To just remind you that autism is genetic?

What drug?

I know identical twin girls ,whilst both have a diagnosis of autism, one is far more impacted then the other ,she's non verbal and at a special for children with severe and profound learning disabilities, whilst her.twin is very verbal and attends mainstream albeit with an EHCP etc.

Genetic doesn't always mean.its inherited from parents, my son has a,rare chromosome disorder, thought t9 be the underlying cause of his autism and learning disabilities, but it was de novo and neither me or his Dad are autistic.

it means it has a substantial genetic component but to save me typing out an explanation of heritability this is pretty good:

www.thetransmitter.org/spectrum/autism-heritability-it-probably-does-not-mean-what-you-think-it-means/

Autism has a heritability of 90% which means it is genetic in origin.

Autism & ADHD “run” in families.

If you believe otherwise, please do some research.

Is your sibling your identical twin? As that’s what the post was referring to…

I wouldn't necessarily draw that conclusion. I think it's more likely that these conditions are genetically linked in some way. I believe there's research being done currently. There is a definite link with ADHD and Ehlers Danlos though, I know I've read that.

I know: I was just trying to grab OP's attention!

If you think about it (and I'm saying this as somebody who studied genetics from a mathematical perspective at university many years ago, not a biologist), it totally makes sense. Mutations (DNA copying errors) occur at cell division time - and, when there are many orders of magnitude fewer cells, there's more of a chance that those mutations will become the dominant majority. Therefore, the earlier the mutation, the more likely it is that those cells will go on to heavily influence further cell divisions.

Therefore, it's vastly more likely to happen in the womb than at any other time, except maybe the creation of the sperm (given the much higher number compared with the number of eggs a woman carries).

EDIT: More than happy to be corrected by any biologists in the crowd...

I did say that here’s a couple of papers:

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0963689720947416

https://rxisk.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Baumeister-Is_Attention_Deficit_Hyperactivity_Disorder_a_Risk.4-2-1.pdf

Can I just say that this is a link to a medical magazine and the actual report ends
Researchers still need further evidence to determine the link between Parkinson’s and ADHD, as well as the long-term effects of ADHD medications.
So the jury is still out on this. More research is needed.

Auromimmune and thyroid diseases and thyroid diseases and dementia have comorbidities too.

@Alltheyearround

Autism and health issues: https://neurodivergentinsights.com/blog/autism-and-health-issues?rq=Auto&format=amp

Autistic burnout is a likely explanation for lots of conditions that have been attributed to autoimmune disease.

Also - and this one is REALLY interesting - the research is beginning to suggest that Parkinson’s disease might be lifelong ADHD, just the geriatric version: www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/adhd-and-parkinsons#:~:text=ADHD%20and%20Parkinson's%20both%20affect,increase%20the%20risk%20of%20Parkinson's.

@ProfessorPeppy interesting. I have CFS and very likely GAD and ADHD.

DS has likely autism/or traits of.

Any research links for the links? :)

Glad you find a way through and lost the anxiety!

This has turned into a useful discussion, hope we can all help each other by sharing knowledge and experiences.

@Tinkerbot

"Why isn't there a book on 'mannerisms, speech patterns, body language' to help us get it right or at least better?"

I’m fairly sure I’m AuDHD and I honestly wouldn’t want to ‘get it right’. I think I’ve got a really good balance of masking v quirky traits. I was actually fairly popular from my mid-teens onwards because I could make people laugh and I was a bit fearless. Prior to this I was barely keeping a lid on my screaming anxiety and couldn’t understand why everyone else was so chill.

I wanted to be like everyone else so much I sort of ‘faked it till I made it’. I probably am a bit weird but I haven’t suffered from prolonged background anxiety since around the age of 16. It just disappeared as quickly as it arrived. Lots of my friends have diagnoses of GAD, ME/CFS and PMDD, which I understand are beginning to be linked with ASD.

From what I have read and observed in my own family 50/50.

Cousin has it, his sister does not, likewise nephew has it, his sister has no signs.

I don't think it's a girl/masking thing for the women in the family.

Doing genetic research around DS possible gene duplication which can mean autism, my findings so far were 50% that these could be passed to the next generation. We have an appt with NHS geneticist later in the year so will report back.

Marc Segar's book might be worth you looking out for. It does just that.

Why isn't there a book on 'mannerisms, speech patterns, body language' to help us get it right or at least better?

There probably are.. but they wouldn't work for everyone.. we all find our own ways of coping. Staring at noses in stead of making eye contact, subtly copying the body language of people around us (women are better at this, hence it being more difficult to diagnose, we 'mirror/parrot' the behaviour of people we socialise with more) knowing when stuff is too much so excusing ourselves, stimming.. finding stims that work for us but dont scream 'notice me', finding obsessions that are more socially acceptable, like gaming, or sport.

😲😲😲 that has blown my mind. I wonder how that can happen when they are a product of the same egg and sperm?

That's really interesting. Have the twins been part of twin studies?

You could assume that something triggered the allergy in 1 twin that hasn't yet been triggered in the other identical twin yet because it would be impossible for one yo have a predisposition to allergy and the other not.

Eg in twin studies it was found when 1 identical twin developed T1 diabetes, then the other twin always did as well because of the genetic predisposition. It was just triggered in one first. It could be years in-between the first and second twin developing T1D, but it always happened.

From Autismspeaks.org

Also, even identical twins are not 100 percent genetic matches with each other, details that could only be uncovered with advanced genetic sequencing and analysis.
“Sequencing data has shown that not all identical twins are the same. Some show differences in gene copy number variation, which has shown to be important in the development of ASD, so we can’t at this point rule out variations in your DNA,” said Dean Hartley, senior director of genomic discovery and translational science at Autism Speaks.

Not completely. As far as I understand it, genetic mutations can occur in the womb. Near as I can tell, there's a substantial (albeit not necessarily productive) difference in 15% of twin pairs.

In our family with identical twins one has a life threatening allergy and one doesn’t.

But identical twins are genetically identical!!!

Various conditions are theorised to become active as you said. For example, I have a gene that appears in mainly viking ancestry, blond hair blue eyes, and switches off production of intrinsic element (which retrieves B12 from digested food). Switching off at age 26 or so, this means I now have to have B12 injections otherwise I would get pernicious anemia.What made it flick a switch when I was 26? Who knows. Possibly environmental. Was this then linked to CFS? Seems likely.

Interestingly on the Unique website, the leaflets (info produced from clinicians) say nothing you could have done or not done as a parent would have affected the change in chromosome. I looked at quite a few they all said this.

Which is reassuring to me (wondering if the fact I went to hairdresser and had permanent dye on hair in early stage of pregnancy before I knew, had any bearing on multiple SEND in DS).

But is it correct? Are in utero new changes to chromosomes affected by environment? Can some genes passed down be switched on and off like mine seemingly were by something - stress/environment etc.

Genes are a fascinating and intricate puzzle. Amazing really that we exist walking and talking - it takes so much code to enable us to have the innate ability to speak, and the muscles and structures to do so....which then interact with environment i.e. people communicating with us from babyhood onward. Mind boggling.