Autism link of the day ozone

Post Reply New Topic

A newvanalysis shows that individuals with high levels of genetic variation and elevated exposure to ozone in the environment are at an even higher risk for developing
autism

The team looked at copy-number variation — deletions and duplications of repeated elements in the genome that lead to variation among individuals in the number of repeated elements — as a general measure of genetic variation and five types of air pollution — traffic-related air pollution, nitrogen oxides, two sizes of particulate matter, and ozone — in a large set of individuals with autism and a well-matched set of typically developing controls.

The study participants, obtained through the Childhood Autism Risks from Genetics and Environment (CHARGE) Study, a population-based case-control study led by Irva Hertz-Picciotto, professor of epidemiology and chief of the Division of Environmental and Occupational Health at University of California Davis, and one of the leaders of the research team, includes cases and controls matched for age, sex, and geographic location. Each of 158 cases and 147 controls were genetically scored for genetic deletions, duplications, and total changes in copy number. Environmental exposures for each participant were determined based on residential histories using data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Air Quality System.

Evaluation of each of the risk factors showed that duplications, total copy-number variation, and particulate matter in the environment had the largest individual impact on risk for autism. However, when the researchers evaluated interactions among the various risk factors they saw a large effect of ozone among children with either duplications or total copy-number variation. Ozone on its own had very little effect on risk for autism, such that in studies that did not take interactions among risk factors into consideration, it may have been ignored. Interactions among the various other factors, even those with large individual effects, appeared to have very little effect on risk.

The researchers speculate that the large effect of the interaction between ozone exposure and copy-number variation could be the result of the fact that ozone is an oxidizing agent, and is known to produce reactive oxygen species, like peroxides, that cause cellular stress and can alter cell function in many ways. High levels of copy-number variation may indicate a compromised state that is primed for the type of damage that ozone can cause.

Why aren't they conducting research into why people become neurotypical? That, as far as I'm concerned, is a far bigger problem.