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Newborn Vitamin D Levels in Relation to Autism Spectrum Disorders and Intellectual Disability: a Case-Control Study in California
Journal article   Open access

Newborn Vitamin D Levels in Relation to Autism Spectrum Disorders and Intellectual Disability: a Case-Control Study in California

Gayle C. Windham, Michelle Pearl, Meredith C. Anderson, Victor Poon, Darryl Eyles, Karen L. Jones, Kristen Lyall, Martin Kharrazi and Lisa A. Croen
Autism research, v 12(6), pp 989-998
18 Mar 2019
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/aur.2092
PMID: 30883046
Featured in Collection :   UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
url
ps://europepmc.org/articles/pmc6546514View
Accepted (AM)Open Access (License Unspecified),  Open

Abstract

ASD autism hydroxy-vitamin D intellectual disability vitamin D
Vitamin D deficiency has been increasing concurrently with prevalence of autism spectrum disorders (ASD), and emerging evidence suggests vitamin D is involved in brain development. Most prior studies of ASD examined vitamin D levels in children already diagnosed, but a few examined levels during perinatal development, the more likely susceptibility period. Therefore, we examined newborn vitamin D levels in a case-control study conducted among births in 2000–2003 in southern California. Children with ASD (N=563) or Intellectual Disability (ID) (N=190) were identified from the Department of Developmental Services and compared to population controls (N=436) identified from birth certificates. 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D) was measured in archived newborn dried blood spots by a sensitive assay, and corrected to sera equivalents. We categorized 25(OH)D levels as deficient (<50nmol/L), insufficient (50–74 nmol/L), and sufficient (≥75 nmol/L), and also examined continuous levels, using logistic regression. The adjusted odds ratios (AOR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for ASD were 0.96 (0.64–1.4) for 25(OH)D deficiency (14% of newborns) and 1.2 (0.86–1.6) for insufficiency (26% of newborns). The AORs for continuous 25(OH)D (per 25nmol/L) were 1.0 (0.91–1.09) for ASD and 1.14 (1.0–1.30) for ID. Thus, in this relatively large study of measured newborn vitamin D levels, our results do not support the hypothesis of lower 25(OH)D being associated with higher risk of ASD (or ID), although we observed suggestion of interactions with sex and race/ethnicity. 25(OH)D levels were relatively high (median 84 nmol/L in controls) so results may differ in populations with higher prevalence of low vitamin D levels. Lay Summary: We studied whether vitamin D levels measured at birth were related to whether a child later developed autism (or low IQ). Our results did not show that children with autism, or low IQ, overall had lower vitamin D levels at birth than children without autism. Vitamin D levels were fairly high, on average, in these children born in Southern California.

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28 citations in Web of Science
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UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

This publication has contributed to the advancement of the following goals:

#3 Good Health and Well-Being

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Collaboration types
Domestic collaboration
International collaboration
Web of Science research areas
Behavioral Sciences
Psychology, Developmental
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