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Wisdom Wednesdays: Shocking New Research On Contributing Factors To ADHD and Autism Spectrum Disorders · Hardiness with Dr Paul Taylor

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  Speaker 1: Everybody, Welcome to another edition of Wisdom Wednesdays. Now, today
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  Speaker 1: I want to talk about a study that I just
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  Speaker 1: read that is really concerning and will be uncomfortable listening
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  Speaker 1: for some people, but I think it is a hugely
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  Speaker 1: important public health message. Now, unless you've been living under
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  Speaker 1: a rock, you'll know that there are whopping increases in
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  Speaker 1: both ADHD and autism spectrum disorder that's being observed amongst children.
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  Speaker 1: And I'll just give you some statistics for Australia. Apologies
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  Speaker 1: to my overseas listeners, but we know that in most
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  Speaker 1: developed nations they're increasing. So and I estimated not zero
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  Speaker 1: point zero eight percent of Australia's population is autistic, although
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  Speaker 1: the rear of diagnosis has risen very significantly in recent years.
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  Speaker 1: And ADHD is slightly more frequent, occurring at an estimated
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  Speaker 1: eight percent of children age four to eleven and up
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  Speaker 1: to six percent of adults. And that's according to the
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  Speaker 1: Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry. And as I said,
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  Speaker 1: both of those rates are increasing pretty significantly. Now, this
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  Speaker 1: study was an Australian study that explored the links between
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  Speaker 1: the weight of the mum are overweight and obese and
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  Speaker 1: both preconception and during pregnancy and long term neuropsychiatric health
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  Speaker 1: of their children. And they specifically looked at autism spectrum
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  Speaker 1: disorder ADHD, and conduct disorders as well as some other
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  Speaker 1: mood disorders. So the study was a what's called a
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  Speaker 1: systematic review and meta analysis, which you'll have heard me
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  Speaker 1: talk about before. And what they did is they looked
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  Speaker 1: at forty two different studies that were published peer reviewed
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  Speaker 1: studies that involved in total nearly three point seven million
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  Speaker 1: mother child pers and making this a very robust bit
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  Speaker 1: of research. And they also followed very strict publication guidelines
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  Speaker 1: to ensure that the data or what was produced with
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  Speaker 1: a high level of rigor. And they searched multiple databases
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  Speaker 1: looking for these observational studies that were studying those and
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  Speaker 1: then they use these fancy statistics to pull all of
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  Speaker 1: the results from the different studies and then calculate the
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  Speaker 1: odds ratio or the hazard ratio of the outcomes so
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  Speaker 1: that gives us a good statistical number, right, And so
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  Speaker 1: what the results were, they were pretty significant. Children who
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  Speaker 1: were born to mothers who were obese during preconception had
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  Speaker 1: a fifty seven percent higher risk of developing ADHD than
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  Speaker 1: children who were born to mothers who were normal preconception,
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  Speaker 1: and then when the mother was obased during pregnancy, there
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  Speaker 1: was a thirty two percent increased risk. So what they
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  Speaker 1: did is they separated out when the mother was overweight
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  Speaker 1: or obese preconception and then when they were overweight or
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  Speaker 1: obasee during pregnancy. So slightly higher risk or slightly higher
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  Speaker 1: increase risk with the mother and being overweight or obese
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  Speaker 1: during preconception than there was during pregnancy, but they were
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  Speaker 1: both very significant increases. And then for autism spectrum disorder,
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  Speaker 1: when the mother was obase preconception, that child was had
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  Speaker 1: a forty two percent increased risk of being born or
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  Speaker 1: developing autism spectum disorder compared the children of mothers who
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  Speaker 1: were a normal weight preconception, and then when the mother
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  Speaker 1: was a base during pregnancy, the risk of the child
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  Speaker 1: being born with autism specting disorder increased by whopping one
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  Speaker 1: hundred and thirty three percent compared to children whose mothers
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  Speaker 1: were of normal weight during pregnancy. And then these risks
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  Speaker 1: also extended to conduct disorders. There was a sixteen percent
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  Speaker 1: increased risk of developing conduct disorders and also a significant
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  Speaker 1: increased risk of developing external behaviors with maternal obesity. In
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  Speaker 1: those categories, However, there was no significant associations found between
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  Speaker 1: the weight of the mother and other conditions like mood
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  Speaker 1: or anxiety disorders, so it seemed to be those neuropsychiatric
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  Speaker 1: conditions of ADHD, ASD and conduct disorders. Now, interestingly, the
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  Speaker 1: findings applied not just to the mum being obese, but
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  Speaker 1: also so being overweight, although those risks were slightly lower
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  Speaker 1: but still significant. So the discussion section that paper was
