Autism Linked to Unusual Shapes in Lungs

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They always make up BS up in the papers. I don't believe half of it. I don't try to scare myself by believing Autism is a genetic disease. I just know it as a neurological disability, nothing else.

MrXxx I went into labour at 32 weeks, the labour was stopped by medication, they also gave me steroids to develop lungs quick and other organs.

My daughter was born at 36 weeks, she also has asthma she has dx for ADD, GAD but I strongly suspect ASD.

Her younger brother has AS dx no lung difficulties. My brother was also a blue baby and I would give him AS dx now that I understand autism.

You mean what I thought you meant wasn't what you really meant?! ! No way! Not possible!

Are you implying I have Autism?





I'm not sure, but I think I already thought you meant what I think you're saying you meant. If I'm right, no argument here.



I think most of us here want at least some better understanding. While I agree it is possible what this doctor found could just be a wild coincidence, I do think that is highly unlikely. It is extremely rare to run into numbers like this in any research.

BTW, I'm having a little problem with referring to this as a "study" and "research." It wasn't really either one was it? My interpretation of what happened there is that this doctor really just kind of "stumbled" over this. From what I gather, she wasn't even looking for it, was she?

If I'm right, and she did just stumble over it, that is even MORE significant. The way it's worded in the article makes it appear that's what happened, but I have to also wonder if the article wording might have been manipulated by the writer to make it appear that way.

"Then she noticed that these patients all had something else in common: 'Every single one has autism, or autism spectrum disorder," she says.'"

I do find that a little suspicious. How on earth do you look at the airways of 49 separate patients, and NOT notice throughout that entire period that ALL of them are Autistic?

Hmmm....

Now this thing is starting to give me an old familiar funny feeling I don't care for. Something about this does sound just a bit fishy.

Is it just a poorly written article? I mean, on the one hand, they say it was study, but then they make it look like she didn't even notice until afterward that they were all Autistic.

Okay, it's not the doctor or the study I'm suspicious of, it's the author.

I was a blue baby too. I asked on an autism forum for parents of autistic kids, and the MAJORITY of autistic kids were born blue. I think there's a link.

http://www.weartv.com/newsroom/top_stories/videos/wear_vid_18622.shtml

This article is from the TV station, where she lived, that interviewed her (video also availble at link).

This gives more details about the research, and findings that were documented over a period of a decade. I was a little confused from the previous article as to how she went about the research, considering autism is so rare, and the procedure used is not one commonly used on children, in general.

Within the context of a decade it sounds reasonable to me, that this being her speciality, that she would have come across this many autistic children in her practice, as they actually needed the procedure done for problems, rather than an experimental procedure.





I also wondered about what the control group was, and the information below from US World and News Reports states that she looked at 300 individuals without autism, and saw the condition in none of those patients.

The other thing I wondered about was, why hasn't anyone else noticed this but her. Apparently from her comments below it's not something that one can easily spot in the results of the tests.

This test records are video of the actual procedure, as shown on the video in the report from Pensacola, so it's something that others can look at and identify as well, not just written documentation.

The fact that she studied and didn't find it all in 300 other patients, is a large sample for a study control group. Considering that this is not a procedure done commonly on children, 49 children is a very large sample for autistic children considering that population in itself is a rare one. No wonder it took her a decade to compile these kind of results.

Now the next thing I wonder though, is if she saw this over a ten year period, why wait this long to provide results in a study, and why has it taken so long for the information to become public?

From what I understand of what I have read so far, no one anywhere has identified this specific lung anomaly except for her. If I understand this correctly, it seems like the anomaly would have been noted long before now and others would have potentially documented it in others with Autism by now.

And finally, if this procedure is videotaped and kept in medical records, it seems there would be the potential to study past records at other institutions when identified autistic children had the procedure. I think that would require permission from the parents, which most would probably give, it think. Since the procedure is not pleasant for children, it doesn't seem like it would be likely done, based on future experimental reasons alone.

If after peer reviewed no one sees evidence of the anomaly in any of the 300 children and only see it in the autistic children, it will be some of the most compelling evidence I have seen for any physical anomaly related to a neurological condition.

