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Study Debunks Lyme Disease-Autism Link
Children with autism no likelier than others to have signs of tick-borne infection
TUESDAY, April 30 (HealthDay News) -- A new study failed to find any evidence to back up a suggested association between Lyme disease and autism spectrum disorders.
Although a prevalence of Lyme disease as high as 20 percent (or even higher) has been reported in children with autism, the new research found no cases of Lyme disease in children when testing recommended by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was done.
Health experts are concerned that if parents suspect that Lyme disease has played a role in their child's autism, they may seek treatment with long-term antibiotic therapy.
"Unless a child has been diagnosed with Lyme disease or another infectious disease, our findings don't support the idea of putting autistic children on antibiotics," said study senior author Armin Alaedini, an assistant professor of medical sciences in the department of medicine and the Institute of Human Nutrition at Columbia University Medical Center, in New York City.
Results of the study appear in the May 1 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Autism is a developmental brain disorder that hinders a child's ability to communicate and interact socially.
Lyme disease occurs when a tick transmits the bacteria Borrelia burgdorferi to a human through its bite.
Symptoms of Lyme disease often include a rash with a bulls-eye appearance that's warm to the touch, fatigue, chills, fever, headache, muscle and joint aches, and swollen lymph nodes, according to the CDC.
Diagnosis is through a blood test. The most accurate results come from the use of two different tests, but this method isn't always used.
Alaedini and his colleagues wanted to investigate the suspected link using the CDC's preferred two-tiered approach. They analyzed blood samples from 70 children with autism and 50 children without autism or any other known conditions. The average age of the children with autism was slightly older than 7 years, and the average age of the unaffected children was 9 years old.
After testing with the first method, called ELISA, one child with autism tested positive and four tested as borderline. In the non-autistic children, four tested positive and one was borderline.
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