It’s long been theorized that breastfeeding an infant has a protective effect against autism, but 2007 work by neuroscientist Michael Merzenich casts doubt on that theory. In the study, published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Merzenich found that in rats, introducing environmental toxins at the same levels found in breastmilk contributed to a significant deterioration of the brain. Merzenich fears that the toxins already present in our environment are being delivered to babies via breastmilk, contributing to the precipitous rise of autism diagnoses.
Environmental toxins like PCBs, though they have been banned for decades, are found in high concentrations in the human bodies, and leach into breastmilk. PCBEs, a close cousin of PCBs, are still being produced and are also found in human tissues. Merzenich concludes that these toxins, along with other factors like a genetic predisposition for developmental disorders, should convince researchers to take a second look at breastfeeding.
Find more at ucsf.edu.
Wow, that would really be devastating. So many moms trying to do the very best for their babies, and inadvertently doing harm at the same time they’re doing good? Of course, the other possible explanation that comes to mind is vitamin D deficiency, which is easily fixed with supplements.
The other disease that has been skyrocketing along with breastfeeding is asthma. The breastfed babies have less asthma when they’re very young but more asthma when they get older. Breastfeeding also seems to be especially risky for babies if the mother has asthma. We can’t win!
I think the message should be to breastfeed for the closeness and convenience, and back off with most of the health claims!
July 28th, 2009 at 7:20 amThis is just a rat study — I wouldn’t worry about it. Should be interesting to get followup in humans. I’m more worried about the increase in asthma with breastfeeding.
July 28th, 2009 at 8:01 amWas this paid for by an infant formula company?
July 28th, 2009 at 11:11 amBreastfeeding is the BEST form of nutrition for all infants. I’m appalled that you would put something on your site, without proper context, that would suggest that women should not breastfeed!
July 28th, 2009 at 12:52 pmUrbanBaby - You should be ashamed at yourself for posting this research!!! That is all it is - research. Breastfeeding already has a negative stigma associated with it that our society is just beginning to overcome and now to add this propoganda to the mix! How about all the chemicals in forumula?? What is natural about that?? I understand that not all mom’s can or want to breastfeed and that is totally fine. It is every woman’s right to decide, but to spread garbage like this is ridiculous. I am removing myself from all your mailings.
July 28th, 2009 at 12:56 pmRecycling of a two-year-old paper about rats. The salient concern here should be how our environment is filled with toxins. Infants who are not breastfed will get far more chemical exposure than those who are.
Jay Gordon, MD, FAAP, FABM
July 28th, 2009 at 1:12 pmOh my goodness. This is appallingly ridiculous. I daresay just as many forumla fed infants become autistic as breastfed infants. For petes sake it wasn’t too many decades ago that Formula didn’t even exist and ALL babies were breastfed. We didn’t have an Autism Epidemic back then.
Junk Science by an idiot Scientist.
July 28th, 2009 at 5:43 pmBut I googled the study mentioned above and came up with a summary and transcript of an interview with Merzenich. I find the Urban Baby’s news release is misleading. He does not say that breastfeeding leads to autism, he basically theorizes that “some women with a genetic history that includes family developmental disorders such as language impairment or dyslexia — or with male partners who have a similar genetic background —” might consider not breastfeeding because potential toxins in breastmilk could exacerbate the disorder (like make autism worse). He is making the assumption that you have been exposed to high levels of PCB and PBDE. He does not have proof but is raising a red flag for the government/scientists to pursue researching it on humans (his study was on rats). As of now he says there is no way to us to test PCB levels in our milk. He does not advocate stopping breastfeeding, he says it is a theory worth exploring further.
Merzenich:
“Remember that this is a rat study, and basically on the basis of the study alone, giving any kind of advice to a mother or a pregnant woman about whether or not they should nurse their baby is very presumptuous. Really what these studies strongly indicate is that they again raise a caution, a red flag, a warning and what we’ve tried to argue is that we know to little to be sure about it. But, this unequivocally raises a concern, a concern that we hope will be aggressively addressed by other scientists and by the government. Ultimately it might mean that you might not want to just know whether or not you have genetic risk for the origin of something like autism but, you might want to know your PCB and PBDE levels in your blood and in your mouth and it might be of great interest to a young mother.”
If all this has any truth to it then our society should be outraged! We should be focusing on eliminating these types of toxins from our environment.
Here is the article I read along with transcript:
http://www.ucsf.edu/science-cafe/conversations/merzenich/
July 28th, 2009 at 5:46 pmBullshit.
July 28th, 2009 at 8:34 pmWho was this study funded by? It is so biased. The same environmental toxins are found in cows milk!
July 28th, 2009 at 11:07 pmToxins do pass in breastmilk with it’s by far a better choice than formula feeding. And if in fact breastfeeding had something to do with it, I would think breastfeeding rates should be much higher to match the high autism numbers.
July 31st, 2009 at 5:48 amEnvironental toxins do seep into breastmilk, but with all it’s immunological properties, breastmilk still outweights formula by a whole lot. And if in fact breastfeeding has something to do with it, our breastfeeding duration rates should be much higher to match with the increasing Autism numbers.
