Weight Loss News From Byron J. Richards
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A Mother’s Leptin Problems Linked to Autism Risk

Thursday, April 03, 2008 - Byron J. Richards, CCN
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The importance of a mom being healthy body weight prior to pregnancy and having good nutritional status and eating habits has now been driven home by a new autism study.

The study showed that children who develop early autism have significantly higher blood levels of leptin.  Those levels are high because of adverse fetal programming due to a leptin resistant mother.

It is desirable to have naturally higher levels of leptin in the brain – as that is a baby’s primary defense system against excitotoxic nerve damage.  High levels of leptin in the blood are undesirable because they signify that leptin is not getting into the brain – a common problem in the overweight individual. 

Mothers entering pregnancy with this problem run the risk of fetal programming the problem into the developing nervous system of the fetus.  This is not a genetic error, it is fetal programming of the evolving nervous system.  Such problems will be worse if combined with a mother’s high stress during pregnancy.

This problem in and of itself does not cause autism.  However, it handicaps the child’s brain, to a greater or lesser degree, in terms of being able to tolerate and recover from nerve-related inflammation.  It can prime the nerves to hyper-react to immunizations – which is the cause of autism.  Thus, leptin problems are a key autism risk factor for any child. 

While there are many other factors that can prime the nerves to hyper-react to inflammation, this is one that is under the control of the family and prevented by a mother being proper body weight prior to pregnancy, eating well during pregnancy, and having as stable and stress free of a home environment as possible.   

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