Researchers studying autism found that a lack of allopregnanolone caused autistic behavior in mice. This raises the simple solution for autism: get a shot during pregnancy. It also raises the specter of parental guilt because premature babies are more likely to be deficient in allopregnanolone. As the article says, 1 in 10 babies are premature, 1 in 59 have autism. So maybe there's a direct connection to how long the baby stays in the womb?
There's a simple answer to whether this allopregnanolone is going to be the key factor in curing autism. Since premature babies are far more deficient, we would expect far more autism in premature babies. Less allopregnanolone, more autism. That's the connection we need to explore.
Let's start with the less extreme cases of prematurity. Babies born less than 37 weeks are considered premature. So let's look at babies born between 27 and 37 weeks. Well, "studies tend to use different cutoffs to define prematurity, making it difficult to combine and analyze the data" but the risk seems to rise for every week the baby loses in the womb. Not a lot, though. Enough to notice, but not enough to make a straight claim for a hormone shot fixing the problem. The risk of autism is overall about 0.5 percent, and rises to 0.6 percent if we go back to 28 weeks. Before that, the estimate goes up to 1.2% for babies younger than 28 weeks.
So are very premature babies more likely to develop autism? Yes. Very premature babies (less than 27 weeks) are at risk for enormous problems, including autism. These little babies in one small study had almost a 30% risk of developing autism. But keep in mind that two-thirds of even these very premature babies did not have autism. If the lack of allopregnanolone is the cause of autism, every single one of these little ones would be positive for it.
Can we conclude that a lack of hormone causes autism? No. We can say that more research needs to clarify what it means to be premature, and if we can show that immature infants lack that hormone then it makes sense to look at giving it. But when a larger study puts the risk at a little over 1% and a smaller study says the risk of autism is 30%, then we don't have comparable studies. We don't even know what we're dealing with in terms of risk, so it's way too soon to start giving moms shots to fix something we're not sure is a problem.
But isn't allopregnanolone a natural hormone? How much harm could it cause? Tons. This is a brain-altering hormone, and would permanently change the brains of the children. We have no idea what this would do. It's a little suspicious to have this article come out now, when the commercial formulation of allopregnanolone, brexanolone, was just approved in June 2019 for use in the United States for post-partum depression. A cynical person would say this article has less to do about curing autism and more to do with creating a buzz around a new drug for moms. For those looking at it for that purpose let me clearly say that every new drug has a two-year honeymoon period before we really know the side effect picture. There are a lot of things I'd try first that have a longer proven history.
There's a simple answer to whether this allopregnanolone is going to be the key factor in curing autism. Since premature babies are far more deficient, we would expect far more autism in premature babies. Less allopregnanolone, more autism. That's the connection we need to explore.
Let's start with the less extreme cases of prematurity. Babies born less than 37 weeks are considered premature. So let's look at babies born between 27 and 37 weeks. Well, "studies tend to use different cutoffs to define prematurity, making it difficult to combine and analyze the data" but the risk seems to rise for every week the baby loses in the womb. Not a lot, though. Enough to notice, but not enough to make a straight claim for a hormone shot fixing the problem. The risk of autism is overall about 0.5 percent, and rises to 0.6 percent if we go back to 28 weeks. Before that, the estimate goes up to 1.2% for babies younger than 28 weeks.
So are very premature babies more likely to develop autism? Yes. Very premature babies (less than 27 weeks) are at risk for enormous problems, including autism. These little babies in one small study had almost a 30% risk of developing autism. But keep in mind that two-thirds of even these very premature babies did not have autism. If the lack of allopregnanolone is the cause of autism, every single one of these little ones would be positive for it.
Can we conclude that a lack of hormone causes autism? No. We can say that more research needs to clarify what it means to be premature, and if we can show that immature infants lack that hormone then it makes sense to look at giving it. But when a larger study puts the risk at a little over 1% and a smaller study says the risk of autism is 30%, then we don't have comparable studies. We don't even know what we're dealing with in terms of risk, so it's way too soon to start giving moms shots to fix something we're not sure is a problem.
But isn't allopregnanolone a natural hormone? How much harm could it cause? Tons. This is a brain-altering hormone, and would permanently change the brains of the children. We have no idea what this would do. It's a little suspicious to have this article come out now, when the commercial formulation of allopregnanolone, brexanolone, was just approved in June 2019 for use in the United States for post-partum depression. A cynical person would say this article has less to do about curing autism and more to do with creating a buzz around a new drug for moms. For those looking at it for that purpose let me clearly say that every new drug has a two-year honeymoon period before we really know the side effect picture. There are a lot of things I'd try first that have a longer proven history.
 |
| Image by esudroff from Pixabay |
Comments
Post a Comment