Autism is now a household word. This was not true ten years ago. In the 1970’s, when I was a Pediatric Intern, I recall being shown the first patient I had ever seen with autism. The Senior Resident told me to pay very close attention to this rare condition, because I would probably never see one again. Then, the incidence of autism was one in 10,000 children. By the 1990s, this figure had risen to one in 500. In the U.S., the figure is now estimated to be as high as one in 166. This equates to approximately 1.5 million autistic children with a cost of care at $90,000,000,000 per year.
What has caused this?
While not 100% known, scientists have identified several areas that appear to be important in the causation of this epidemic.
1. The most susceptible children appear to have a detoxification system that is slow in removing heavy metals like mercury and other toxins (like PCBS, dioxins, pesticides, plastics, flame retardants) that have entered their bodies. With this slow detoxification system, the toxin levels accumulate and cause injury to the brain and other systems resulting in the problems we see in autistic children. The main defect identified is with a protein antioxidant called glutathione. In these children, the level of active versus inactive glutathione is too low.
2. One of the main concerns is mercury, since it is a known toxin to the developing brain, nervous system and intestine. Published studies show that one is every six pregnancies is exposed to mercury above the EPA’s safe level from maternal eating of contaminated seafood. (CDC 2002, Mahaffey 2004). Another source of mercury has been Thimerosal, a mercury based preservative used in childhood vaccines from 1988-2002 and still used in Flu vaccines today. Dental mercury (either new “silver” fillings, which contain about 500 gram of mercury in each, placed in the mother’s mouth during pregnancy or into the child may also be a significant source.
Faced with this information we can see that at least two areas must be addressed. Can we decrease the child’s future exposure to mercury and other toxins so that no added toxic build up will occur? And can we support the detoxification system so that healthier levels of glutathione and other nutrients are present to deal with the existing load?
At BodyHealth our goal has been to develop products that support the healthy function of the detoxification system. For further information please read about Metal-Free and these other exciting products and how they may lead to improved health in autistic children.
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This statement has not been evaluated by the FDA. Metal-Free is a dietary supplement and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.
