Die Studie legt einen Zusammenhang zwischen der vorgeburtlichen Exposition gegenüber bestimmten Medikamenten und einem erhöhten Autismusrisiko nahe. Medikamente, von denen bekannt ist, dass sie den Cholesterinsyntheseweg hemmen (Antidepressiva, Antipsychotika, Anxiolytika, Betablocker und Statine), wurden durchweg mit einer höheren ASD-Rate bei Nachkommen in Verbindung gebracht.
Study suggests link between prenatal exposure to certain medications and increased autism risk
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Study suggests link between prenatal exposure to certain medications and increased autism risk
A landmark study led by researchers at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC) and published in Molecular Psychiatry has identified a significant association between prenatal prescription of commonly utilized medications and the risk of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in children.
Analyzing 6.14 million maternal-child health records from the Epic Cosmos database —representing nearly one-third of all U.S. births between 2014 and 2023 — the team found that prescription of medications known to inhibit the cholesterol synthesis pathway were consistently associated with higher rates of ASD in offspring.
While previous studies grouped medications by their indications, the UNMC team grouped prescribed medications together based on common effects and side effects on sterol biosynthesis.
These sterol biosynthesis–inhibiting medications (SBIMs) include certain antidepressants, antipsychotics, anxiolytics, beta-blockers and statins. These are the generic names of the 14 medications studied: aripiprazole, atorvastatin, bupropion, buspirone, fluoxetine, haloperidol, metoprolol, nebivolol, pravastatin, propranolol, rosuvastatin, sertraline, simvastatin and trazodone. Many of these are among the most commonly prescribed medications in the United States, accounting for more than 400 million annual prescriptions.
Key findings
Mothers prescribed at least one SBIM during pregnancy had a 1.47-fold higher risk of having a child diagnosed with ASD. Risk increased in a dose-dependent manner.
For each additional SBIM co-prescribed, there was a 1.33 times increased risk of ASD, reaching 2.33-fold risk when four or more SBIMs were prescribed simultaneously.
Among the 196,447 children diagnosed with ASD in the cohort, 14.2% had prenatal SBIM exposure.
Use of SBIMs during pregnancy increased sharply over time, rising from 4.3% of pregnancies in 2014 to 16.8% in 2023.
For those interested, here’s the link to the peer reviewed journal article:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-026-03610-7
Oh boy, here we go again
Gonna, need to see some HEAVY reproduction numbers from other parts of the world/America.
This is a *very* politicized topic, and it’s coming from a state with vectors from the side of the political spectrum with an *INTENSE* need for this to be right.
~~I’m not too keen on learning that one of the Authors is a pastor of a church he created.~~
Edit: I’m leaving this up to call myself out. Different Peeples. He’s not a pastor of his own church. I will correct all other posts I’ve made to this effect.
> Among the 196,447 children diagnosed with ASD in the cohort, 14.2% had prenatal SBIM exposure.
So ~86% of autistic children didn’t and were autistic anyway?
Did they look at how many parents of the children diagnosed with ASD also had ASD?
Sounds dubious to me, and then I checked who did the study, and it all made sense
Oh hey, another attempt to discredit and claim autism isnt natural via blaming medicine that vulnerable people such as those with chronic issues like autism or mental illness ot chronic illness may need while pregnant which means they’ll actually live long enough to give birth, which means it can get passed down to the kid. This can only go well and will no way push more people towards eugenics via trying to stop these from being given to those in need because they cant stand the idea of little timmy liking a childish topic a little to much; even if they will never interact with the child themselves.
Autistic and neurodivergent people in general are more likely to be on antidepressants and possibly also beta blockers (for anxiety). Including/especially those who never recieved a diagnosis. Girls in particular were and are still less likely to get diagnosed as a child.
Those people get pregnant too and are more likely to have neurodivergent children themselves.
The statistical analysis is extremely tricky as you are not measuring the true prevalence of autism in the population, you can’t, because we don’t have those numbers. Because the question of ‚how many are autistic‘ is not the same as ‚how many have been diagnosed with autism‘.
It is super easy to identify correlations when it comes to these questions but it is a lot harder to prove causation. Especially, when you don’t factor in the possibility of the parents being neurodivergent and how that impacts the pregnancy (as in having to stay on medication).
I know people are very skeptical of findings like this, but I encourage people to be open and mindful about things like this.
It doesn’t have to be a threat against these medications, if there is a relationship that does play out in a large sample it should be seriously considered and watched despite how such studies get weaponized. Or, in the case of the rather famous anti-vaccer study, was designed to target the combined MMR vaccine.
Seems that people with autism may also be more likely to take those medications. There’s a genetic link to autism. = people with autism are taking these medications, and having children, who also have autism. (Please correct me if the paper disproves me!)
Did they account for cooccurence/conditional probability of autism, conditioned on the specific disorders the mothers have that require those kinds of medications?
E.g. The cooccurrence of bipolar and autism. You would have to do a study comparing offspring from bipolar mothers, with one group of mothers tapering their meds and the other, not. (This would be an ethically questionable study — from what i gather <which may not be sufficiently statistical in nature> the risk of psychosis, manic impulsivity, suicidal and self harming behavior etc is a far greater risk to the offspring, than trackable, detectable and manageable effects from the meds. It’s a frequent debate between the GYN and the psychiatrist.
This doesn’t seem credible. I will need to see what exactly they looked at in records, how those records were accessed, and what data was discarded from consideration.
And if AI was involved.
Mutations in genes involved in cholesterol synthesis have been tied to autism for 10y+
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5485071/
>Our hypothesis, driven by the peer reviewed literature, posits that there may be links between cholesterol metabolism, which we will refer to as “steroid metabolism” and findings of steroid abnormalities of various kinds (cortisol, testosterone, estrogens, progesterone, vitamin D) in autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-1007-0
> By combining healthcare claims, electronic health records, familial whole-exome sequences and neurodevelopmental gene expression patterns, we identified a subgroup of patients with dyslipidemia-associated autism.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0091305723000096
> Despite numerous clinical and experimental studies, no etiological factor, biomarker, and specific model of transmission have been consistently associated with ASD. However, an imbalance in cholesterol levels has been observed in many patients, more specifically, a condition of hypocholesterolemia, which seems to be shared between ASD and ASD-related geneticsyndromes such as fragile X syndrome (FXS), Rett syndrome (RS), and Smith- Lemli-Opitz (SLO).
Did they control for age? Massive confounder as risk of taking many of these medications increases with age and maternal age is also a big risk factor for ASD in the neonate
Regarding antidepressants, it’s important to remember that untreated anxiety and depression carry their own risks to a pregnancy.
Preterm birth, low birthweight, neuro development issues, developmental delays, behavioural issues, and complications for the mother.
So before we go attacking sertraline, the most prescribed SSRI during pregnancy, we must understand the risks vs benefits.
RFK JR is going to have a field day with this
…. what about co-morbidity?????
if they start overdiagnosing autism to the point it’s more than 50% of the population, do we have to start medicating the previous NTs to be more autistic?
I suspect autism has a correlation with those diseases. I know my family had all of those and autism throughout
I think the reason why the pregnant women were taking the drugs is more relevant to any correlation than the drugs themselves.
But what about the Tylenol?!?!
You know what’s also linked to autism? Maternal hypothyroidism during pregnancy. Even subclinical levels.
Low thyroid can cause high cholesterol and depression.
Auto-immune thyroid disease and autism run in my family.
This is a conversation that needs to be had.