According to a new study, there is a potential link between exposure to high estrogen levels in the womb and an increased risk of autism.
The findings were published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry.
A 2015 study conducted by the team of researchers at the University of Cambridge and the State Serum Institute in Denmark conducted the study measured the levels of four prenatal steroid hormones, including two male androgens, in the amniotic fluid in the womb. They found that the hormones were higher in male fetuses who later developed autism.
These male androgens are secreted in higher quantities in male than in female fetuses, which might explain why autism is more common in boys. The hormones are also known to masculinize certain parts of the brain, having effects on the connections between brain cells.
A new study conducted by the same researchers, considering the previous findings, examined the amniotic fluid samples from the same participants, but this time, they looked at other sex steroid hormones called estrogens.
They found that all four estrogens were significantly high in the 98 fetuses who later developed autism than 177 fetuses who did not.
Higher levels of prenatal estrogens were linked to increased risk of developing autism than higher levels of prenatal androgens.
Lead study author and Professor Simon Baron-Cohen said, “This new finding supports the idea that increased prenatal sex steroid hormones are one of the potential causes for the condition. Genetics is well established as another, and these hormones likely interact with genetic factors to affect the developing fetal brain.”
Dr. Alexa Pohl, part of the Cambridge research team, said, “This finding is exciting because the role of estrogens in autism has hardly been studied, and we hope that we can learn more about how they contribute to fetal brain development in further experiments. We still need to see whether the same result holds true in autistic females.” However, the researchers warned that these findings should not be used for screening autism. Prof. Baron-Cohen said, “We are interested in understanding autism, not preventing it.”
