My personal theory of autism

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I speak here as an autodidactic layman looking at autism spectrum disorder from the inside, not an expert, but I would like feedback on my theory.

Let's start with a few givens:

1. Numerous studies have found brain structure anomalies specific to autism.
2. Most of these anomalies involve increases in size and reduction in function of these structures.
3. The overall rate of autism in the population is rising.

Now let's throw in two other facts.

4. Prenatal and neonatal care is improving at a dramatic rate.
I am a child of the '60's. My mother has never smoked and has probably had a total of one six pack of beer in her lifetime. My father quit smoking long before he met my mother, so there were no smokers living in my home during my mother's pregnancy, but that was a wild exception at the time. Prenatal exposure to alcohol and cigarette smoke has dropped dramatically in the United States. Gone are the days when there were ashtrays in the grocery stores and doctors offices, and physicians recommended that pregnant women control their weight by having a smoke if they felt hungry.

5. Humans evolved in an environment of toxic woodsmoke and borderline malnutrition.
Until the invention of the electric light in 1879, artificial light meant fire. From the early hearths and braziers without chimneys to the later fireplaces, oil lamps and candles, these filled homes with various amounts of smoke. The electric stove didn't start to become popular until the 1920's. Even now, gas stoves and ovens are the favorites of people who want fine temperature control of their cooking. Wood, coal or gas stoves all create combustion byproducts. Famine remains a significant problem in many parts of the world. America saw its last major famine in the 1930's, during the Dustbowl and the Great Depression. During WWII, the most common reasons for enlistees to be declared unfit for service were the lasting effects of childhood malnutrition.

All that being said, I suspect that humans evolved certain brain structures to be massively redundant and to be ablative. Autism is what happens when these structures are not pared back by the environment.

If my theory is correct, we will continue to see autism rates rise.

Feedback, anyone?

Interesting idea. My mom is a Mormon, which means that during her pregnancy she was advised by her bishop (the equivalent to a parish priest) to adhere to the Mormon dietary code, the Words of Wisdom. She did. The WoW was pretty innovative for the 1830s, when Mormon founder Joseph Smith wrote them. No alcohol, no tobacco, not even tea. Mormon leaders have said that caffeine is forbidden as well. True believers don't drink so much as a soda pop, and Utah has America's strictest liquor laws. In addition, my father was and is pretty sickly, and deficiencies in male sperm, usually resulting from advanced age and/or chronic illness of the father, is a known risk factor. So you have a sick father and a mom who was a diet nazi during gestation. All in a suburban environment where the biggest problem was dust.

There are so many different causes of autism; I don't believe they'll ever come up with a "paramount" cause.

@Ikari Gendo: What is your area of expertise? Have you earned any medical degrees?

My only formal medical training is as an EMT. I've studied bits of everything from archeology to zoology. I have a BS in English. People who know me are surprised when I don't know the answers to trivia questions.

My theory has no specific studies behind it, but pezar presents an interesting idea. If my idea is correct, higher autism rates should have appeared earlier in Mormon communities, because of the smoking and drinking bans. I wouldn't expect autism to start showing up much before the 1950's, even in these communities, because of solid fuel and oil fueled cook stoves in the pre-WWII era.

I believe the primary reason why there's been an increase in the "incidence" of autism, especially since 1994, is because of:

1. More awareness of autism

2. A broadening of the diagnostic criteria within DSM IV (somewhat less broad in DSM V).

Of course, we should dismiss environmental influences, or any other influences, outright.

My mother was a heavy smoker while she was pregnant with me in 1960. The big 1964 Surgeon General's report hadn't, of course, come out. People smoked everywhere. People smoked on TV and in movies without any problem from censors. Cigarettes were advertised widely on TV (it was banned in 1971). Smoking was a ubiquitous thing--your were thought weird and nerdy if you DIDN'T smoke.

Cigarettes were about 20 cents a pack in 1960. People routinely smoked at least 2 packs a day. 4 packs a day wasn't really unusual.

I don't blame my mother for smoking during her pregnancy. The impacts of smoking were only known by a few doctors.

Is this a joke?

There is no logical basis for the inference you make.

What is interesting is that you don't take into account the parasitology/immunology perspective which is somewhat related but has some real thinking behind it.

Unless you can propose a chemical pathway that shows how toxic smoke and borderline malnutrition would suppress autism, then there is no reason to give your fantasy of causality more than a moment's thought.

The rise of autism is due to more awareness for autism so more people are being diagnosed. High-functioning autism is still a relatively new diagnoses. 40 years ago I think most people diagnosed with autism were much more severe.

The general public still thinks of autism as low-functioning but autism is such a wide spectrum from the very intelligent to the very impaired. Many with aspergers are not even diagnosed until they're teenagers or older in contrast to more lower functioning individuals. Autism is also unique in that it affects people in different ways and could even be caused by different things yet social impairments is the universal trait for autism diagnoses.

1994 is the real cut-off year.

Before then, and especially before 1980, autism was Kanner Autism.

In the 1980s, it seemed as if there was some vague concept of "high-functioning" autism, though it really wasn't coherent as of yet.

My theory is that the incidents of Autism are on the rise due to the amount of data our world is putting through the human brain... there is more, but i am feeling lazy today.

In essence you're saying that autism is caused by excessive health.

We not only live in a "post scarcity" society were we get enough to eat, but we dont smoke as much anymore either. And get checkups, and so on.

And all of this health causes overgrown brains?

Like: weve taken away all of the natural trimming shears, so our brains our like overgrown hedges?

I will just hafta...pull some weeds in there, and ponder that for a while I guess!