Autism is a result of a sedentary life style and diet

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As long as autism exists, there will be ridiculous theories to explain it.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

I couldn't even finish reading that "thing." If you want a solid explanation of the autism epidemic in more developed countries, the Silberman Wired article is the place to look. Everyone here probably read it, but it's here: The Geek Syndrome

There's a genetic factor, and two geeky parents are way more likely to get married and have kids in developed countries. I'm sure people with AS in third world countries would probably all be ostracized even worse than in the developed world. Of course autism wouldn't be prevalent in their gene pool. geesh

Where did these people get their degree from? The toilet? This is not possible at all, because you are born with Autism, you can't acquire it.

Cross-read with this:
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/ ... 779851.ece

It won't be a sun issue, the same thing is happening with Somalis in Minneapolis.

I find it very unlikely that sedentary societies would "make" someone autistic, but quite plausible that autistic *symptoms* might be strongly affected, or noticed, by sedentary societies. For example, there isn't going to be the same issue with noise overload in a desert as there is in a major city. Nobody's going to bat an eyelid at autistic meltdowns in a society where feuding and raiding are common. Issues of learning problems won't come up so sharply in a society where formal schooling is rare. It's also possible that shamanism in nomadic/indigenous societies makes them better able to handle the underlying sensory problems of autism: shamanic therapies are overwhelmingly sensory and work on left/right brain integration. Somalia doesn't have shamans but they have Sufi mystics and I bet the practices are similar. Also, it's been well-documented that "oddness" in rural communities is usually treated simply as individual eccentricity, without particular labels. It's a lot easier to handle "oddness" when people aren't on top of each other all the time. Between these factors, I wonder if they're getting more incidents of low-functioning autism or visibly autistic traits leading to diagnoses, when in Somalia they'd have had people with underlying autistic brains but indistinguishable functioning.

Another big theoretical area right now is "ethnogenesis": the formation of ethnic groups was often self-selecting. Is it possible all the autistic people ran off to the desert to escape the Egyptian Empire or somesuch? Another possibility would be that psychiatrists are mistaking the sensory integration problems arising from a transition from a desert to a modern city as autism, because the symptoms are similar (i.e. sensory overload, delayed processing, etc). A more sinister possibility would be that low-functioning kids are being quietly killed at birth, and never recorded as autistic (or anything else) in Somalia (they'd be officially recorded as stillborn).

Somalia is an intriguing society. Most people will only have heard of the wars and feuds, but those are short blips in a long, mainly peaceful history. They have always been an acephalous (headless/stateless) society on the whole, despite a recent history of (failed) statebuilding, and they have very complex mechanisms of group affiliation and intergroup balancing/conflict-resolution which do seem suggestive of 1) a strong independent streak and 2) a concrete sense of justice. They have very strong clan allegiances in which the lowest level is by far the strongest, they don't like anyone having too much power, they're oriented to personal honour rather than guilt, and they take any slight very badly. It does have a certain resonance for me, it does feel like the kind of society that a large number of AS/HFA people would come up with, and it's a real shame the statebuilders have ruined it.

The theory of Vitamin D levels is interesting, and not entirely ridiculous. It’s already known that a deficiency causes depression. It’s not absurd to think it could contribute to and/or exacerbate the traits of autism. Vitamin D is vital in the function of every system in the body, including the neurological system.

I love this story about the boy and the horses. He has a great father who is devoted to connecting with is son. I love how he is willing to move to his son’s comfort level. I can see how the modern world can be too overwhelming and a life in nature is calm enough to process.

I was quite an active kid. Played outdoors a lot. And those of course are your developing years. Now how can sitting on one's butt cause autism? Is it because some of us appear to always BE sitting down a lot? That's just me contemplating how I'm gonna force choke all those idiots out there who think they know what causes autism! Do I have to keep screaming at those trolls until they get it through their thick pig-headed skulls?

*shrug* People used to this this here in the US, too.

I doubt such things cause, there are people out there whom are always trying to find something that might fill the void as being the cause or causitive factor to the development of Autsim though, to this day there has yet been any evidence to point out a specific factor..

I'm pretty sure my parents blame my autism on not eating vegetables. At least that's what my mom would say.

I think the article talks more about Vit D than sedetary/diet lifestyles. I agree, this post was a bit misleading. What I found odd about this article is this:

"we don't know, but we have to blame something!"...fail.