of talented people are having children with "good genes", which is causing this recent increase in autistic behaviour. Even assuming that exteme talent implies retarded social skills, I find it hard to believe that the basic talent it takes to write code, train users and invent documentation is extreme enough to warrant this kind of musing.
Add to that the skepticism I have for anything as complex as social interaction and family having a measurable genetic quality...
Good read nonetheless.
-- clvrmnky
I heard an interview on NPR about a hypothesis based on observation of test animals that relatively small genetic damage takes at least six generations to manifest. By that measure, we're just catching up to mutations introduced by the industrial revolution. What happens when fallout exposed Utah and other Western states come online?
If not, autism in itself is evolutionarily negative. However, it is possible that a milder expression of the same genes does have advantages, ala tech centers. Think sickle-cell anemia, where one gene gives you malaria resistantance, but two make you very sick.
The last part of that is what I find to be interesting. I heard somewhere a theory that certain genetic diseases (they might have been talking about autism; I wish I remembered) were not weeded out because it increased the survival of relatives of people who had it. I seem to recall a couple subtheories: (1) that milder versions of it increased success (as you said) and (2) that actually taking care of their "defective" relative somehow increased their compassion/child-raising skills/whatever...so their survival in a way was increased by traits they had some genes for but didn't really share.
So, what might cause Asthma (Which may be leveling off as we speak), childhood Diabetes, increased incidence of autoimmune disorders and cancer, and increased incidence of autism?
It isn't vaccines! The science doesn't stand up. If you think it's vaccines, we'll agree to disagree, okay?
I blame the chlorinated carbon molecule.
Organochlorines have been absent from the earth, in any appreciable amounts, since before the appearance of multicelled life. They are immensely stable, but nothing natural creates them - for energetic reasons, they are purely synthetic. They have unique (powerful, TOXIC) chemistry that we can "exploit but never control", in the words of Pandora's Poison author Shalini Ramanathan. This is an excellent book if you're interested in which feature of our 20th century lifestyle is raising disease incidences.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
I remember a very old 2-3 year slashdot news article mentioning this. It is no longer online. Basically a women did a study with nerdy and brilliant computer geniuses and mathematicians to find out if they are autistic to a mild degree. Turns out she discovered a separate syndrome which is in the mild autism category.
For the geeks reading this:
1.) Do you find certain social situations difficult or awkward?
2.) Do you feel out of place sometimes?
3.) Do you have bizarre certain interests that no on cares about? *computers cough cough
4.) Do you feel smart in certain area's but lack knowledge sometimes of other different area's?
5.) Do you find expressing emotions difficult even though you have them?
6.) Do you feel yourself to be somewhat clumsy ?
7.) As a kid did you feel more interested in complex things like science or weather rather then playing GI joe ?
8.) Do you find yourself to be somewhat compulsive?
Chances are you may be mildly autistic
Autism and its related aspergers syndrome is very complex. Its different then mental retardation and is hard to describe. I know because I have aspergers which is a mild variant of autism and have an IQ of 122.
I have both conditions that match autism and aspergers so I am unique. For example I can easily handle most social situations but I am clumsy and have poor eye and hand coordination. To this day I can not play a piano with two hands. The mechanism in the brain that divides the signals to my hands does not work properly. My left hand will play the rhythm of my right and my right would play the rhythms of my left. In complex situations like in relationships, I can notice my difficulties. I do not do well when women are not real direct about how they feel. Why do women do this?
As a kid I fell into the autism category but as I grew up I become less and less autistic. I use to daydream at school and go into my own world whenever the teacher wasn't looking. I no longer do this. I can do things today that I could not do a decade ago. Its weird and I can not explain it but I guess maybe my brain is re-wiring itself. I have brilliant in some area's but falter in others. Especially anything doing with 3d-space or mathematics. However I am great with logic and programming which uses the same area's of the brain.
http://saveie6.com/
First of all, note that I am not saying you don't have Asperger's. But it doesn't neccessarily follow from the definition you provided that Asperger's is even the most common cause for the behaviors described. For example, I was a bright little kid. I picked up reading early, enjoyed it greatly, and so of course I was made fun of often in elementary school. This, for a long time, made me reluctant to interact with other people or try to make friends - I thought they'd just make fun of me. (Sound familiar, slashdotters?) I got over it eventually, but for a lot of my early childhood, I missed out on a lot of the normal socialization process.
:-)
:-)
/. to assume they have Asperger's - it's an easy explanation for nerdiness, but it needn't always (or even often) be the correct one.
