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Patti's avatar

No doubt linked to poor diet. It is sometimes very difficult to follow a good diet for typical kids let alone for a child with autism who very likely has challenging behavioral issues. Parents need to be hyper involved and vigilant. Sadly many can’t stay that engaged due to all the other issues that they must deal with. Fix the diet and you avoid those adverse health problems!

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Just_Henry's avatar

Autism was rare before the sun ( and its vitamin D) were villified in the 1970s. Chronic vitD deficiency/starvation in the mother and then the child causes gestational and then post-natal developmental defects. The specific region of the brain affected is the midline cerebellar vermis, which develops postnatally and is involved in learning/memory and higher order behaviors. Interestingly, there is a north-south gradient with respect to autism prevalence, vitD related. Somalians relocated to Minneapolis develop autism, a condition so foreign that Somalis have no word for it in their language. Furthermore, a condition called Williams Syndrome involves hypertrophy and malformations in the vermis that result in hypersociability...almost the behaviorally opposite condition to autism. The vitD-autism-cerebellar link is a Nobel Prize worthy line of research for a young aggressive neuroscientist.

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