Translating Autism, a blog about autism research by Nestor L. Lopez-Duran, Ph.D., has posted a summary of a recently published study about heavy metal toxicity and detoxification capacity in autism. The study is published in the Journal of the Neurological Sciences, and is based on the notion that autistic children have a diminished ability to remove toxins—such as mercury—-from their bodies. In an effort to prove this theory, the researchers looked at urinary porphyrins as a measure of mercury exposure; specifically, they examined “urinary porphyrin metabolites (a proposed measure of heavy metal toxicity) and plasma sulfates (a proposed measure of …read more