Autism Linked to Industrial Food, Environment
Autism Linked to Industrial Food, Environment
Cases of Autism have been and are still on the rise in the UK the US and worldwide.
What is autism ?
According to The National Autistic Society
Autism is a lifelong developmental disability that affects how a person communicates with, and relates to, other people. It also affects how they make sense of the world around them.
According to a recent report in The Scotsman Published on Monday 16 April 2012 00:00
THE rate of autism in the United States has reached the level of one child in 88.
In individual states, the figures are even more alarming; New Jersey for example, has confirmed that one child in 49 has the diagnosis.
This is a sharp increase from the appalling 2006 data that documented one in 110 children with an Autistic Spectrum Disorder. As ever, health officials attribute the increase to better recognition and wider screening. To suggest that parents, doctors and teachers prior to 1990 did not “recognise” autism in children is an insult to the intelligence of all concerned. Many autistic children are non-verbal.
The absurd “better recognition” stance will be familiar to parents of autistic children in the UK, where a figure of one child in 64 was rather furtively disclosed in 2009 by the autism research Unit at Cambridge University. This has astounding repercussions for UK public health finances. The most recent estimate of the annual cost of autism in the UK has reached £34 billion. When will this figure cross the radar of the Chancellor?
The continuing rise in autism diagnosis worldwide is inconsistent with the whole foundation on which academics and “autism experts” function. They regard autism as a genetic condition, a belief based primarily on a weak, underpowered twins study from 1977. That was superseded by a larger study last year, which concluded that only 35 per cent of autism has a genetic basis. In short, 65 per cent of the children who receive a diagnosis of autism today have been damaged by environmental factors. They are ill. Just plain sick. That the children are exhibiting “autistic symptoms” is not in doubt, but if autism is a genetic illness, then for most children this is not autism. read more
via Common Dreams April 11, 2012
Report cites prevalence of high-fructose corn syrup in US diet as possible contributor to alarming epidemic
- Common Dreams staff
A new study by Clinical Epigenetics, a peer-reviewed journal that focuses largely on diseases, has found that the rise in autism in the United States could be linked to the industrial food system, specifically the prevalence of high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) in the American diet. The study, published yesterday online, explores how mineral deficiencies could impact how the human body rids itself of common toxic chemicals like mercury and pesticides. The report comes just after a different report, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, documented a startling rise in autism in the United States.
“To better address the explosion of autism, it’s critical we consider how unhealthy diets interfere with the body’s ability to eliminate toxic chemicals, and ultimately our risk for developing long-term health problems like autism.”
said Dr. David Wallinga, a study co-author and physician at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy.
The report’s key findings:
- Autism and related disorders affect brain development. The current study sought to determine how environmental and dietary factors, like HFCS consumption, might combine to contribute to the disorder.
- Consumption of HFCS, for example, is linked to the dietary loss of zinc, which interferes with the elimination of heavy metals from the body. Many heavy metals like mercury, arsenic and cadmium are potent toxins with adverse effects on brain development in the young.
- HFCS consumption can also impact levels of other beneficial minerals, including calcium. Loss of calcium further exacerbates the detrimental effects of exposure to lead on brain development in fetuses and children.
- Inadequate levels of calcium in the body can also impair its ability to expel organophosphates, a class of pesticides long recognized by the EPA and independent scientists as especially toxic to the young developing brain.
