Re: Type 2 and autism?

randy@xxxxxxx <randy@xxxxxxx> wrote:
On Oct 23, 2:21 pm, Chris Malcolm <c...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
ra...@xxxxxxx <ra...@xxxxxxx> wrote:
On Oct 23, 3:21 am, Chris Malcolm <c...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Canth <kwar6...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Sat, 22 Oct 2011 21:13:07 +1030, Canth <kwar6...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
On Fri, 21 Oct 2011 23:22:06 -0500, Robert Miles
<mile...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I just found an article suggesting that there's a relation
between type 2 diabetes and autism.

<http://www.dlife.com/diabetes-news/content/research-proposes-common-l...>

I have type 2, and have for some time suspected that I have
Asperger's (but not enough to be diagnosed).  It's on the
autistic spectrum.

Anyone else here?

AS! ds++:+++ a++ c+++ p++ t+ f-- S+ p+ e++ h++ r++ n++ i+ P+ m++ M
I've been ignored by better people than you.
Actually, I am formally diagnosed AS as is my daughter.  When we were
diagnosed and were discussing it with my mother & siblings, we
concluded that Dad would have definitely been diagnosed had he lived
long enough.  Discussions with uncles & cousins indicates that
granddad probably would have been diagnosed also.  AFAIK, I am the
only diabetic in the direct line.
The AS spectrum is just like diabetes only more so - there are
definitely a number of genetic factors as well as probable
environmental triggers.  This article might perhaps be better
expressed as there may be a relationship between some autistics and
some diabetics.

Chris Wrote:
IMHO a lot of this kind of correlation thrown up by epidemiological
studies are no more than specific instances of the general observation
that if two things with general systemic effects are wrong with you
then each one is likely to be making the effects of the other a bit
worse than it would have been if it was the only thing wrong with you.

In shorter and more technical terms, systemic comorbities are likely
to be synergistic.
The above needs to be established, it's certainly not true a priori.

It's an argument about probabilities. Not sure why you say "a
priori". I can certainly think of cases where systemic comorbidities
contradict, where having one protects you against the other. But those
are rare. Do you consider the argument more or less plausible than its
contrary?

Here's what I object to:

Chris Wrote:
"IMHO a lot of this kind of correlation thrown up by epidemiological
studies are no more than specific instances of the general observation
hat if two things with general systemic effects are wrong with you
then each one is likely to be making the effects of the other a bit
worse than it would have been if it was the only thing wrong with
you."

Your saying that in this study it's not anything specifically about
"diabetes" that's related to autism it's just two comorbidities
together show them up more.

Not always, just quite likely. For example, I'm an old man with
several things wrong with me, and in my long life I've suffered a
number of serious illnesses and injuries. I've noticed that when I'm
ill I often experience the unpleasant symptoms of my chronic problems
more strongly. Illness seems to lower my pain thresholds so that
everyhing hurts a bit more. The same goes for coronary and digestive
discomfort. And so on. In fact sometimes it's the illness
strengthening those other symptoms which brings them to medical
attention and gets the problem diagnosed for the first time. I've
noticed the same thing in others. I've also seen the same kind of
thing reported here and in other medical support groups.

Next consider the fact that there are far more illnesses disorders
etc. than there are symptoms. The illnesses etc. have to share
symptoms. That's what causes the characteristic difficulties of
medical diagnosis.

Finally consider that any specific symptom, such as peripheral
neuropathy, can have multiple causes. For example, it could be the
case that the peripheral neuropathy in my feet is partly due to
glycation damage from diabetes, partly due to peripheral arterial
disease, and partly due to some Reynaud's damage from motorcycling. It
could be that any single one of those on its would not be enough to
produce noticeable neuropathy, but any two together would be. So in an
epidemiological study such borderline clinical/subclinical cases would
be missed if they occured singly, but could be picked up if they
occurred with a symptom sharing comorbidity.

Put all those effects together and you get the kind of comorbidity
synergy I was suggesting. Note that it's not a causative relation kind
of synergy, just a statistical correlative appearance of synergy. If
that confounder isn't eliminated from the statistical analysis (as I
susepct it often isn't) then the apparent correlation will be an
artefact of the methodology.

If true autism should be related all comorbidities, not just diabetes.

