Gestational diabetes, Autism and ADHD: Is there a link?

Children whose mothers suffered from gestational diabetes during pregnancy could run an increased risk of autism and ADHD (attention/hyperactivity deficit disorder). This is what emerges from an analysis that took into consideration about 9 million pregnancies and which was presented in mid -September at the annual conference of the European Association for the study of diabetes in Vienna. The research, still waiting for peer-reviewsuggests that there may be a connection between a form of diabetes that develops in pregnancy and future neurosviluppo disorders in the unborn child.

Gestational diabetes, which concerns about 14% of women waiting, is a form of diabetes that manifests themselves for the first time in pregnancy in women who did not suffer from diabetes previously. This condition, characterized by high levels of blood sugar in the blood, can increase the risk of complications during childbirth and future metabolic and cardiovascular disorders both in the mother and in the child.

The scientists of the Monash University of Melbourne, Australia, collected data from 48 studies conducted in 20 different countries, and discovered that children born from mothers who had suffered from gestational diabetes had a lower intellectual quotient and a higher risk of 36% of developing ADHD and 56% of suffering from an autistic spectrum disorder.

As explained on Naturethe results are in line with those of another analysis of previous studies published in June on Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology: that time, from the data of 56 million pairs of mothers and children it had emerged that any form of diabetes in pregnancy (of type 1, type 2 or gestational) was linked to an increased risk of ADHD or autism in children.

However, none of these research has shown that diabetes in pregnancy is the cause of autism or ADHD. Those found are simple associations that indicate the existence of a signal to be deepened. Diabetes -related factors, such as inflammatory and cell stress mechanisms, high blood sugar and reduced availability of oxygen in the blood could adversely affect the neural development of the fetus, but it is genetics that weigh in a fundamental way on the risk of developing ADHD and autism.

Environmental factors (for example the scarcity of folic acid or vitamin B9, pollution or gestational diabetes) could have a moderate or mild effect in competing with risk, but it is difficult to say whether one of them, taken individually, contributes and to what extent.

For example, a woman who suffers from gestational diabetes could be more likely suffering from obesity, or smoker, or coming from a disadvantaged socio -economic context – other factors that could somehow be connected to problems in the neural development of the unborn child.

And while scientists underline how complex it is to attribute a cause and only one to the “neurovariability“(Term borrowed from the scientific journalist Roberta Villa, who of the” causes “of autism has written widely in his latest newsletter), overseas Donald Trump anticipated that his administration would have” found “the response to the alleged increase in cases of autism – increase that experts believe the greater awareness of this condition in the various shades of the spectrum and therefore to an increase in diagnosis.

On Monday 22 September, the health of the Trump administration have declared, without the support of any scientific evidence, that the use of paracetamol in pregnancy causes autism to cause autism (Acetaminophen In English, our Tachipirina, better known as Tylenol in the United States), one of the safest drugs that a pregnant woman can take.

The possible association between the use of the medicine and the onset of autism and ADHD in the unborn child has already been investigated several times in important scientific studies (We had written here too): The most famous, conducted by the Karolinska Institutet of Stockholm and by the Drexel University of Philadelphia, concerned almost 2 and a half million Swedish children, of which over 185,000 had been exposed to the drug in uterus. The research did not detect associations: looking at the couples of brothers, the risk of ailments has not increased, in cases where the mother had taken on the drug. The demonstration of the fact that it is genetics that fundamentally affect autism and ADHD.

For these reasons, the major health authorities remember that, in cases where the mother has high fever or pain, paracetamol is the most valid of alternatives, although, like all drugs in pregnancy, it should be used very carefully.