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http://www.forbes.com/lifestyle/health/feeds/hscout/2005/04/03/hscout524907.html
Antioxidant Levels May be Linked to Autism
By Serena Gordon
HealthDay Reporter
SUNDAY, April 3 (HealthDay News) -- Could oxidative stress, a
suspected contributor to many disease processes like heart disease
and cancer, also play a role in autism?
University of Arkansas researchers think it may.
In a recent study, autistic children were found to have significantly
lower levels of an antioxidant called glutathione and its metabolic
precursors.
"Glutathione is the major antioxidant in cells important for
detoxification and elimination of environmental toxins, and its
active form is reduced in about 80 percent of the kids with autism,"
said the study's lead author, S. Jill James. She is director of the
biochemical genetics laboratory at Arkansas Children's Hospital
Research Institute and a professor of pediatrics at the College of
Medicine at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in
Little Rock.
Reduced levels of antioxidants, such as glutathione, would increase
the level of oxidative stress. Oxidative stress occurs when
antioxidants aren't able to clear the body of free radicals, which
can damage cells in the brain, gastrointestinal tract and immune
system.
"[Our findings] suggest that these kids would be more sensitive to
an environmental exposure and would be less likely to detox from
heavy metals," said James.
Exposure to heavy metals, such as the mercury preservative that was
commonly used in children's vaccines until recently, has long been
suspected as a trigger for autism in genetically susceptible children.
Most research, however, has failed to confirm this link, and in
2004, the Institute of Medicine issued a report stating that it did
not believe that vaccines contributed to the development of autism.
Not everyone agreed with that conclusion, however. Laura Bono,
chairwoman of the National Autism Association, and the parent of
an autistic child, believes vaccines play some sort of role in the
development of autism and said the new study's findings would seem
to support a link.
"These are children that are more vulnerable, that don't quite detox
the way the rest of us do," said Bono.
James didn't look at the vaccine question for the current study.
She said that autism is believed to have a genetic basis, but that
it "takes an environmental trigger to bring out the genetics."
For this study, James and her colleagues compared blood samples of
90 autistic children to those of 45 children without the disorder,
and found that the active form of glutathione was reduced by about
80 percent in children with autism. James also said the metabolic
precursors of glutathione were reduced.
"If they have lower glutathione, they would reach a toxicity earlier
than someone with higher levels," said James. "But, it's not clear
whether this is a cause or a consequence of autism," she added.
James and her team also looked at changes that occur in several
genes that could affect glutathione metabolism in blood samples
from 233 autistic children, vs. 183 children without autism. They
found changes in three genes more often in the children with autism.
James said these are common genes that don't cause autism, but they
could contribute to the development of these metabolic abnormalities.
James presented the study findings Saturday at the American Society
for Nutritional Sciences' scientific sessions at the Experimental
Biology conference in San Diego.
While this study is just a first step, she said, it wouldn't be
unreasonable for parents of autistic children to talk with their
child's doctor about giving them antioxidant supplements since these
supplements are non-toxic.
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