Can childhood viral diseases like Scarlet Fever cause ASC

Had Scarlet Fever at a very age which left me deaf in one ear and with a heart murmur. Have also read that strep diseases such as that and meningitis, etc could be the cause of ASC too and just wondering if anyone else with ASD may have had  similiar diseases as a child?

  • You may be more prone to things if you’re autistic, being hyper-sensory biologically, psychologically. 
    Basically, the reverse is true. 

  • Looking on impact of IFV, that could be very well acceptable for explanation if looking on UK data alone, but I am coming from a country, where IFV procedure is only becoming acceptable(or rather - trending) and in use only in recent years, while ASD % is the same as in UK. And I am adult with ASD - from the generation, that had no IFV, so my logic dictates to discard that data and look for something else.

    Also, I find it tricky to figure out explanation why IFV babies suddenly would be able to gain only those mutations, that have ASD genes, provided, that their parents had no ASD genes at all. Generational mutations would be good explanation, but for at least some number of generations.

    Also, it might be more related that old NT people shares similarities with autistic people - including brains. The main question is to find out why - are their brain  becoming autistic due to age? Is it because of how their brains function with age? Are all humans potentially autistic - at least old people? When I was younger I did not need to have a diagnose, even if I had issues with other children and liked to communicate with older people. There are many questions, but I also don't exactly see the reason for this tribal behaviour to group autistic people in opposition to NT, if older NT are showing autistic behaviour traits as well.

    Well, I have no remorse in hunting down ideas - passengers, that are riding brains and kick useless ones out - it was harder in beginning, but not now - my brains are limited in capacity and I have already reached limits, as I am unable to concentrate and learn new information and keep the most interesting, unless I have thrown out old or useless ones out.

    Look, whenever I get flu, I have pleasant dreams where I see sexy lady - clearly flu is trying to have a deal with my subconsciousness and even if flu somehow have mastered art of sending that type of message... I am still getting rid of flu, despite that sexy messenger. Smiley

  • Hey don’t shoot the messenger. We know from case studies that brain damage can sometimes lead to people acquiring autism like conditions, often with other impairments.

    autism is a phenotype any condition that ticks the right boxes is going to get diagnosed as autism. And there are a lot of ways to get brain damage where years later a psychologist is going to look at someone and say ‘autism’ rather than do a brain scan that might be inconclusive anyway.

    at least part of your 20% is going to come from conditions like that. As for people developing autism because of late reproduction, I don’t have numbers for that one cause but I imagine it’s a small fraction, and you have to factor in the impact of IVF allowing women who could ordinarily not conceive to do so.

  • The issue with % is that it is showing how uncertain general knowledge is about causes. I can understand reasons for bureaucratic scientists to be so cautious, but at the same time it is backfiring in creation of myths in general population, where source of those myths are from reading scientific papers, that were made by scientists who have lost ability to look at the big picture, because modern science is not about Bigger Picture, but specialization.

    Unironically, but if Isaac Newtoon was born today, he would not only would not be able to become scientist - but he would be useless in creation theories of that scale - not because there is no room for new theories.

    Reading history books I would think, that all those older kings and harems that they had would be making a lot of autistic offsprings, but that is not the case. Earlier in history it was very common for big age gaps - not only where bride was younger, but where groom was marrying much older wife... and suddenly that is the reason for autistic children in modern days and not for previous history? This simply does not add up.

    Contrary to our modern beliefs, previous stable societies actually had babies later in life(because young mothers had lesser chances to survive labor), but these societies also did not create autistic children.

    All of these probabilities can be used to explain some cases, but then again - this is very unstable ground, because it clearly does not take into account, that person would have those autistic genes even without exposure - from parents. So, these statistic cases are already contaminated.

    Personally, I do think, that autism is evolutionary adaptation of humans and for the reasons, that eugenics is shunned today, that is not something that modern scientists would even say in relation to ASD and that is why modern science sucks so much, as it has put bondaries of how far it can go to explore.

    Compared to previous generations, scale of volume of information for past generations is tremendous and the hint for that would be that main differences between ASD and NT are how they are processing information. Normal humans discard 90% of information, that they are receiving. People with ASD are different in that they are trying to process all that information that they receive and that is causing overload. And that is why people with ASD, are able to outperform NT by a higher degree, because they are able to process more information than NT.

    I am very sceptical, that loss of oxygen or poisons are going to make that volume of ASD, that is now, if their parents do not possess ASD genes.That is some Marvel comics stuff thinking.

    I can understand narrative about pollution of modern world, and why it is also used to explain ASD - as a trend in current politics, but pollution is not making animals smarter(because something that can affect humans, can as easily affect other animals) - pollution is only a reason for increased cases of cancer(for all animals, including humans) - not ASD.

    Edit: wording about discarding 90% information. My sleeping schedule is off.

  • My understanding is current scientific theory is autism is 80% genetic factors 20% environmental of which in all probability most are in womb / pre conception effects. (having babies late in life, loss of oxygen during birth, exposure to poisons like nerve agents in the womb, etc)

    In all probability whole genome sequencing will facilitate a genetic test for autism in my lifetime. This may not be such a good thing. But we are not there yet.

  • The book that describes behaviour of animals in human cities is from this author:

    http://www.vitus-b-droescher.de/Buecher_dt.html

    de.wikipedia.org/.../Vitus_B._Dröscher

    Looking on the names, I have no idea which one was about those animals and their survival in different environments, but the book that I read was translated in 1986 - must be something way earlier.

