Comments on: More on Maternal Immune Systems and Maternal Antibodies: A cause of autism?

By: Mother Guilt Returns

Mother Guilt Returns — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 05:20:05 +0000

[...] Hopkins University to participate in a research study about maternal antibodies (more about this here). In the study that the Cogdills participated in, “an antibody in all mothers of autistic [...]

By: Rachel

Rachel — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 23:02:46 +0000

I don’t agree that age has ANYTHING to do with anything (mentioned in earlier comments). I was 21 when I had my son , who was diagnosed with Autism at around 3 years old.
I am confused though. are they saying that mothers who did possibly play a part in their imuune systems maybe playing a part in an Autistic child, …will these mothers more than likely have some type of problems theirself? such as lups, MS, or arthritis?? wouldn’t that be a very good pssibility?
I am worried now.
Because my mother always seemed very healthy, but in her 40’s she was told she has a rare form of Lukemia. She also has rhumetoid arthritis.
I also feel that I may have a little bit of the Asphergers syndrome. lol.
I am pretty sure. I have always been extremley terified of being around new people, in front of a crowd, or looking someone in the eye when talking, and lots more.
I’m just scared now about possibly developing Lupus, or MS, or arthritis…or Lukemia. or if they are saying this about the mothers, couldn’t a child develope these illneses easier? (a child with autism)

By: Patience

Patience — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 20:13:22 +0000

This reminds me of the hypothesis that gay men are often boys with older brothers because their mothers produce antibodies that attack the fetus in some way. I don’t think I buy that line of reasoning, either, but it’s interesting.

By: wondering

wondering — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 16:19:53 +0000

Daedalus, you tout this low NO thing everywhere, and I’m now curious: could your hypothesis account for what I will, for complete lack of a better term, call adult-onset autism? I can’t be the only one who has shifted, around age 20, from being on the “quirky” side of NT to fitting diagnostic criteria for Asperger’s. This has coincided with a sudden increase in migraines and otitis media.

I know that correlation is nothing. It has also coincided with increased awareness of autism on my part, so perhaps I am more comfortable with myself.

By: daedalus2u

daedalus2u — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 01:00:43 +0000

Oxidative stress (which is identical with low NO) does cause immune system deviation and so does tend to cause autoimmune sensitization. That is a “feature”, when a part of an organ is compromised, it becomes hypoxic and exhibits oxidative stress. That dysfunctional piece of tissue needs to be cleared by the immune system.

Emily, that exactly fits with my low NO hypothesis of ASDs. Preeclampsia is a low NO state.

By: Bink

Bink — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 19:18:00 +0000

My family is enrolled in an autism registry and I remember being asked to participate in a study out of somewhere in Texas, last year or perhaps late 2006, that wanted us to list any members of the family, on both sides and of several generations, that had any kind of autoimmune disorder. So this is something a lot of people are working on, I think.

By: Emily

Emily — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 18:46:44 +0000

I’ve mentioned it before, but I’ll mention it again: It would not surprise me one bit if autoimmunity in families were found to ride side-by-side with autism spectrum disorders.

Also, on a potentially related note, of my three children, I developed pre-eclampsia/toxemia (immune-related disorder) with two and didn’t with one. Guess which children are on the spectrum or showing signs?

By: Kristina Chew, PhD

Kristina Chew, PhD — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 18:34:37 +0000

Thanks for that link—this is quite off the subject, but there was a theory in ancient Greek medicine that the woman was a “greenhouse” for the male’s seed; that the woman was just, as it were, a container, for the fetus to grow in. (This theory is described in the Greek tragedian Aeschylus’ Eumenides and also in some of the Hippocratic texts—-as in Hippocrates, the ancient doctor.) And who says that cultural attitudes don’t influence science, or what kinds of ideas are entertained…..

By: Owl

Owl — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 15:39:00 +0000

I don’t think there are any links between microchimerism or antibodies trasfering and age of eggs etc. I read an article on this type of issue in scientific american where immune cells from a mother can cross the placenta and get involved in various problems. The article even addressed how in some situations the presence of the mothers cells can be highly beneficial. Such as providing immunity against diseases that normally wouldn’t be covered by the child’s immune system, or say people with autoimmune diabetes, after doing autopsies the only pancreas cells left were made from the mothers cells, not the persons. This may just be dealing with antibodies instead of the full cells like in microchimerism, but the basic principle is the same… in many cases child mother biological interactions of this type can be good just as often or more often than bad and we don’t have any real test for when when the good will happen vs the bad. All sorts of bad things could happen but many of these are already guarded against which is why this stuff doesn’t happen to every child. Eventually we might get some tests to help predict negative interactions between the child’s immune system and the mothers (children’s immune systems can pass to mothers and cause problems to) but we are nowhere near that point. We’re just figuring out a lot of this stuff works.

You are right the age of first and later childbirths is biologically important. I seem to remember they found important links between age of first birth and breast cancer. But all mommy’s fault? That’s a difficult assertion to make, especially since whether a child would be recognized by mom’s cells as foreign tissue to be attacked has at least as much to do with daddy’s tissue as with mommy. After all the thing that really makes a difference for this kind of thing is how similar the mother’s immune system is to the child’s. And we have no idea what triggers a change from mothers cells being helpful to attacking other than the most different the immune systems the better.

See more on related issues:
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=your-cells-are-my-cells

By: Niksmom

Niksmom — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 15:17:38 +0000

I don’t know that I think it has as much to do with maternal age (as badmommy mentions above) but, perhpas, with family history of autimmune dysfunction. Then again, might it, in some cases, have as much to do with what happens to a child’s immune ystem in the early days of life –particularly children such as my son who spent a very long time in the hospital and were very ill/compromised. There are so many other factrs that may never be evaluated and/or considered—the way our food cahin/production has changed over the generations, the way our bodies have resonded to the changes, the environment, etc…I do not believe there is one specific, identifiable cause for autism that will be found.