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  Speaker 1: really quite interesting that shed some light on the potential
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  Speaker 1: mechanisms that were driving these associations. And this is obviously
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  Speaker 1: speculation from the researchers because it was observational data, and
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  Speaker 1: whilst it's not entirely clear because of the observational data,
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  Speaker 1: while whether the maternal adipacity or weight it was directly
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  Speaker 1: causing the new event developmental outcomes, or if there was
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  Speaker 1: some sure genetic and environmental factors that played a role
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  Speaker 1: such as socioeconomic status, the researchers actually suggested that it
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  Speaker 1: could be due to some of the metabolic consequences of obesity,
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  Speaker 1: such as having high blood pressure, having high blood sugar
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  Speaker 1: and then also the inflat eimiation that we know that
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  Speaker 1: goes hand in hand with obesity, and that then can
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  Speaker 1: hamper the development of the vetus's brain in utero, and
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  Speaker 1: that could well explain the findings, and that seems pretty
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  Speaker 1: damn plausible to be honest, but again, with observational studies,
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  Speaker 1: you can't infer direct cause and effect, although it is
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  Speaker 1: a bit of a smoking gun, and it also follows
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  Speaker 1: a host of other research that has shown over the
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  Speaker 1: years that the health and fitness status of both mom
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  Speaker 1: and dad at the time of conception has a significant
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  Speaker 1: impact on the future health of the child through epigenetic mechanisms.
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  Speaker 1: So for those just a little reminder. Genes are obviously
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  Speaker 1: the genes. Think of them as the hardware. Epigenetics sits
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  Speaker 1: on top of that, and that's the software that kind
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  Speaker 1: of tells the genes how to express and how to
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  Speaker 1: behave so that if you're unfit and an unhealthy at
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  Speaker 1: the time of conception, it doesn't change the genes that
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  Speaker 1: your child gets, but it changes how those genes can
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  Speaker 1: be expressed. And it's been well established by other studies
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  Speaker 1: that on the healthy parents at the time of conception
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  Speaker 1: and poor health of the mother during pregnancy significantly increases
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  Speaker 1: the risk of that child being born or developing overweight
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  Speaker 1: and suffering from metabolic disorders or increased risk of metabolic
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  Speaker 1: disorders such as type two diabetes and also cardiovascular disease. Now,
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  Speaker 1: what this study adds is that the mum's weight, both
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  Speaker 1: preconception and during pregnancy also appear to significantly increase the
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  Speaker 1: risk of a range of neuropsychatric outcomes in children as well.
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  Speaker 1: And this actually reminds me of a conversation that I had.
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  Speaker 1: It was probably more than a decade ago, or around
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  Speaker 1: a decade ago. A good mate of mine, create Tours,
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  Speaker 1: who was the director of Johnson and Johnson in New
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  Speaker 1: Zealand at the time. He got the two of us
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  Speaker 1: in audience with Sir Peter Gluckman, who at the time
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  Speaker 1: was the chief scientist in New Zealand, and we were
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  Speaker 1: talking to him about a program that I had run
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  Speaker 1: that showed that we could significantly impact weight and blood
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  Speaker 1: markers and health and blood pressure and stuff like that
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  Speaker 1: of a bunch of people using an educational intervention. And
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  Speaker 1: I'll never forget he said to me, Look, that's all
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  Speaker 1: very interesting around adults. And you know, great study but
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  Speaker 1: he said, I'm really only interested in stuff that is
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  Speaker 1: going to influence the health of the parents who are
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  Speaker 1: planning to have children. So ten years ago, Sir Peter
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  Speaker 1: Gluckman was all over this like a spider monkey, and
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  Speaker 1: he knew that the health of the parents before conception
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  Speaker 1: and then the mother during pregnancy had a massive impact
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  Speaker 1: on the long term health of that child. And this
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  Speaker 1: is why we're seeing that progressively, generations are now starting
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  Speaker 1: to get worse as we have more and more overweight
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  Speaker 1: and obesity and unhealthy parents that then, through epigenetic mechanisms,
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  Speaker 1: carries on and really significantly increases the health risks of
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  Speaker 1: those future generations. So what is pretty clear from both
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  Speaker 1: this study and other studies is and the researchers actually
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  Speaker 1: called this out and said that there should be some
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  Speaker 1: significant educational programs for partners who are planning to have
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  Speaker 1: children because their health both at time of conception and
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  Speaker 1: in the mum's health during pregnancy really does have a
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  Speaker 1: significant impact. And now we're also seeing it on neuropsychia disorders.
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  Speaker 1: So that is it for this week, folks, Catch you
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  Speaker 1: next time.