New Study Links Autism to HFCS and Industrial Food

“To bet­ter address the explo­sion of autism, it’s crit­i­cal we con­sider how unhealthy diets inter­fere with the body’s abil­ity to elim­i­nate toxic chem­i­cals, and ulti­mately our risk for devel­op­ing long-term health prob­lems like autism.” said Dr. David Wallinga, a study co-author and physi­cian at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP).

Commander (ret.) Renee Dufault (U.S. Public Health Service), the study’s lead author and a for­mer Food and Drug Administration (FDA) tox­i­col­o­gist, devel­oped an inno­v­a­tive sci­en­tific approach to describe the sub­tle side effects of HFCS con­sump­tion and other dietary fac­tors on the human body and how they relate to chronic dis­or­ders. The model, called “macroepi­ge­net­ics,” allows researchers to con­sider how fac­tors of nutri­tion, envi­ron­ment and genetic makeup inter­act and con­tribute to the even­tual devel­op­ment of a par­tic­u­lar health outcome.

“With autism rates sky­rock­et­ing, our pub­lic edu­ca­tional sys­tem is under extreme stress,” said Dufault, who is also a licensed spe­cial edu­ca­tion teacher and founder of the Food Ingredient and Health Research Institute (FIHRI). As part of the cur­rent study, the authors found a 91 per­cent increase in the num­ber of chil­dren with autism receiv­ing spe­cial edu­ca­tional ser­vices in the U.S. between 2005 and 2010.

Key Findings:

• Autism and related dis­or­ders affect brain devel­op­ment. The cur­rent study sought to deter­mine how envi­ron­men­tal and dietary fac­tors, like HFCS con­sump­tion, might com­bine to con­tribute to the disorder.
• Consumption of HFCS, for exam­ple, is linked to the dietary loss of zinc, which inter­feres with the elim­i­na­tion of heavy met­als from the body. Many heavy met­als like mer­cury, arsenic and cad­mium are potent tox­ins with adverse effects on brain devel­op­ment in the young.

• HFCS con­sump­tion can also impact lev­els of other ben­e­fi­cial min­er­als, includ­ing cal­cium. Loss of cal­cium fur­ther exac­er­bates the detri­men­tal effects of expo­sure to lead on brain devel­op­ment in fetuses and children.
• Inadequate lev­els of cal­cium in the body can also impair its abil­ity to expel organophos­phates, a class of pes­ti­cides long rec­og­nized by the EPA and inde­pen­dent sci­en­tists as espe­cially toxic to the young devel­op­ing brain.

“Rather than being inde­pen­dent sources of risk, fac­tors like nutri­tion and expo­sure to toxic chem­i­cals are cumu­la­tive and syn­er­gis­tic in their poten­tial to dis­rupt nor­mal devel­op­ment,” said Dr. Richard Deth, a pro­fes­sor of Pharmacology at Northeastern University and a co-author of the study. “These epi­ge­netic effects can also be trans­mit­ted across gen­er­a­tions. As autism rates con­tinue to climb it is imper­a­tive to incor­po­rate this new epi­ge­netic per­spec­tive into pre­ven­tion, diag­no­sis and treat­ment strategies.”

The pic­ture of how and why a child devel­ops autism is a com­pli­cated one influ­enced by many dif­fer­ent fac­tors. The authors of this study have given insight into the com­plex inter­play between sev­eral of the fac­tors that may lead to the devel­op­ment of this debil­i­tat­ing neu­rode­vel­op­men­tal dis­or­der. In order to curb the epi­demic of autism in the U. S., con­tin­ued analy­sis of the impact of the indus­tri­al­ized food sys­tem and expo­sure to envi­ron­men­tal tox­ins on ASD must be key areas of research mov­ing forward.

The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy works locally and glob­ally at the inter­sec­tion of pol­icy and prac­tice to ensure fair and sus­tain­able food, farm and trade sys­tems. www.iatp.org

The Food Ingredient and Health Research Institute (FIHRI) is a non-profit orga­ni­za­tion devoted entirely to food ingre­di­ent safety, edu­ca­tion, and research. www.foodingredient.info

Source: Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy