Landmark Study Gives More Evidence to the Mercury Autism Connection

Landmark Study Gives More Evidence to the Mercury Autism Connection

A new study, “Biomarkers of Environmental Toxicity and Susceptibility in Autism” in the peer-reviewed Journal of the Neurological Sciences, confirms a causal link between sub acute mercury poisoning in children and their autism spectrum disorder (ASD) diagnosis. The autism community reported that this study presents, “…some compelling evidence…consistent with the author’s theory that mercury exposure plays a role in autism.” This paper  presents the first prospective, blinded cohort study to examine children diagnosed with an ASD using: urinary porphyrin profile analysis (UPPA) to assess the body-burden and physiological effects of their mercury,  glutathione analysis to assess susceptibility to mercury poisoning, and Childhood Autism Rating Scale (CARS) scores to measure ASD severity.

These evaluations established:

1. Non-chelated patients diagnosed with an ASD had UPPA profiles indicative of mercury poisoning that strongly correlated with ASD severity, measured using CARS scores.
2. Glutathione (a key biochemical in the body’s mercury detoxification pathway) was significantly lower in patients diagnosed with an ASD in comparison with its level in neurotypical controls.
3. Increasing mercury-poisoning severity, as indicated by the UPPA results, was associated with lower glutathione levels among the patients diagnosed with an ASD.

Based upon these findings, the researchers concluded, “ASDs may result from a combination of genetic/ biochemical susceptibilities in the form of a reduced ability to excrete mercury and/or increased environ-mental exposures at key developmental times.”

The urinary porphyrin test has quickly become one of my favorite labs to diagnosed mercury toxicity.  It has made the art of chelation and metal analysis much more accurate, allowing me to correctly track our progress. If you are interested in screening your child, please contact our office for a 15% discount on all porphyrin tests done in the month of November.

References:

Article quoted from Sept 10^th Shafer Report www.sarnet.org