Toxicological Status of Children with Autism vs. Neurotypical Children and the Association with Autism Severity

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Toxicological Status of Children with Autism vs. Neurotypical Children

and the Association with Autism Severity.

<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23192845>

JB, Audhya T, McDonough-Means S, Rubin RA, Quig D, Geis E, Gehn E,

Loresto M, J, Atwood S, Barnhouse S, Lee W.

Biol Trace Elem Res. 2012 Nov 29.

This study investigates both the level of toxic metals in children with

autism and the possible association of those toxic metals with autism

severity. This study involved 55 children with autism ages 5-16 years

compared to 44 controls with similar age and gender. The study included

measurements of toxic metals in whole blood, red blood cells (RBC), and

urine. The autism group had higher levels of lead in RBC (+41 %, p =

0.002) and higher urinary levels of lead (+74 %, p = 0.02), thallium

(+77 %, p = 0.0001), tin (+115 %, p = 0.01), and tungsten (+44 %, p =

0.00005). However, the autism group had slightly lower levels of cadmium

in whole blood (-19 %, p = 0.003). A stepwise, multiple linear

regression analysis found a strong association of levels of toxic metals

with variation in the degree of severity of autism for all the severity

scales (adjusted R (2) of 0.38-0.47, p < 0.0003). Cadmium (whole blood)

and mercury (whole blood and RBC) were the most consistently significant

variables. Overall, children with autism have higher average levels of

several toxic metals, and levels of several toxic metals are strongly

associated with variations in the severity of autism for all three of

the autism severity scales investigated.