Chemical intolerance could contribute to autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and limiting toxic exposures could help prevent the disorders, a new study from The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio found.
Researchers recommend that parents and practitioners determine the risk for each family so that parents can learn which exposures to avoid.
The study used a questionnaire called the Quick Environmental Exposure and Sensitivity Inventory and analyzed survey results from nearly 4,700 parents in the United States. They found that parents with chemical intolerance scores in the top tenth percentile had 5.7 times the risk of reporting a child with autism and 2.1 times for ADHD compared with parents in the bottom tenth percentile.
The findings build on a 2015 study by UT Health San Antonio that first linked chemical intolerance in patients with the risk of their children developing autism and ADHD.
“This is the first-ever article in medical literature showing that chemical intolerance as reported by parents predicts and has the potential to prevent autism and ADHD in their children,” said Claudia S. Miller, MD, MS, professor emeritus with the Department of Family and Community Medicine at UT Health San Antonio. “Up to now, most interventions have been behavioral or medical, after a child is diagnosed.”
The study cited findings from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that found there has been a 317% increase in the prevalence of autism since 2000, now occurring in one of every 36 children in the country. It’s estimated that one in eight children now has ADHD.
The Quick Environmental Exposure and Sensitivity Inventory or QEESI is a validated questionnaire that can help determine if a person has chemical intolerance.
The National Institutes of Health defines chemical intolerance as “a condition in which the sufferer experiences a complex array of recurrent unspecific symptoms attributed to low-level chemical exposure that most people regard as unproblematic.”
The QEESI questionnaire can help identify health problems and responses to various exposures to foods, allergens, medications and chemicals such as fragrances, insecticides, cleaning products, etc.
Chemical intolerance triggers a histamine release in mast cells — the immune system’s first responders. For some, exposure to chemicals and viruses can release thousands of inflammatory molecules called mediators and cause allergic-like reactions. The response is inflammation and illness.
“The global rise in autism and ADHD may be due to fossil-fuel-derived and biogenic toxicants epigenetically ‘turning on’ or ‘turning off’ critical mast cell genes that can be transmitted trans-generationally,” researchers said.
Persistent activation and triggering of mast cells may underlie the brain inflammation in autism.
The researchers note that the study is observational, and further research is needed using controlled trials to confirm causality and further explore the proposed mechanism behind chemical intolerance.
Researchers recommend that people talk with their doctors about determining the risk of chemical intolerance and learn which exposures to avoid.
People with chemical intolerance could then pursue resources such as environmental counseling and even personalized environmental house calls to assess risks at home and then reduce personal exposures to possible triggers such as pesticides, fragrances and tobacco smoke, particularly during pregnancy and childhood.
In an interview Wednesday, Miller said avoiding further exposure could help keep your future child’s risk of developing autism or ADHD from increasing, but she could not say if anything could lower your existing risk.
“I know we can make it worse, but i don’t know if we can make it better,” she said.
The authors created tools for patients, practitioners and researchers that can be found through the following links:
Miller is the senior author of the published study. Co-authors include Raymond F. Palmer, PhD, and Rodolfo Rincon, MD and specialist, both with the Department of Family and Community Medicine at UT Health San Antonio; and David Kattari, a statistician with the Marilyn Brachman Hoffman Foundation in Fort Worth, Texas.
Take the Brief Environmental Exposure and Sensitivity Inventory (BREESI):
BREESI by Julie Moreno on Scribd
Take the Quick Environmental Exposure and Sensitivity Inventory (QEESI):
qeesi by Julie Moreno on Scribd