As a result, I'm a bit socially inept. A lot of social interactions other people take for granted - especially interacting with groups of people - I picked up later. But this isn't because of some sort of neurological problem - I just didn't have a normal social life, because the other kids made it hard to have one.
Likewise, I have above-average verbal skills (don't judge by this post, please), a strong interest in politics and history, and I'm a bit self-centered in my conversation. But this can all be easily enough explained as the product of social isolation and an affinity for the written word, not Asperger's. If you like to read, history (and politics, which is really just a subset of the same) is something you're going to have an easy time learning. And as for being a bit self-centered - again, that could be the result of social isolation. Or, I could just be an asshole, that's certainly a possibility.
In the interests of intellectual honesty though, I feel the need to mention some things that I can't explain away with social/psychological factors. Asperger's suffers, if I read the definition write, tend to have mild speech problems - I had to visit a speech therapist for a while when I was seven. And my handwriting has always been very, very bad. And, as my friends and family can attest, I do seem to lack common sense.
My point, however, is it makes no sense for the tends of thousands of fine people on
I'm the stranger...posting to
We wont know the answer to this for a while yet. The problem has been society put anyone with mental/physical problems into institutions. In the last 25 years or so, this has changed, but the group homes and support networks set up for these people often have the attitute "THOSE people should not have sex" and they are more or less disallowed to have intimate relationships. It has really only been in the last 5-10 years that this sort of behavior has been accepted for this group.
You mention he didn't talk for a while... it is known that children that don't cry often while babies end up very smart children.
Maybe this non-talking is a sign also?
Get your Unix fortune now!
1) Humans are travelling further than ever from their place of birth to find their mate. This means mixing with more people and therefore having a higher chance of having children with a like personality type (oft influenced by genetics)
2) Societies function very differently in the technology age. There are far more divisions, subgroups and sociological / values seperation in society. People with slight autistic personality traits are more likely to marry someone alike themselves than ever before
3) Pollution. We're in an age of massive chemical and heavy-metal pollution (which will probably ultimately kill most of us, but that's another story), there are theories that autistism is triggered in people with certain genes by the presence of mercury in conjunction with other pollutants.
4) Teeth and vaccinations. They have both until recently contained lots of mercury, which is passed onto the child both in utero and in the first couple of years of life
5) Computers. Never before has there been a social paradim which is more of an autistic-magnet... ~10% of those on the autistic spectrum are female after all.
The computer industry is utterly dominated by people on the autistic spectrum. When people think of autism, they think of "Asperger's Syndrome" or "'full autism'", but the reality is that there is a 3rd and probably more common lower-level which very seldomly is diagnosed. I'm in this zone. Just because you've got normal facial/emotion recognition doesn't mean you're not on the spectrum.
The first thing I thought when I saw that was "There's no way I'm doing that manually".
;)
So, er, I didn't
That's based on the same code I used for the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, btw.
There's not a resistance to studying this phenomenon. Gluten-free diets are recommended for autistic children by just about everyone. As are lactose-free diets. It's not because anyone thinks lactose or gluten or casein cause autism, but because autistic children usually also exhibit gastrointestinal disorders whose symptoms are exacerbated by lactose and gluten. Gastrointestinal problems are a larger concern for autistic children than for "normal" children because autistic children usually cannot or will not internalize their reactions to pain and can become aggressive, violent or unpredictable. Eliminating gluten, lactose and casein from the diet reduces the frequency and severity of GI disturbances and hence increases the perception of "normal" or "rational" behavior in these children. Recovery from severe autism is extremely rare and there is nothing to indicate any common thread between cases of recovery. People will blame anything for their child's autism (vaccination conspiracies, diet, prenatal trauma, etc.) and, if their child recovers, swear that whatever they were doing at the time was the only reason (orange juice, vitamin cocktails, behavioral therapy, l-carnosine, etc.) But for all we know at this point, the true reasons could be any or all of these, or just "chance."
A paste from that page, there's more news articles grouped there, well worth the loook before you (anyone you) dismiss it out of hand. There's billions of dollarts at stake, maybe trillions if you count the lawsuit potential. There's been cases so blatant-kid gets shot, gets immediately sick, doesn't recover- that it can't be dismissed out of hand. the newspaper article is repeating the mantra of mega pharmco profits="good", nothing to see here move along now. Phooie. This info is being ignored in favor of "profits". And before anyone wants to debate vaccinations good/bad, read the links first, there's hour's worth.
