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Comment by kosma | Hacker News Reader

There is research correlating autism and mothers taking certain medications (painkillers, antidepressants). Since autism is hereditary, there is a significant chance that these mothers are autistic too. Autistic people have a vastly high risk of depression, and often have unusual pain thresholds, requiring more painkillers. I would not be surprised of the correlation was real, but the direction of action was reversed; after all, it's plausible that autism causes the need for taking more medication.

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This was my thought as well. I’m likely on the spectrum (as I have learned recently, because of my kids) and I would consider myself hypersensitive. To a variety of sensory inputs - noise, smell, touch, heat, cold, tickling and probably also pain. The latter being hard to quantify of course.

But I could certainly imagine that a mother with autistic traits could be someone who takes painkillers more often than the average person.

That’s very interesting! I’ve been sleuthing for personal reasons and I’ve recently arrived at the central nervous system element called the nucleus of the solitary tract (NTS), which integrates sensory processes including pain reception. I’m tracing a particular activator of the mineralocorticoid receptors for which NTS has special relevance, but the end target overall seems to be mTOR in the NTS, which isn’t so niche and is studied in autism.

It seems that higher sensitivity to pain could be a very plausible cause. I believe there's studies showing lowered (and altered) pain tolerance with autism.

Though I'd expect that if aspirin did have an affect that it'd change the prevalence or severity of autism in children having genes related to autism.

There'd be a first order correction fornthe likelihood that aspirin is causitive by controlling for increased ibuprofen and tylonol usage as well. The second order correction would be whether autistic people were more likely to use aspirin over ibuprofen or tylonol, etc.

Aspirin???!! Its not mentioned in the OP. No one here mentioned it. WTF???!

Ugh yeah, s/aspirin/Tylenol/. My brain always wants to call Tylenol and acetaminophen as generic "aspirins" and it's a hard habit to break. Joys of having ADHD I didn't even notice the switch.

Nevertheless, comparing the observed correlations of Tylenol with aspirin and ibuprofen would be the first thing to check. Seems unlikely to me that the OP's suggestion could be controlled for that way. I'll be curious if Kennedy's report checks those basic things.

One important point here is that NSAIDs like aspirin and ibuprofen should be avoided at least in the second half of pregnancy. Acetaminophen is usually the “go to” painkiller for pregnant women, which of course skews the result.

I'm waiting for someone to blame coffee.

> Since autism is hereditary, there is a significant chance that these mothers are autistic too.

Yep. Two of my 5 are clearly HFA (1 diagnosed) and another shows strong indications. My wife and I have numerous family members that are somewhere on the spectrum. It's how this works.

How can one know it is due to DNA or how the brain works versus learned behaviour? I suppose it is possible to learn different traits and behaviour from parents so that the offspring behave in an autistic way even if they are not "physically" autistic.

Heritability can be studied, you know.

It's actually very difficult to prove that something is genetically heritable vs heritable through other means including diet, medicines, etc. Especially when you want to account for effects in the womb, where you can't do twin studies. Even things like height and IQ, it's not clear how the heritability is passed on, much less something as complicated as high functioning autism.

Science is difficult, yes. Otherwise, no. We know a lot and with high certainty.

I think it’s harmful to pretend that reality is inscrutable and that science struggles to give answers. It’s fuel for the RFK Jr type of societal parasite.

Pretending that we know a lot about something with high certainty so that you can get a one up on RFK Jr types is much more harmful, especially on the long term. The anti RFK Jr types end up being distrusted and put in the same bucket as the RFK Jr types for spreading misinformation.

Cool story, but I don’t really lose any sleep over anti-science idiots prompting themselves into sustained relevance over the long term, short term, or even the next electoral term, really.

Maybe you would lose sleep over “pro-science” idiots going into sustained irrelevance as they spread their misinformation.

There are people distrustful of those who proclaim the earth round. There is no threshold of certainty where unreasonable skepticism will be eliminated, science is a tool for the reasonable.

I don’t see how you can talk about science being a tool for the reasonable while advocating for “pro-science” misinformation.

It's not misinformation. Reasonable people know that science determining something is true only means the current evidence strongly indicates its true, and that future results may call anything into question, but we should not expect any particular current finding to be false. It is misinformation to characterize the lack of absolute certainty, which is something science can never produce, as indicative that claims differing from the scientific consensus are equally supported by the evidence.

