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Aside from politics, do scientists actually know what causes autism? Sorry if this question is ignorant, but I have no clue about that.
There are many theories, but nothing really replicable. Genetics definitely play a role, and air pollution is implicated pretty heavily, but we don't have a "do this and you get autism" yet. There could be more than one cause, too - biology is messy.
It's a complex genetic disorder, where many genes influence an outcome that generates a spectrum of disease. While at one end of the spectrum it can be debilitating at the other end it produces some of the best minds in STEM. In other words, there is an evolutionary advantage in humans to have autism in the population.
This is a very complex genetic disorder from birth. There is definitely is not an environmental cause. By try explaining this to a guy that swims in sewage.
We know it's HEAVILY influence by genetics, but there seems to be some other component as well. That unknown piece, from what I understand, has not been discovered.
In identical twins (same DNA,) If one twin has ASD, the other only has it 96% of the time. If it was purely genetic, this should be 100%.
https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/severity-autism-symptoms-varies-greatly-among-identical-twins
Not true, that's called twin discordance. It's very common. While they were born with the same DNA sequence, every person develops slightly differently and has a different epigenetic profile. The concept that twins are identical when developed was outdated about 20 years ago.
Isn't twin discordance only referring to different weights/sizes at birth?
Could be down to gene drift or random mutation at that point, pretty sure that 4 percent is well within such variables.
Epigenetics (differences in gene expression) is more than sufficient; an actual mutation isn't necessary.
is is?
I read a thing the other day that acetaminophen during pregnancy is now suspected as a cause.
It inhibits cell division and is now considered harmful to pregnancy and conception.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40819833/
But there’s also a recent finding suggesting it doesn’t
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38592388/
I hadn’t seen that second result before writing this comment
It's also worth noting that acetaminophen is pretty much the ONLY OTC painkiller you're allowed to take while pregnant (other than baby aspirin as a preventative if you're high risk for pre-eclampsia), so I strongly suspect a sizeable majority of people end up using it at least once during pregnancy. It's common enough that I'd imagine separating correlation from causation on that one might be especially difficult.
In all likelihood the root cause of ASD is multifactoral and appears to be at least partially genetic.
It's also used to treat things that have also shown potential links to ASD, like certain viral infections.
The conclusion from meta analysis reviews of ASD research on environmental causes is that none of it is conclusive, and most of it is poor quality. This is a chronic problem with epidemiology.
Thanks! That’s interesting.
besides having sex with your mom?