From US News And World Report:


http://health.usnews.com/health-news/family-health/brain-and-behavior/articles/2011/10/24/could-airway-abnormality-point-to-autism

You could actually not notice until after the fact. The kids would have been sedated so any mannerisms or ways of talking that would be noticeably autistic would not be seen. There aren't consistent physical features. It would be in the medical record of course. But to a pulmonologist doing a bronchoscopy that would be the least important piece of information on the medical record- something noticed but not focused on as relevent. It would be the sort of thing you'd realize was consistent among all the patients who had the doublet formation only after you got over the oddness of the doublet formation in the first place.

You'd think that the pulmonologist would have a chance to consult with the kid while awake, but not necessarily so. Sometimes doctors breeze in after the patient is already sedated- specialists especially.

They need to get an embryologist in on this to go over what neurological development is happening while the bronchioles are developing. There may be a pinpointable time in development when the structure of both brain and lungs veers away from what is typical.

For comparative data, they've got visual records of all the kids who have been bronched at that hospital. With parental permission, perhaps they can go back over those records and see if this is consistent across their patients. It's worth a look.


edited to add: now that I read ahogday's post right before this one I see that they did exactly that and found this formation consistently missing from the visual records of bronchoscopies on non-autistic patients. So I think it's meaningful.

I strung these quotes of yours together because it is odd that nobody else has noticed it. But also maybe not so odd. It seems that this anomoly isn't something pulmonologists look for as clinically significant. She doesn't even really say that it's clinically significant, although that will surely be looked at now given how asthma can be co-morbid with autism. If you aren't looking for something and that something is really hard to spot, you probably won't spot it. It seems like it was purely a coincidence she saw it the first time. Maybe seeing it once by accident caused her to be on the lookoout for it in future patients. At first she would be on the lookout for it without making any link to autism. She is a pulmonologist after all and concentrates just on lungs.

Then once you see it then like a Magic Eye picture you can keep seeing it, just as she showed a colleague.

It is entirely possible that other pulmonologists have seen it too but made no note of it because it wasn't clinically relevent. Going over records from other institutions needs to be the next step.

Air entering the lungs is then warmer from increased surface area of the intake tubes. Does the article mention overall diameter of intake?

In a cold climate, this may or may not confer an evolutionary advantage

Cold air is more dense and carries more oxygen than warm air...by volume....

Drag racing cars have an ice box air intake to the engine.... the cold air makes them go faster, than ambient air

Yogis recommend nose breathing rather than mouth breathing, as the warmer air drawn thru nasal passages is supposedly beneficial to humans

That's an interesting point. From an evolutionary perspective the nose in individuals isolated in certain geographical areas have adapted depending on whether or not the climate is hot, cold, humid, or arid. Now that people have the ability to migrate to anywhere in the world, the characteristics of the nose that were once inherently beneficial for the origin, can become less of an advantage in a different climate.

In the article it stated that the children had normal lung function, however it was questioned whether or not this anamoly was the cause of coughing or shortness of breath. I didn't see any suggestion that the anamoly had any potential human advantage. That might be pursued in further research.

In every case these children have some kind of respiratory problem, so unless they actually test autistic individuals with no respiratory problems, it's going to be difficult to find a conclusion that it is a common issue in autism.

49 kids in 10 years averages out to about 1 child with a respiratory problem every 3 months, requiring the procedure. It could be as in so many other markers that it is a co-morbid condition that just happens to accompany some diagnosed cases of autism.

I think it would be a tough call to say these doublets are a symptom of autism, unless they study autistic kids without respiratory issues, that don't need such an invasive procedure. There is post mortem potential, but I can't see doctor's doing this procedure on healthy kids with autism as part of an experiment.

I hope this doesn't mean Autistic people can just drop dead at any age for no reason (except for this lung thing).

I was born yellow

Well I know loads of parents of NT children who were born with breathing difficulties. My brother actually did. He had to be kept in hospital for a couple of days after birth, under one of those breathing things. I actually wasn't born with breathing difficulties. (Funny how I haven't got any of the physical BS what gets mentioned on here...)

I suffer from asthma, but it's not caused by different lungs, I'm just allergic.

Yes, I guess, it must not have been clinically relevant without the link to autism, or one could probably find a similiar description of the anamoly with a search for it on the internet. I tried, and could find nothing similiar.

I think it really shows how much more there is to learn in the general area of medical research, considering it has taken this long to get this finding, that at this point seems to be an amazingly consistent finding when one knows what to look for.

UGH, please PLEASE stop it with all these stupid connections between autism and something else!! Its really driving me crazy!

Get some peace dude, it aint a stupid connection if you understand science and 100% detections in research.

If you want to discuss boobies and penises thats the other forum