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Dad reports:
Antioxidant Levels May be Linked to Autism
Could oxidative stress, a suspected contributor to many disease processes like heart disease and cancer, also play a role in autism?University of Arkansas researchers think it may.
In a recent study, autistic children were found to have significantly lower levels of an antioxidant called glutathione and its metabolic precursors.
“Glutathione is the major antioxidant in cells important for detoxification and elimination of environmental toxins, and its active form is reduced in about 80 percent of the kids with autism,”
So could antioxidants help our children?
it’s an item of note, not a call to action…There are no leaps to be made about using antioxidants as a therapeutic agent.
In other news:
In other autism research released this week, scientists from the University of California, San Diego report that the “mirror” neurons don’t function properly in people with autism. Mirror neurons are those that activate when you perform an action and then see someone else perform the same action, or vice versa. These neurons have also been dubbed the “monkey-see, monkey-do” cells.