Why? That's not what I claimed. Firstly I specifically didn't claim a
relationship. I simply claimed that epidemiological studies would show
a correlation. Secondly I didn't claim this as a general truth. I
claimed it as a likelihood. I'd be very surprised if there weren't
some illnesses which made it very unlikely or even impossible to have
autism.

You also generalize this outside of just diabetes and imply is a big
bugabo that's thrown epidemiology for a loop.

I implied that it's a "bugabo" that's "thrown epidemiology for a
loop"? What on earth does that mean?

I looked up "bugabo" and I guess you meant "bugaboo". But that seems
to mean "an object of obsessive, usually exaggerated fear or anxiety"
which makes no sense. Nor does "thrown for a loop" make much sense.

I think I can fairly confidently guess that whatever that means it's
pretty unlikely to be what I meant or implied!

I don't believe that
this is true and all guys that publish have overlooked this.

Where did I claim or imply that everyone had overlooked this? I'd be
very surprised if the caveats in the results discussion section of
some epidemiological studies didn't raise this kind of point. I'd also
not be surprised if it turned out that's where I got the idea from.

Chris Wrote:
"Common sense was the foundation of Aristotelian physics."

No, common sense was not the foundation of Aristotelian physics.
Deductive logic was the foundation of "Aristotelian physics" without
regard to taking note on how the world works (Data, in other words).

Logic, like mathematics, is a chain of purely symbolic reasoning. It
can only draw conclusions about the world if it starts with
assumptions about the world. If these are facts then the conclusions
should be facts. In the case of Aristoteliam physics they weren't
facts. They were common sense assumptions, the kind of things about
the world that everyone knew were so obviously common sensically true
that noboby needed to bother checking them by experiment.

The deductive principles that Aristotle used might be logically
consistent, but to ignore data over suppositions is not Common Sense
by my understanding and way most people use the term.

Common sense is what most people will agree is clearly obviously
self-evidently true without needing to bother doing any experiments to
test it.

It wasn't until Galleo applied Common Sense and showed, very simply by
the way, that the world doesn't work the way Aristotle said

Very simply? I hope you're not referring to the mythological Leaning
Tower of Pisa experiment!

Galileo makes no claim to having done it. His biographer claims he did
it at a time when Galileo hadn't even formulated the final version of
his free fall law which would have predicted the result. It's
generally considered that the report of the experiment is a
minsunderstanding of a thought experiment Galileo wrote about in which
two balls of different weights and connected by a string are
dropped. Does the heavier and faster pull the string taut and end up
being retarded by the slower? But Aristotle's theory argues that the
total system of two balls should fall faster than either one alone,
being heavier. Galileo argued that that contradiction in the thought
experiment proved Aristotle wrong.

The experiments by which Galileo disproved Aristotle and established
his law of free fall which predicted the kind of thing the Leaning
Tower experimnet might have shown had he done it were a long series of
careful experiments with inclined planes. I wouldn't call it
simple. It involved the mathematics of acceleration and the use of the
triangle of forces, which was pretty advanced for the time. Nor would
I call it an application of common sense. If it had been common sense
it wouldn't have taken Galileo lots of experiments and calculations
over many years to get to his final law of free fall. And if it had
been common sense then once he'd done it it wouldn't have taken so
long to convince others that he'd got it right.

Randy Wrote:
For instance do folks with say eczema also have more autism.

Chris
A quick google suggests the answer is probably yes.

Well that interesting and I assume this evidence pub med quality, but
that in no way establishes your principle.

Of course it doesn't. Nor was it intended to. You just asked the
question. I answered it.

You got to show the autism
is related to most all comorbidities (and there are a lot more than
2).

Why do you keep exaggerating what I say? I never claimed "most all"
(which I take it means the same as English "almost all"). I claimed no
more than a likelihood. And I don't have to show anything because I'm
not proposing this as an established scientific principle.

It's simply my opinion, which I've suggested some reasons for. I don't
think it contentious controversial or implausible. I realise it has
not been established as a scientific fact. I realise that to do that
would take a pretty considerable amount of research. At a guess I'd
say it would take one medically and scientifically trained person at
least several months to make a good initial case for mounting a larger
definitive study.

So what? We're having a discussion here, throwing ideas about. At
least, that's what I'm doing. And I'm quite happy to suggest
speculative unproven ideas which are consistent with (what I know of)
published research, i.e. not contradicted by it.

I get the impression you think there's something wrong with unproven
speculation.

--
Chris Malcolm
.

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