Although this article gets quite technical, I excerpted parts of this article so the intelligent lay person can understand what Dr. Cannell is trying to tell all of us. The correlation evidence for deficiency of vitamin D is quite strong, many of which I have articulated in the past. What Cannell does well is bring the detailed medical information needed to strengthen the correlation between less sunlight and Autism.
I am one of the few that ignored the consensus in the 1980s to wear sunscreens all the time. My concern then is that with sunscreen I may stay in the sun too long and get overexposed to UVA, the more likely melanoma source which penetrates our skin easily to mutate the melanin precursor. Melanoma mushroomed in both Australia and Sweden in the 1980s which increased my concern. I tried to get researchers at my lab to work on a UVA block, but like most conventional scientists, they stuck with the consensus.
A similar example is the fairly good evidence that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is starting increase the temperature of the oceans and earth by reflecting the heat accumulated during the day back to earth. Venus is 800 degrees Fahrenheit and its atmosphere is all carbon dioxide and some sulfuric acid which tends to block the sun. It was once called an earth equivalent.
The data for global warming was quite strong 40 years ago! Now essentially 100 percent of climate scientists not connected to the oil industry know we are getting very close to the point of no return. That temperature is when carbon dioxide and methane are released massively from the permafrost in the arctic regions. Further warming will also release massive amounts of carbon dioxide from our oceans. Oil drilling in the Gulf is already pumping both carbon dioxide and methane (natural gas) into our atmosphere!
Unlike what we hear from the pundits about Jimmy Carter’s speech before the election, his speech about cutting down the use of oil was accepted by most Americans. We would have had a much different world of morality instead of immorality as practiced now by everyone.
Jim Kawakami, October 4, 2010, http://jimboguy.blogspot.com
Correlation of Possible Causes of Autism
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1651-2227.2010.01883.x/pdf
John J. Cannell, MD, Atascadero State Hospital-Psychiatry, Atascadero, CA
Excerpts: I have suggested that the primary environmental trigger for autism is not vaccinations, toxins or infections, but gestational and early childhood vitamin D deficiency (1,2). Subsequently, the title of an article in Scientific American recently asked, ‘What if vitamin D deficiency is a cause of autism?’ (3) Since then, an article on vitamin D and autism in Acta Paediatrica (4) and the accompanying commentary (5) have added to the accelerating suspicion that vitamin D deficiency – either during pregnancy or early childhood – may be an environmental trigger for the genetic disease of autism. …
Among 117 adult psychiatric outpatients is Sweden with various diagnoses, the 10 patients with autism had the lowest vitamin D levels of any of the groups studied, a mean of 12 ng ⁄ mL (31 nM) …
Both papers describe ‘weak mindedness,’ ‘feeble minds,’ ‘mental dullness,’ unresponsiveness and developmental delays. Even more intriguing, both papers report that the mental condition in rickets improved with vitamin D.
Another of the mysteries of autism is the apparent increased incidence of autism in the children of richer college educated parents, especially women, a finding announced a few months ago (12). Actually, this is not a new finding.
As I discussed in my (2007) original paper, this has been known since the early 1980s but was dismissed as being because of ascertainment bias. This very recent report correlates well with a 2007 CDC report (13), which found a similar increased risk for the wealthy and well-educated. …
If the vitamin D theory is true, autism should be more common in richer well-educated mothers, who are more likely than other mothers to practice sun avoidance and use sunblock (1,2). …
If the vitamin D theory is true, autism should be more common in richer well-educated mothers, who are more likely than other mothers to practice sun avoidance and use sunblock (1,2). …
Nevertheless, three of four recent U.S. studies found a higher incidence of autism in black children, sometimes appreciably higher (1,2). …
Autistic boys have unexplained reductions in metacarpal bone thickness (15). At some time in their life, these children laid down less cortical bone than normal children, a finding consistent with undetected and untreated childhood or even intrauterine vitamin D deficiency. …
Yet another recent paper reported that the prevalence of autism in 3 U.S. states was higher in areas of higher precipitation and clouds (16). The 2005 autism prevalence rate among school-aged children, after controlling for differences in population size, demographic characteristics, per capita income and state, was higher in cloudy areas. …
Finally, a 2008 paper reported that autism was more common among mothers who took anti-epileptic drugs (19). A comment to the authors (20) detailed the evidence that anti-epileptic drugs are one of the few classes of drugs that consistently and significantly interfere with vitamin D metabolism, lowering 25(OH)D levels. …
The vitamin D theory of autism does not diminish genetic contributions to autism occurrence. Indeed, without the genetic tendency for autism, I suspect that severe maternal or early childhood vitamin D deficiency may cause bone abnormalities, as referenced above, with no evidence autism. All that the current epidemic of maternal and early childhood vitamin D deficiency does, with its resultant neural deficiency in the pluripotent neurosteroid calcitriol, is to allow the genetic tendency for autism to express itself.
If this theory is true, the path towards effective prevention – and perhaps a treatment effect if adequate physiological doses of vitamin D are given – is so simple, so safe, so inexpensive, so readily available and so easy, that it defies imagination. Seventeen vitamin D experts recently stated, ‘In our opinion, children with chronic illnesses such as autism, diabetes and⁄or frequent infections should be supplemented with higher doses of sunshine or vitamin D3, doses adequate to maintain their 25(OH)D levels in the mid-normal of the reference range [65 ng ⁄ mL (162 nmol ⁄ L)] –and should be so supplemented year round.’ (22) (65 ng times 2.5 = 162 nmoles/L.
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