Plastics, ECDs, And The Extreme Male Theory Autism Link
Written by Staff on July 6th, 2009 in Autism.
shazari on Flickr
Dr. Harvey Karp has recently blogged at the Huffington Post on the theory that endocrine disrupting chemicals found in plastics contribute to autism.
ECDs have already been named in obesity and genital defects. Now there’s speculation as to whether they cause upsets in hormonal balances, producing changes to the brain which, according to the Extreme Male Brain Theory, over masculinizes it and causes autism.
“This theory, proposed by Dr. Simon Baron-Cohen and colleagues, speculates that autism is caused by something changing a fetus’ hormonal balance that then leads to over-masculinization of the developing brain,” writes Karp.
“Could that “something” be the slurry of hormone-altering chemicals we’re exposed to every day?”
“The “extreme male theory” has been supported by two interesting bits of evidence: 1) fetuses with slightly elevated levels of testosterone grow up acting extra-male (more interested in things than people, slow language development, etc.); 2) children with autism — boys and girls — show extra-male characteristics (e.g. poor social ability, language delay).”
“Here is where the very interesting link to EDCs comes into play: EDCs often act as weak estrogens and estrogen feminizines the body, but in a fetus’ developing brain estrogen actually has the opposite effect…it causes masculinization.”
Read Harp’s entire article at Huffingtonpost.com.
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