Now You Can Blame Cholesterol
September 7, 2006 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
Low cholesterol (hypocholesterolemia), that is. Research at the Autism Metabolic Research Program at the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore has found that a subgroup of autistic children have abnormally low cholesterol, as reported in today’s Doctor’s Guide.
“We know that people can tolerate having low cholesterol, so we suspect that deficiencies in cholesterol combined with mutations to a specific gene may have resulted in autism spectrum disorders in these children,” said lead author Elaine Tierney, MD, Director of the Autism Metabolic Research Program at the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore. “Our next steps are to determine if other abnormalities of cholesterol metabolism can be risk factors for the development of autism.”
The study is published in American Journal of Medical Genetics Part B (Neuropsychiatric Genetics) and was supported by funding from Cure Autism Now and the Smith-Lemli-Opitz/RSH Foundation.
Whoa.
Every descendent of one of DH’s grandparents who has ever had cholesterol tested has had remarkably low cholesterol. I wonder if that has anything to do with any of our kids?
(Probable AS in both grandfathers probably has something to do with it, as well….)