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Spike in Autism May Be Linked to Preservative in Processed Foods, Study Suggests

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Re: Spike in Autism May Be Linked to Preservative in Processed Foods, Study Suggests

#31

Post by ex3xu »

gus_massa wrote: post #29
ex3xu wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right that it's a low sample size, and the authors themselves do warn that diagnostic rates of ASD in children may be inflated: > With the increasing reported frequency of ASD in the pedi-atric population one cannot rule out a possible coincidence of the diagnosis of ASD in patients with propionic acidemia. Regarding the calculation, Wikipedia says 1 in 35000 for PA the US, rather than 3500, and the researcher…

* 1000 cases in the word instead of 20000 OK. I'm fine with that. My idea was to show that if we assume independence, it is not difficult that someone can find 12 cases with both illness. * About the calculation: Is that in the paper? [I assume that "some negligible amount" means "close to 1".] This calculation is the probability that if you pick 12 persons at random from the whole word population you find a group wi…

They mention the 5 ASD out of 8 PA sample size, and they explicitly cite the .005 rate of ASD, but I think their PA incidence number is different than the one available on Wikipedia, and I couldn't find it in the paper so that may be where the discrepancy is from. I may be wrong but I don't think we need the combinatorics for this particular calculation since their calculation is trying to disprove that these events are independent rather than calculate the joint conditional probability. Obviously I can't comment on whether any cherry picking was done, or if these just happen to be the available sample of available children with this rare metabolic disorder. I'd agree and I think the authors of the study would agree that the sample size is too small for any definitive conclusions, but I think the body of evidence when considering the rest of the available PPA studies make a reasonable case for it to be a finding of interest.

Re: Spike in Autism May Be Linked to Preservative in Processed Foods, Study Suggests

#33

Post by olliej »

typeformer wrote: post #23
nilsb wrote: post #11

Or maybe the "rise" in autism rates is due to the fact that our diagnostic tools have become more advanced in the past 20 years which has resulted in more people getting their diagnoses. In particular older people (i.e. 30+) are getting diagnosed just now because doctors previously didn't know what they were looking for.

Do you not think that the highly competent researchers didn't account for this very well know the rise in the data. Their findings here are novel, critically important and are related to a host of other works revealing the intricate links between the gut biome and neurobiology previously unknown. Parkinsons is another disease that recently has been shown to potentially be related to changes in the gut biome.

The highly competent researchers have to answer the question:

“why have the number of children diagnosed with ASD increased?”

They can’t “control” for changing diagnostic rules: that would literally mean “controlling” the exact thing they’re trying to analyze.

What they are doing (as medicinal chemists?) is identify a compound(s) that correlate with the increased diagnoses.

Another study might investigate the method by which ASD is diagnosed - eg applying modern diagnoses to old diagnoses, and vice versa.

There are also definitely sociological factors that could contribute - in the US specialized educational support for kids diagnosed with ASD is much better funded per-capita than most other learning difficulties, so there is a clear advantage to pushing for (or shopping around for) a dr that will give an ASD diagnosis - eg If you can get FAS diagnoses as ASD you’ll get much more financial and educational support.

Personally I expect there to be a parental age component (which would explain the increased prevalence, relative to overall average, of ASD in middle and upper class Caucasian families, at least in the US).

I suspect however it’s going to be a combination of all those factors, and probably a few more for good measure.

Re: Spike in Autism May Be Linked to Preservative in Processed Foods, Study Suggests

#34

Post by UnFleshedOne »

aklemm wrote: post #30
UnFleshedOne wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basic cooking taking a lot of time is a myth. Sure, if you don't have a kitchen and a fridge at all, that is a problem. And I suppose if you don't know how to turn on the oven then the whole endeavor looks like marathon running (and winning) looks to a bed-ridden person. But your goal is not to be a professional chief in 5 star restaurant, it is to cook some soup from whatever is in the fridge, boil some pasta, fry s…

It is absolutely not a myth. Every convenience you see represents time and "value" added by the food industry making it easier to put food into yourself. Of course it comes at the cost of health and the health of the environment. Compare a fresh head of broccoli to a package frozen; with fresh, you've got to clean it, trim it, clean up after your trimming, and finally cook it. With frozen, snip a bag open and you're…

That's the problem -- you are preparing 2-3 meals a day instead of two big pots once a week and simply reheating them for your meals. At this point time and effort investment starts being significant (you get to eat different freshly cooked food each day so it might be worth it, if that's your preference).

For example it took me 1-2h (including cleanup, but not counting shopping) to prepare 7 liter pot of stew from random veggies and some meat. It will last us whole week in lunches to take to work. Another day we'll make a pot of soup (our old one wasn't done yet) and that would be all dinners for a week. Takes 3 minutes to reheat each day, no delivery can beat that, unless you live above fast food place or something.

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