Documents 1 to 10 matching the query "autism AND vaccinations":
1. Fears Raised Over Preservative In Measles And Other Vaccines Abstract: Rense.com Fears Raised Over Preservative In Measles And Other Vaccines By Kimberly Atkins Boston Globe Correspondent 7-18-1Lyn Redwood, a registered nurse, thought she was doing the right thing when she took her healthy son, Will, to get vaccinated (8,498 bytes - 7/23/2001 7:50:52 AM GMT)
2. SIGHTINGS Abstract: SIGHTINGS Vaccinations May Be Rx For Disaster By Kelly Patricia O'Meara Insight Magazine Online Vol.15 No.37 - October 4-11, 1999 Published Date 9-10-99, in Washington, D.C.http:www.insightmag.com/articles/story4.html. 9-15-99. The ounce of prevention t (13,651 bytes - 7/23/2001 6:09:34 PM GMT)
3. UK Families Seek Compensation For Alleged MMR Vaccine Harm Abstract: Rense.com UK Families Seek Compensation For Alleged MMR Vaccine Harm By Richard Woodman 1-7-2. LONDON (Reuters Health) - More than 1,000 British families have joined a legal battle for millions of pounds compensation for harm they claim was caus (4,861 bytes - 1/8/2002 3:17:15 AM GMT)
4. SIGHTINGS Abstract: SIGHTINGS Measles and Mumps Vaccines Banned In UK BBC News 8-28-99. The single-dose jabs may be ineffective, says the government The government has banned the only alternative to the controversial triple measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccin (4,889 bytes - 7/23/2001 5:15:36 PM GMT)
5. Top UK Doctor Ties 170 Cases Of Autism To MMR Baby Vaccine Abstract: Rense.com Top UK Doctor Ties 170 Cases Of Autism To MMR Baby Vaccine By Lorraine Fraser - Medical Correspondenthttp:www.telegraph.co.uk. 1-21-01. The consultant who first raised concerns about MMR vaccinations has disclosed to The Telegraph that (5,990 bytes - 7/30/2001 4:47:57 AM GMT)
6. More Madness - Toxic Vaccine ORDERED Used On Babies Abstract: Rense.com More Madness - Toxic Vaccine ORDERED Used On Babies By Rosie Waterhouse The Sunday Times - London 8-6-1The Department of Health has told doctors they must use stocks of a mercury-based vaccine for infants even though it is being (5,826 bytes - 8/7/2001 1:48:11 AM GMT)
7. More Madness - Toxic Vaccine ORDERED Used On Babies Abstract: Rense.com More Madness - Toxic Vaccine ORDERED Used On Babies 8-5-1. The Department of Health has told doctors they must use stocks of a mercury-based vaccine for infants even though it is being phased out for safety reasons. The department is (5,538 bytes - 8/7/2001 1:48:21 AM GMT)
8. Living Without Vaccinations Abstract: Rense.com Living Without Vaccinations By Dorsey Griffith Sacramento Bee 12-5-1. They are as lively and rosy-cheeked as any 5- and 6-year-old girls, their long, blond hair gleaming in the sun as they swing upside down from the monk (10,281 bytes - 12/6/2001 2:57:44 AM GMT)
9. Measles Virus Found In Boy's Brain After MMR Vaccine Abstract: Rense.com Measles Virus Found In Boy's Brain After MMR Vaccine By Lorraine Fraser Medical Correspondent The Telegraph - UK 10-7-2A child who developed severe epilepsy after receiving the MMR jab has been found to have measles virus from the vaccine in hi (11,946 bytes - 10/8/2002 6:14:05 AM GMT)
10. Mother Of Five Children...All With Autism...To Sue Over MMR Vaccine Abstract: Rense.com Mother Of Five Children. All With Autism.To Sue Over MMR Vaccine By Celia Hall - Medical Editorhttp:www.telegraph.co.uk. 1-26-01. A mother who claims that five of her children developed autism after having their measles, mumps and (3,064 bytes - 7/30/2001 4:47:58 AM GMT)
more links at parent link
One of the implicit themes I see here that has not gotten much open discussion is that of being smarter than other people, both as a kid and afterwards. This notion seems very deeply embedded in geek culture, and is tightly bound up the sense of alienation that seems so prevalent here. For some reason, being "smarter" than other kids seems to set one in the direction of alienting narcissism.
As Jay Matthews, a very well-spoken education columnist for the Washington Post puts it in a piece on college interviews:
This is some of this wisest advice I can imagine giving a teenager. First of all the notion of being "smarter" than other people is suspect - you have to define smart in a very narrow way to believe that. Or put another way, there sure are a lot of "dumb jerks" out there who seem to be able to accomplish many of their life goals. Are they "smart"? Who cares, they're getting what they're after.
