Vitamin D?

[ekh_78]

I have heard that women with vitamin D deficiency, are prone to give birth to children with autism. Apparently in Europe, none-European immigrants are more likely to have autistic children then the average European, and it has been suggested that that’s because of lack of vitamin D. See most of them have dark skin that needs more sunlight to

Comments

[les_lenne]

Most Aspies I met were more on the corpse side of skin color, and my own skin is extremely pale, too. So what you wrote seems rather strange and unlikely to me. :/

[lostinyonkers]

yes but to be fair, anecdotal evidence doesn't prove anything. just because most aspies you know are pale doesn't mean most actually are--you just may live in an area where you mostly encounter whiteys.

[klgaffney]

to be honest, i suspect, like most other things, the darker-skinned populations of the u.s. are far less likely to be diagnosed in the first place. i doesn't know how the situation is or how widely it's recognized at all in other countries.

[lostinyonkers]

yep. i'd suspect that too

[klgaffney]

See most of them have dark skin that needs more sunlight to produce D-vitamin...

um, no. it doesn't work that way. this is psuedo-science at best.

[ekh_78]

Pseudoscience, I half and half expected it.

[klgaffney]

upon further research, there's evidence that vitamin d production is affected? but not drastically enough to be that big an issue. location on the globe would be more of a telling thing. are there significantly more autistics in the far north and south?

[kisekileia]

Larger doses of vitamin D than most people consume have been found to protect against cancer, so vitamin D supplementation probably wouldn't hurt unless it's ridiculous megadoses.

[itsa_wallaby]

Or if you're trying to aquire all of your vitamin D by staying in the sun all the time, which probably _will_ give you skin cancer.

[teamnoir]

I would offer another alternative.

Aspieness seems to be, at least anecdotally, hereditary. Europe has a pretty high population density. UK, on average, has 10x the population density of the US. (Australia has 1/10th the population density of the US).

Therefor, I would posit that families carrying the aspie "gene" are more likely to have fled the population density some time ago.

The only way to support or counter my theory would be to examine the autism frequency in immigrants who have lighter skin than most Europeans. But such a population isn't easy to find. Perhaps studying east Europeans living in western Europe?

[teamnoir]

Iceland. What's the autism frequency in Iceland?

Iceland are largely lighter skin. They're also above the arctic circle. And Iceland is all European immigrants and their population density is low. And they have pretty good health care.

If skin color and vitamin D are a factor, they should be moderate autism frequency. If population density and immigration is a factor, they should be relatively high, (although perhaps undiagnosed if the rate is high enough).

[einodia]

i kind of want to make this study now...

oh, if only i had a laboratory - i would rule the world. or simply vanish into the lab, never to see the light of day again and therefore desperately need some vitamin D of my own. lawl.

[dazed_girl]

Well too much of anything can be bad.

I find this interesting because I've been seeing an endocrinologist for a medical condition I have, and on my last appointment she mentioned how I looked pale and wanted to check my Vitamin D levels on my next blood test. I am taking Vitamin D now, but I think the reason they could possibly be low is because I don't go out much. :P

I don't think there is anything to this theory, but it's still interesting.