Mounting evidence points to a ‘strong’ link between regression in children with autism and autoimmune problems, says a charity.
Biomedical research charity Treating Autism says scientific literature ‘abounds’ with cases of regression following ‘viral’ encephalitis, or a swollen brain, and autoimmune disorders.
Dr Bill Carlezon: his study on mice showed even a short-lived viral infection can result in “long-lasting” difficulties
The group points to a study led by Canadian scientist Ori Scott. The study shows fevers were ‘significantly’ more common in toddlers who had regressed.
Autoimmune conditions more common
Autoimmune conditions in the family were also far more prevalent in the Scott study. The study looked at the medical histories of 239 children with autism.
While 206 of the children had problems from early infancy, a group of 33 had regressed.
Natasa Blagojevic-Stokic is advocacy lead for Treating Autism. She said the link to autoimmunity in autism families is “quite strong”.
In the Scott study, 30 per cent of the children who had experienced regression suffered a fever in the six months before parents first raised concerns.
In contrast, none of the group of 206 children had a fever during the same period.
Parents with diabetes or autoimmune thyroiditis
The study found one in three (33 per cent) of the children who regressed had parents, siblings or grandparents, aunts and uncles with either type 1 diabetes or autoimmune thyroiditis. The figure was 12 per cent for the larger group of autistic children.
And specialists led by Dr Bill Carlezon at McLean Hospital, in Massachusetts, found even a short-lived viral infection in mice in early life can cause “long-lasting” problems.
The paper, published in Neuropsychopharmacology, found difficulties “resemble medical comorbidities often seen” in autism and other neuropsychiatric conditions.
Blagojevic-Stokic added that animal studies have shown “this is how you provoke animal autism”.
She added the charity is open to the possibility of research involving parental reports of children suffering infections following vaccines before the onset of autism.
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Published: 19 March 2018