None of this is to contest the more knowledgeable points of view on autism or Asperger's, but simply to point out that there's a pretty strong link between alienation and one-dimensional estimations of intelligence (see the work of Howard Gardner on multiple intelligences, and to encourage everyone in this very intellectual crowd, particularly those raising children (saw a couple disturbing posts of 40+ somethings who really think they're smarter than most others) to look hard at what it means to be smart, and at the consequences of teaching a child to be a particular kind of smart.
But a child with two geeky parents is not just the recipient of geeky genes - s/he is also a child of two parents who are likely to find more satisfaction sitting alone at the office hacking code than at home playing patti-cake with the new arrival.
Many forms of Autism are related to the link between both sides of the brain. People with less connections (or less effective connections -- which is a different problem) tend to be geeks. The other end of the spectrum seems are the socialites. Thouse with low levels of cross conects tend to be able to focus on a problem on one side of the brain but are hopeless for problems that require both. Men typicaly have fewer cross connects than women. A high level of cross connects are very importaint for verbal communication of ideas (and they play a part in strange moodyness as well).
If your mother's father was an Engineer, your very likly to be a geek if your male. When you throw this into a social context, you will find that most of the women who like hanging around with geeks, have a geeky father or or gradfather. This means they have the gene for this and have become conditioned to the "different" level of communication. If a geek breeds with a woman who has the gene, a geeky child is very likly. Its standard genetics and it explains why the best geeks of all time had a very short line of decendants.
Gluten intolerance is not the issue. Gluten is decomposed into glutomorphine molecules in the intestine. Many, many plants contain opiod peptides because all animals mediate respiration through the opiod peptides. Plants have evolved this trait so as to prevent their consumption by insects. Wheat contains particularly powerful opiod peptides, which is one of the reasons it is so resilient to insect infestation (but not molds).
,B., This and that : an artefactual alkaloid and its peptide analogs. Trends Pharmacol. Sci. 1992 / 13 (9) / 341-345.
For some reading on this info try these articles:
1. Fukudome, S. et al, Release of opioid peptides, gluten exorphins by the action of pancreatic elastase. FEBS Lett. 1997 / 412 (3) / 475-479. , Fukudome, S. et al, Gluten exorphin C : a novel opioid peptide derived from wheat gluten. FEBS Lett. 1993 / 316 (1) / 17-19.
2. Max
Note: Exorphins are opiod peptides which are exogenous in origin, as opposed to the endrogenous opiods (endorphins) created by your body.
Capsule summaries of these journal articles can be found at The National Library of Medicine.
I will attempt to summarize.
Opiods are used by the body to condition social behavior. Sex, human contact, listening to others speak, all of these activities cause measureable increases in endorphin levels in the brain. This occurs to condition humans to continue that behavior, it is a classic reward conditioning system. I don't want to get into WHY respiration and feelings of well being are related, but it is due to ancient evolution which is not completely understood. Social behavior of ants is mediated in a similar fashion for instance.
Glutan affects all people like all opiod peptides do. Is it any wonder that Asthma has also increased at an alarming rate, as rapid of an increase as autism? Not at all, because autism is the behavioral result of opiod consumption. As an adult, its not that big of a deal. A junkie can still speak, but it is the childs desire to be with his mother, that drives him to learn to speak from her. Without that initial drive, he never learns correctly. Asthma is ALWAYS the result of respiratory suppresion due to kappa-opiod receptor agonists. Constipation is another major problem. How many people here always know chicks who pop laxatives like mad? It is also because of eating glutan.
The other primary reason why glutan is added to foods is because it is addictive. More glutan, means mor profits. Why would glutan, a protein from wheat, be added to junk food like Doritos or Slim Jims, or instant soup, or TV dinners... It is to make people eat more.
Today, the pricessing of wheat has allowed extremely concentrated forms of gluten. Many are chemically decomposed such that they are nearly PURE gluto-morphine molecules, so that they are even MORE addictive.
And this is the way companies want it. Haven't you ever thought its crazy that people overeat on cookies, and they say its the sugar. But no one overeats on bananas, even though they have MORE Sugar per gram than cookies? Or they say its the starch, but no one gets fat eating 10 pounds of potatoes a day, even though potatoes contain a HUGE quantity of starch, more per gram than cookies? Its the opiod peptide content of these foods which causing overeating.
The government has known this for years. The first example of finding these effects of wheat go back to 1980, of you do the research. The government doesn't care, because they know just as the Roman emperors knew 2000 years ago that a population jacked up on wheat products all day will be less likely to rebel.
