These are all theories I have seen discussed over the years or have seen articles on enough to think they warrent mention. I have no idea where to find sources for most or all of these:
envirionmental Allergies in the mother during pregnacy (hay fever, mold spores etc).
Environmental alleriges (see above) in the child
Food allergies in the mother, same in the child
Related is the "autistic is wired differently, gets high on some foods' concept. ie., autistic eats cheese, autistic is stoned on cheese, stims more and is unreachable, etc)
Radiation contamination underground
Other contanimations (non radiation type) of ground, espeically wellwater
Illness in the mother during pregnacy (influenza etc),
Illness in the child in early childhood (influenza etc)
"MSG" in foods such as canned foods, ravioli etc (may be related to the 'gets high on some foods' concept mentioned above)
Vitamin deficiences in the mother during pregnancy, vitamin deficiencees in the child
Gluten
The mother consuming large quantities of fish such as canned tuna (especialoy vague on this one, may be related to the mercury theory below) during pregnancy
Mercury itself in childhood shots given to the child
The preservitive itself rather than the mercury in childhood shots
The mother having been inocculated with any such shots in her life
If I think of more and don't see them mentioend elsewhere I will modify this list to add
I doubt a radiation source underground would be the cause of autism.
I live right next to a chemical plant, which 50 years ago dumped alot of radioactive material under a nearby hill.
My mum was a large campainer against this and soon the village on the hill was evacuated (although there was evidence of the material seeping downhill to our village, nothing was ever done about it).
Anyway if that was the cause for autism there should be alot of local autistics, but there isn't.
Radiation can cause random mutations, so it's not impossible for any genetic condition to be caused by exposure. However, my bets are that the genetics of autism are much more complex than a simple point mutation.
Another theory is that the mother is somehow exposed to an extra high level of male hormones during her pregnancy. I don't know how this would occur and this doesn't necessarily explain why the father can also show autistic traits.
Can we focus on sourcing these claims?
pubmed doesn't give full texts - I may just do the research myself via athens if there isn't a significant and sudden increase in response here.
In fact, I may start it right this minute
ok, first things first i'll post a new thread with lists of claims made by generic curebie groups, next i'll post a thread with a list of citations from the scientific literature.
I've mentioned a theory on another thread:
http://www.aspiesforfreedom.com/phpBB2/v...php?t=5590
If this theory is somehow correct the amount of autism is greater if you eat a lot of milk or eg. cheese or milkshakes combined with genes which affects your digestion. The milk which is drunk then have its protein transformed to peptidemorphine which could be led to the brain.
My theory
My opinion is that the peptidemorphine which could function as a signalgiver in the brain make the brain used to having it around, therefore autistics arent always happy even if they have a lot of peptidemorphine in their head. Even tho the peptidemorphine make other stuff which gives signals in the brain drown in the peptidemorphine's effect.
Those other signalgivers is supposedly connected to natural instincts or nevrones which make the body know eg. how to walk effectively and more importantly how to function in human social networks. When an autistic person approaches people the person does not get clear enough signals in the brain and he will be forced to handle the situation with his intelligence instead, which is very complicated and difficult. When a part of the brain is forced to work that hard the person will feel stress and instinctively want to avoid the situation which is in order to avoid a depression. The autistic people meet many such situations which they don't get signals from the brain to handle and they are forced to evolve more intelligent to handle them.
Just a theory from an interested 16 year old youth.
electromagnetic fields???
Don't recall where I read these, but I read that both age of father (older increases likelihood) and large amounts of stress mother may be under during gestation are thought to be factors. If I run across where I first saw these, I'll note it here.
In the case of Mercury, I think that it's a good goal to remove Thimerosal(preservative derived from mercury) from vaccines.
Either way, it'll solve more than it won't.
If it perhaps is, then we'll see a decrease in Autism rates. If not, then we won't see this happen, and the mercury supporters could go to new groups.
Hm?
.Someone should start a a totally insane website with idiotic claims like "Autism is caused by solar flares in concurrence with eating Count Chocula cereal." See if some of the conspiracy freaks believe them.
I think, many theories are partually correct. For example, the so-much-hated mercury theory... Some vaccines really cause LFA-like symptoms (shortly in Russia, 1000 children became victims of a badly-factured vaccine - practically everybody, who was vaccinated). The other question is: is it the same condition?? The symptoms are the same, but well... Those symptoms are shown also by traumatized people, but nobody would call trauma-shock autism. I think, different causes cause completely different comditions with similar traits.