  • Just to be clear, I did not claim, that there were tests that are defining if you have ASD - and no your gene map can't be used in UK as a groung for diagnosis of ASD, as it is not about genetics, but how you deal with life and... GPs are generally not that smart and another thing is - they are not paid for anything that is not in their instructions, so GPs that are putting dots together and are way too smart for their position - well, if they are that smart, then they are not GPs anymore.

    But, in terms of how genetics is progressing, genes that are linked to autism are discovered more and more. And identifying those genes that are common among people with ASD is completely different matter:

    www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/.../

    https://www.nature.com/articles/s41398-020-00953-9

    So, if the discussion is about from where you got ASD, then it is very clear that it is from your genes. I would dismiss most of reasons, that are linked to exposure to heavy metals and toxins... because ASD is too widespread and people have ASD even where heavy metals were notpresent - usually heavy metals cause some other issues to health and getting ASD would be the same as getting capabilities of Spiderman, after exposed to toxic matter, so it is sci-fi and has nothing to do with reality.

    IMO, the common cause to ASD is stress and I, as a very stressful person notice that to all the ASD, that they are potentially not coping very well with stress, so I would generally suggest for anyone to look for their sources of stress - quite often that stress is coming from parents, because they are like that.

    Reasons for stress are global, because only in 20th century most of the people have started to live in cities, while before they were more adapted to smaller communities. I had book, that had first print in 60s - it described how cities are impacting animals and common issue to animals is stress and how animals are dealing with that.And they did not do well. So, why would it not affect humans as well? I'm from countryside and adaptions to different lifestyles should take generations - more than 200 years.

    Yes, animals in cities get smarter, because of challenges, but it isn not "normal" for humans and for animals to live in such compact communities and IMO ASD is symptom to that how people are dealing with that type of challenge. Primates lived in close knit groups of ~30. If the group grew larger, it split and they get realy stressed about about sharing their own territory and killed other primates of the same species and people expect to change their lifestyle after they got civilizations and settlements form few thousand years, while for the most of the part of history humans did not shared territory with so many other humans.

    In general people are very dumb, unless they start to read books(and stumble upon some good books) and accumulate information in their brains. Theories about "heavy metals" are on the same dumb level, because they are simple and not really that deep and have a lot of flaws and general flaw is that most of ASD 90-99% are not from exposure to "heavy metals", while common to ASD in one way or another is stress - for example my mother would argue, that she is not causing stress to me, but from my viewpoint it is completelly the opposite and I would say, that foundation to my stress comes from my family and ASD there would surface sooner or later, because that is how I am adapting to life.

  • Just to be clear there is no genetic test for autism yet ... unless you know something I don't?

  • No-one in my family has been diagnosed with ASC, however there are clear signs of Autistic Traits in my Grandfather and some in my mother and my uncle.

    I would struggle to get them to even do an AQ50 to see if there is a better indication 

  • Quite a lot of things I share with my mother - she is not diagnosed and there is no need to do that, but it shows.

    It might be questionable how parents were getting ASD, but I suppose the biggest issue was that DNA testing is very new and earlier generations did not had that technology and there were theories instead.

    I ordered Nebula testing and my mother just as me(I have diagnose) had high % of ASD, so the things I know from genetics is that my mother was born with ASD genes already.

  • The debate rages with respect to other contributory factors, most of it appears to be genetic. Have you others with some form of neurodivergence in the family. Dyslexia, dyspraxia and autism runs right through my Dad's side of the family.

  • No, it is genetic.

    Autistic traits can be identified right at the birth - and most certainly with genetic testing.

    If you have ASD, you have it right from the beginning of your life - that is not something that you can get later in your life through some diseases or exposure to toxic materials  or radiation - that story was about Supermutants, like Spidermen :D

    You get diagnosis if you have a reason to get one, but it is not a tool that catches them all...

    Diseases can affect your health condition, where ASD issues come out - maybe after stress or other things that impact brains and neurological system.

  • Mother was nearly forty when she had me

  • I only did about 5 minute's of research which shows Sweat smile

    I did say according 

  • exposure to heavy metals and other environmental toxins has been found false, this myth was created by diet companies trying to convince parents that diet could cure autism. Many autistic individuals despite eating properly have iron and magnesium deficiency.

    The gender thing is also un ture, their are the same percentage of women than man that have autism, it just females don't often get diagnosed, or diagnosed as children.

    Having Dyslexia, Autism, ADHD, OCD,Schizophrenia , ADHD and chronic daily migraine have been document of having an increased chance of child with autism and vice versa. 

    More children a mother has the increased chance of having a child with Autism,

  • According to the CDC (US) 

    Currently, the potential causes and factors that can increase your chances of having ASD include:

    • having a family member with ASD (including siblings or parents)
    • exposure to heavy metals and other environmental toxins
    • being born male, as boys are more likelyTrusted Source to be diagnosed with ASD than girls
    • being born to older parents
    • being born very premature or at a low birth weight
    • having genetic conditions, such as fragile X syndrome or Rett syndrome

    In addition, if a pregnant person takes certain prescription drugs that have been linked to ASD, it raises the chance.

    I would still take any of this with a pinch of salt, as we all know things can change and someone else's research may provide a different potential causation for ASD

  • a very very small number of cases of ASD are actually cases of brain damage. very small numbers of viral infections cause brain damage so yes in theory it's possible. However its very much a tiny minority of cases as I understand it.