Hasn't anyone wondered why the popularus party at the end of the Republic gave away ONLY bread? Not any other kind of food? Or why prisoners are usually given bread? It keeps them apathetic and complacent.
Is it also any wonder that the narcosis effect commonly called ADHD is also countered by CNS drugs? Or better yet, that Amphetamine was until 10-15 years ago also the only drug used for Asthma? Respiration is stimulated through activation of the Alpha-2 adrenal receptors in the brain.
As far as WHEAT and Autism, for MANY mild cases of autism, administration of an opiod antagonist drug, such as nalextrone, can easily reverse much of the behavior (or lack thereof) exhibited by such patients.
What is the problem? In the past, natural wheat was used, and many population groups evolved to resistant to small doses of gluto-morphine peptides. But through modern chemistry, new kinds of glutan is being added to foods which is far more powerful. The end result is a population that is prone to asthma, apathy, antisocial behavior, constipation, and addicted to stimulants such as caffeine, nicotine, amphetamine, or cocaine.
The number of people who do not consume any of those drugs is very, very small.
I will be honest, there is a way out. Your body does adjust. I was even on prescription dextroamphetamine for a long time, smoked for 10 years, drank coffee every day. Not consuming wheat sounds like its impossible, but its SOO easy. It is hard at first, you will crave these foods, but like all addictions, it will past. It just takes time.
The end result is you will think more clearly, breath more deeply, be more awake, and have more of a will to live. Its also nice to have regular bowel movements. Anyway, its been a long weekend for me, and its time to go to sleep. I encourage anyone who reads this far to think before you eat, especially if you give food to children. Wheat products and junk food containing wheat is just not suitable for human consumption, and harms children in the long run.
I don't read or respond to AC posts
I'm sure there'll be a lot of comments about this one. I'd even be willing to bet that most /.ers have more symptoms of Aspergers than not.
Getting down to cases: I can only theorise based on my own internal experiences. So, here goes some facts and opinions, without attempt at analysis:
When I was about 6, I had a General Anaesthetic. It took me over 10 hours to come out of it. For much of that period I was dimly aware of external stimuli, they just weren't important. Eventually I managed to decode the face-slaps and sounds as attempts to wake me up, and thought it useful to do so. I guess (and I do mean guess) that a lot of autistic children just haven't seen a good reason to interact socially or with anything else in the Universe. Even a fingerprint can be endlessly fascinating, so why bother with the sounds that the universe (the bits that are other people) makes? They are just a distraction. You can make them go away by screaming, so why remember words? As for my own son - who's now 16 months old - I'm playing games with him with lots of mechanical toys (lots of fun to be had with swinging doors ), but also playing social-interaction games such as "pass the juice bottle" where we share a cup of juice, taking turns. And a lot of exaggerated facial grimaces for smiles, frowns and other non-verbal communications. I want to show him that things outside himself are interesting too. Because to lose speech and get too fascinated by internals is debilitating and very very not-useful, fun though it might be. You will get frustrated, and not know how to alter your environment to make it better. You will also upset people around you who care about you.
Zoe Brain - Rocket Scientist
1. The number of twins available for research who were separated at birth is less than 150 pairs.
I doubt any of them are autistic.
2. Genes interact with the environment. Short-signtedness runs in families but rarely existed before national education programmes.
3. As for identical vs fraternal twins studies, are you telling me that whether or not your brother/sister looks exactly like you isn't going to affect your relationship with them and other people?
That's just one of the obvious environmental factors assumed to be genetic.
Dave.
http://www.deep-trance.com
Here's a related one. I once asked a biologist how it was possible for a genetic disposition for homosexuality to survive Darwinism. It seemed obvious to me that homosexuals would have fewer biological children than heterosexuals. He agreed with me, adding that according to computer models, even if homosexuals had 99% as many children as heterosexuals did, any hypothetical "gay gene" would be completely wiped out in a few thousand years.
But, he added, some biologist had recently published a clever theory: Apparently small tribes of prehistoric people would generally have a shaman, or medicine man. Furthermore, he said, for various reasons homosexuals were particularly well-suited to such a vocation. Therefore, a tribe whose gene pool was "just gay enough" had better survival odds than a "straight tribe", since its shamans would be more competent, and suitable shaman protegés easier to find.
In other words, although the shaman had no sons, he would have more nephews. And that could theoretically have been enough to tip the balance of natural selection.
(Note that I've been putting "gay gene" in quotes because I believe that, while there may exist congenital factors, homosexuality is a conclusion drawn from many non-congenital factors as well.)
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