You don't need to worry about people losing trust in science because science does not require trust. Those who are unsatisfied with anything less than certainty need something other than science.

We do need to worry about people losing trust in science because science depends on public funding.

And it’s not about complete certainty. It’s that it actually is very difficult to prove genetic heritability vs effects in the womb because you can’t do twin studies, going back to my original comment.

Pretending to be more certain about it than reality IS misinformation. When you lie, people believe you less. They don’t want to give you money anymore. As we are finding out currently. I think “pro-science” liars are much more harmful than whatever “science skeptics” they find online.

> It’s that it actually is very difficult to prove genetic heritability vs effects in the womb because you can’t do twin studies, going back to my original comment.

You seem weirdly fixated on this point, and to your rhetorical disadvantage.

It is difficult to tell whether you are being accidentally or willfully ignorant. Maternal effects are well-accounted for in research. It is extremely improbable that we’ll ever find out that they have anything but a very minor influence on ASD compared to genetic factors.

> Maternal effects are well-accounted for in research.

Lol, no it's not. Genetic heritability vs other types of heritability is not accounted for in multiple areas like height and IQ and it seems you are just ignorant of it.

> weirdly fixated

> rhetorical disadvantage

Are you just playing a debate game or having a discussion?

We do not in fact know with high certainty the amount of genetic causality in IQ (or the broad validity of IQ itself, but stipulate that isn't a problem). Molecular genetics has shaken things up over the last 8-10 years.

Heritability != DNA.

According to my friend who is a geneticist, 30% of cases of autism can be found in DNA. Clearly not all cases are.

It's important to note our understanding is far from complete. There may be more genes associated with autism than we currently know. So 30% of cases may have a known genetic factor but that doesn't mean 70% don't have a genetic component.

True. But we’ve also seen environmental correlations as well, as well as things like age of the father, etc.

This is also explained as a genetic factor as chromosomal abnormalities and replication errors are more frequent although cumulative environmental exposures may also play a role.

That's what our genetic councilor said as well. It's important to note autism is a spectrum and quite varied, some of it genetic and some of it related to other factors.

I've read some studies which suggest there's a variety of genes which are linked to autism as well as link to both autism and ADHD. I believe those genes are linked to how different brain circuits interact.

It makes a lot of sense given with I've seen talked a lot about in autism and adhd groups, with some symptoms overlapping.

Well diagnosing autism is incredibly subjective anyway. It’s not like a broken arm.

> Since autism is hereditary

Do you have a scientific source for this?

Twin studies are a classic demonstration of this: comparing identical twins to non-identical twins lets us prove a genetic component.

https://www.open.edu/openlearn/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=669...

Thanks but this is only one study and they even conclude that some non-genetic factors may also contribute to causing autism

There are many causes of autism. Research suggests that autism spectrum disorder (ASD) develops from a combination of:

Genetic influences and

Environmental influences, including social determinants

Source: https://www.autismspeaks.org/what-causes-autism

My link isn't a study it's a layman's terms explanation, but there are lots of studies. Your link mentions a meta analysis of 7 studies concluding that up to 90% is genetic.

Yes environmental factors are there too, otherwise it would be 100%, but there's enough evidence pointing to genetics that it is really disappointing when people try to find spurious links to false causes instead.

Possibly of interest:

What heritability actually means https://dynomight.substack.com/p/heritable

> I couldn’t help but notice that there’s near-universal confusion about what “heritable” means. Partly, that’s because it’s a subtle concept. But it also seems relevant that almost all explanations of heritability are very, very confusing.

For example, they say speaking Turkish isn’t heritable but speaking English is. Weird!

> Heritability can be high even when genes have no direct causal effect. It can be low even when there is a strong direct effect. It changes when the environment changes. It even changes based on how you group people together. It can be larger than 100% or even undefined.

Autism speaks is a spiritually evil organization and the fact that you unironically linked them implies that you wish to wage cognitive warfare against all autistic people. Autistic people will respond by making sure you reincarnate as a durian fruit.

You cannot do twin studies for effects in the womb. It's the same womb!

Do you have any links to the research to back you claims?

tl;dr: Spurious correlation machines produces results. Pirates and Climate change surprisingly disagree.

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