Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder (NDD). It manifests itself in early childhood, with varying degrees of impact on the child’s developmental spheres. Although the underlying mechanisms have yet to be elucidated, ASD is considered to be multifactorial, with both genetic and non-genetic risk factors. Is there an established link between diabetes and autism?

Observation: This is a 16-year-old child with no maternal history of hyperglycemia during pregnancy. No personal history of autoimmune disease, followed since the age of 4 for autistic spectrum disease, and who presented to the emergency department with a ketoacidotic decompensation. Biological signs of autoimmunity came back negative, as did the anti-GAD AC assay.

Discussion: The correlation between diabetes and the risk of developing autistic disease has been well established. A meta-analysis identified pregnancy-related factors such as diabetes as a risk factor for developing the disease ¹. The results of a retrospective cohort study show that in utero exposure to type 1 diabetes, type 2 diabetes or gestational diabetes diagnosed at 26 weeks would increase a child’s risk of developing autism spectrum disorder compared with children not exposed to diabetes in utero. Meta-regression analyses revealed that children with autism had a higher associated risk of developing diabetes and hypertension than adults (3).

Conclusions: Children with autism are at high risk of developing cardiometabolic diseases such as diabetes and hypertension. Hence the need for vigilant monitoring.