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Autism and Intellectual Disability Linked to Environmental Factors According to Research
Autism and Intellectual Disability Linked to Environmental Factors According to Research

Autism and Intellectual Disability Linked to Environmental Factors According to Research

The University of Chicago Medical Center issued the following news release:

Autism and intellectual disability incidence linked with environmental factors An analysis of 100 million US medical records reveals that autism and intellectual disability (ID) rates are correlated at the county level with incidence of genital malformations in newborn males, an indicator of possible congenital exposure to harmful environmental factors such as pesticides. Autism rates–after adjustment for gender, ethnic, socioeconomic and geopolitical factors–jump by 283 percent for every one percent increase in frequency of malformations in a county. Intellectual disability rates increase 94 percent. Slight increases in autism and ID rates are also seen in wealthier and more urban counties. The study, published by scientists from the University of Chicago March 13 in PLOS Computational Biology, confirms the dramatic effect of diagnostic standards. Incidence rates for Autism and ID on a per-person basis decrease by roughly 99 percent in states with stronger regulations on diagnosis of these disorders. “Autism appears to be strongly correlated with rate of congenital malformations of the genitals in males across the country,” said study author Andrey Rzhetsky, PhD, professor of genetic medicine and human genetics at the University of Chicago. “This gives an indicator of environmental load and the effect is surprisingly strong.”


See Link: http://news.uchicago.edu/article/2014/03/13/autism-and-intellectual-disability-incidence-linked-environmental-factors