Does stress on an infant all by itself cause autism? Good grief, no. Who would think that? So what’s your point? So far I’m guessing you are saying that vaccines caused a (non-existent) autism epidemic and that maybe it was vaccines plus stress that caused gut problems which cause then caused autism?

Vaccines don’t cause autism. There was no autism epidemic so we don’t need to go searching for something that changed at the same time autism started to “increase”... No reason ever to have looked at vaccines in relation to autism at all (no more than we needed to look into the effect of space alien abduction or cell phones) except for those lawyers and those parents looking for someone to sue and the antivax establishment is always ready to flood the internet with their scary, scary stories, which is very helpful to the lawyers.

My statement was WRT to singular initial causation (note the term “the causative factor”). That would imply strictly unique stress factors on these infants which I stated I found difficult (but not impossible) to believe as the causative factor.

A very complex interaction between multiple factors as per mattloft’s hypothesis makes a lot more sense than just pure stress/GI interaction.

Too bad you see past your own bias that you need to project conflict on everything other people say.

There is no reason to find it difficult believe that stress is a factor in (you name it) in very young autistic children. Hence my point, if you knew what small autistic children are like and what they are expected to do, that they can’t do (sometimes), then you wouldn’t be doubting that stress was a factor for small children (babies/toddlers).

If you just admit that you don’t know something, that’s OK. As for wasted screen space, you are constantly hammering on vaccines when vaccines have absolutely nothing to do with autism.

Thanks for the thorough response. I sent you a PM on the AS boards which still work.

You might have missed the “While I agree completely…” part. No where did I state that I doubted any stress/gut connection. I am discussing the causative factors with Loftmatt, and asked clarifying questions as to his thoughts.

The rest of your post was a waste of screen space.

– Behaviors: many behaviors of autistic kids convey the fact they are under stress, from the stereotypies that mimic behaviors of adults under stress (pacing, rocking etc…), the eye contact avoidance (harder to do under stress), the tendency to withdraw (the flight portion of the fight or flight response), to the melt downs (capacity to absorb more stress is exhausted – neurotypical children also experience melt downs at times like the holidays).
– Co-Morbid Conditions: autistic kids have many co-morbid conditions that indicate high stress, from the gastrointestinal disorders we have discussed, to elevated levels of autoimmunity (cortisol function is key here) along with other immune system abnormalities, to nearly universal anxiety disorders like panic disorders, phobias, and generalized anxiety disorder, to depression (most cases of major depressive disorder are triggered by stressors).
– Blood Chemicals: autistic kids frequently show higher levels of stress system chemicals like noradrenaline and endorphins, HPA axis chemicals like ACTH, and neuropeptides associated with the stress response like Substance P, VIP, and CGRP.
– Abnormally high levels of oxidative stress, which is intimately tied into the human stress response. This may be responsible for some of the findings in autistic children that are often tied to heavy metals, such as low levels of glutathione, high levels of homocysteine, and abnormal nitric oxide.
– Many other indicators of overactive stress responsivity that I can go into if people are interested.

Ms. Clark, I agree with your concerns about testing autistic kids for stress response problems. If people were paying more attention to the role of stress in autism (as is evident from the reports of parents and those who suffer from the condition), they would overcome the problems you see in measuring cortisol and other markers of stress. However, there is a fair amount of data showing cortisol abnormalities in autism other than the MIND study you mention.

This is a study on autism. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pu.....d_RVDocSum

Similar findings have been shown in Tourette’s syndrome, which is highly comorbid with autism.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pu.....rom=pubmed

However, the most interesting findings I have seen in autism relate to a small variant of kids with infantile autism who tend to develop schizophrenia later in life, what is called Multiple Complex Development Disorder. Their autistic symptoms are less severe than autism, and their progression is abnormal. The researchers were surprised by the results of this study, which showed typical elevated cortisol in the typical autistic kids, but very low marginal cortisol responsivity in the MCDD kids.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pu.....d_RVDocSum

However, if you go beyond cortisol levels, there are a host of other indicators that stress responsivity is a problem in autism.

– Behaviors: many behaviors of autistic kids convey the fact they are under stress, from the stereotypies that mimic behaviors of adults under stress (pacing, rocking etc…), the eye contact avoidance (harder to do under stress), the tendency to withdraw (the flight portion of the fight or flight response), to the melt downs (capacity to absorb more stress is exhausted – neurotypical children also experience melt downs at times like the holidays).
– Co-Morbid Conditions: autistic kids have many co-morbid conditions that indicate high stress, from the gastrointestinal disorders we have discussed, to elevated levels of autoimmunity (cortisol function is key here) along with other immune system abnormalities, to nearly universal anxiety disorders like panic disorders, phobias, and generalized anxiety disorder, to depression (most cases of major depressive disorder are triggered by stressors).
– Blood Chemicals: autistic kids frequently show higher levels of stress system chemicals like noradrenaline and endorphins, HPA axis chemicals like ACTH, and neuropeptides associated with the stress response like Substance P, VIP, and CGRP.
– Abnormally high levels of oxidative stress, which is intimately tied into the human stress response. This may be responsible for some of the findings in autistic children that are often tied to heavy metals, such as low levels of glutathione, high levels of homocysteine, and abnormal nitric oxide.
– Many other indicators of overactive stress responsivity that I can go into if people are interested.