Vitamin D Deficiency and Autism

I recently downloaded all the podcasts from the Autism One conference in Chicago in June and listened to them in the car.  One had me on the edge of my seat, so much so that I listened to it again once I got home and took notes.  It featured Dr. Cannell from the Vitamin D institute (and another Dr whose name I can't remember, he didn't talk all that much), and he was talking about how crucial Vitamin D is to our bodies for so many reasons and Vit D deficiency can contribute to autism.

Some of you who know us know that a little over two years ago, I was really ill and saw specialist after specialist that could not figure out what was going on.  It started one Friday afternoon in May.  It was a snow make-up day that wasn't used.  I had been coughing alot that week, but it was spring and I figured it was just asthma.  Two days prior, I had coughed up a little blood, and DH made me call my Dr.  She said it was probably just irritation, and I agreed.  Well, on this day, the kids and I decided to start planting some tomato plants.  As soon as I turned the first spadefull of dirt, I started coughing up blood and lots of it.  It wouldn't stop.  I again called my Dr. who essentially said, "Duh!  Go to the ER!"  Well, after finding someone to watch my kids and driving myself to the ER (where I presented them with a plastic cup of blood), they ran a bunch of tests and found NOTHING.  It had stopped by then, and they sent me home.  I would soon learn that "perfectly normal" can be the two most frustrating words in the English language.  Within a couple of days, I started having what I thought were asthma symptoms, but the inhaler wasn't helping.  My Dr told me to buy a pulse oximeter (the thing that goes on your finger and measures your blood oxygen as well as your heartrate) and start keeping a record.  I noticed that my heart rate would accelerate while my oxygen level fell. Over the next two months, while I saw specialist after specialist and had every heart and lung test on the planet (all of which were normal), my heart rate swung wildly, going from 298 to 28 and back while my oxygen level swung right along with it.  I became so weak that I slept about 18 hours a day, and when I was up, I was using a cane because I was so unsteady.  I was 33 at the time.  Finally the second cardiologist I saw took one look at my meds and said "Oh, it's inhaler X".   I won't say which inhaler it was because I don't want to get sued, but it is the one I see most frequently advertised.  He seemed to be right, because once I switched to inhaler Y my symptoms subsided.  This was late summer, and time would tell that it was sheer coincidence that I improved once off inhaler X.  Fall and winter went along just fine, and then early spring came, and BAM!  My symptoms were back, though not as extreme.  By this time, I had been deemed a head case by more than one specialist whose only course of action was to shove a prescription for anti-depressants at me.  So I went back to my family doc, who I trusted completely and still do.  I could tell she was really racking her brain.   She finally said that the timing couldn't be a coincidence, and decided to run some more specific blood tests.  To this day, I believe that by doing so, she saved my life.  I was B-12 deficient and severely Vit D deficient.  I would later learn that a healthy Vit  level is 35-100, mine was 7.  I would also learn that Vitamin D is responsible for regulating a number of things in the body, one of which is heart rate.  DING, DING, DING!!  She told me that I didn't get that kind of deficiency overnight and that I had likely been deficient for a number of years.  I got to thinking back over the past decade or so.  I had been a vegetarian for a couple of years before trying to get pregnant because it was the trendy thing to do.  Add to that that I had two babies in 19 months and had lost 92 pounds in seven months a little over a year before this all started, and was eating NO red meat at the time, and it really made sense.  I began HEAVY Vit D supplementation, and was given back my health, praise God!

So you can understand why this conversation about Vit D held my interest so intently.  So what the heck does Vit D have to do with autism??  I learned that the majority of Americans are Vit D deficient due to our diets and largely indoor lifestyles (and when we do go outside, we've been programmed to lather on the sunscreen).  He explained the predominant theory that there is a genetic predisposition to whether a child will develop autism.  Since both of my children are on the spectrum, and I have a first cousin that is also, I agree with this 100%, but it's not purely genetic.  He kept talking about the functions of Vit D in the body, one of which is glutathione production.  Very basically, glutathione is your body's way of  collecting the trash.  Through a process called methylation, your body uses gluathione and vitamin C to get rid of all the nasties, lots of which are environmental.   I knew that kids with autism were usually glutathione deficient, but I didn't understand why.  It was also stated that the majority of these kids were severely Vit D deficient.  After I learned why I had been so sick, the boys' DAN (Defeat Autism Now) Dr thought it would be wise to check thier levels as well, and what do you know, while thier deficiencies were not as stark as mine, they were present, and Son 2 was significantly more deficient that Son1.  Son 2 is also more severely affected.  I also learned that breastfed babies have a higher risk of being diagnosed with autism than formula fed babies....WTH??  He went on to explain that since the majority of women are Vit D deficient, that means the baby is not getting the Vit D in her breastmilk either.  They even tested large samples of breastmilk and the majority of them contained only trace amounts none at all.  I breastfed both of my kids, almost exclusively.  Son 1 was weaned to formula at 10 months.  Son 2 never had it.  Again, Son 2 is far more affected.  He stated that based on this combined with other research (and I agree), it is reasonable to conclude that Moms being Vit D deficient puts thier babies at higher risk for developing autism.  Can you say "light bulb moment"?