July 31st, 2009 at 5:51 amGreat article! Hysterical! I’ll be laughing all day!!!
July 31st, 2009 at 11:05 amI’m sad that you bothered publishing this. Any educated, informed mother knows the benefits of breastfeeding far outweigh the risks. It is a proven and published statistic that breastfed infants actually average a few points higher on their IQs (nothing major, but hey!) And furthermore, if these environmental toxins are prevalent in human breast milk. you can be sure they exist in formula too, as well as plenty of other chemicals. Animal feed is usually more toxic than our own.
July 31st, 2009 at 6:17 pmI think it’s always a good thing to do research and rather than get mad a the result we should do more research to find out what is ailing our children and causing a higher autism rate. Something has changed and this is just one proposition. It could be true….but we are too scared to look further so nobody ever finds out the truth. It seems easy for everyone to say that ALL the research positive about breastfeeding is true but this one study that raises a concern is false.
January 8th, 2010 at 2:02 pmI hope this is not true, but if it is, don’t you ladies want to know about it? How can you be so upset and say it is biased when you are biased yourself?
January 25th, 2010 at 3:34 pmIt’s hard to imagine that a mother, whose very own body produced the child that she might be nursing now, would sooner trust a COW to make better milk for that baby! And, what, cows don’t get exposed to the same things we are? Wake up! Ever see what cows eat and how they live?
February 4th, 2010 at 1:17 pmI have been saying this for quite a while now.. the way I see it is over the last 7 yrs or so they have been pushing breast feeding and suddenly autisms rates are at their highest.If you look back to when we were younger the majority of us were formula fed and there was not alot of autistic case. We all had our vaccines just as the kids now. The only thing I see different it the breastfeeding
March 3rd, 2010 at 12:19 pm#18- How about, they didn’t really DIAGNOSE autism very well before that? Are you an idiot? Do you actually know anything about breastfeeding OR autism? Cause I know a lot about both, and I’d bet you if someone dug around hard enough, they’d find some sort of investment by formula companies somewhere in this study.
I’m with #8. How about we fix the problems, rather than look for ways to blame side effects?
April 6th, 2010 at 12:13 amWow, this is so ridiculous. Way to shock people into getting more traffic.
April 6th, 2010 at 2:27 pmOk, a month later and I’m still laughing at comment #18, so congratulations, that was really funny.
Apparently human history starts in the mid 1900s and there was nothing before that to compare to.
#18, were all your grandparents autistic? Because they were all breastfed. Their entire generation was. You and your parents are basically the only generation that had the option of formula on any kind of wide scale.
April 7th, 2010 at 11:14 am#21, you’re right, but all your grandparents didn’t have PCBs and PBDEs building up in their breastmilk, or their parents’ breastmilk. Chemicals concentrate in breastmilk. (They also spent a lot of time outdoors in the summertime to cool off rather than staying indoors in air conditioning and out of the sun, though that’s another issue altogether.) I am still breastfeeding my one year old, but I would never close my mind to the realities of the environment that we inherited. And I would certainly NOT call someone an idiot just because they’re willing to question breastfeeding. Rather than tearing each other down, we should be working together to get these toxins out of our environment and out of our breastmilk.
July 27th, 2010 at 6:14 pmAh, this is obviously some strange usage of the word ’safe’ that I wasn’t previously aware of.
November 11th, 2010 at 1:05 amThere is no way to conclude causality from this research. Perhaps there is some 3rd factor causing the breastfeeding and the increase in autism. . . like greater knowledge. (Greater knowledge has also lead to premature babies having a greater likelihood of living, and premature babies are more likely than non-premature babies to be autistic.) Until the researchers can randomly choose which babies get breast milk and which ones get formula and they can measure the toxins in both types of milk, we will not have a good study.
February 26th, 2011 at 12:29 pmHow about - anything unnatural can lead to autism? Infant formula - yes; as well as breastfeeding where additives, toxins present - yes; transfer through placenta in womb where additives, toxins present in diet - yes; vaccinations or antibiotics/probiotics that introduce unnatural levels of any chemical - yes.
March 3rd, 2011 at 3:58 pmI believe it could be possibly all/a combination of these factors. Mothers and babies both need a natural, additive free diet, and babies should be free from infant formula or breastmilk where additives present in the diet. Ideally, babies should be breastfed by mother’s eating a natural diet free of chemicals, additives. Thoughts?
Doing a bit of searching and noticed your website appears a bit all messed up in my K-meleon internet browser. However fortunately hardly anyone utilizes it any longer however you may want to look into this.
April 25th, 2011 at 6:36 amI am an expectant mother, due in November and I am now petrified of what decision is best for my baby. breastfeeding or formula feeding? I was breastfeed as a baby in the 80’s as were all my siblings and cousins…yet all my nieces and nephews born in the 90’s to present have been formula fed and we ALL turned out A-OK. I’m not sure what to do. Doctors just tell you to do what you feel is best because in reality they don’t know either. It’s really sad.
May 10th, 2011 at 6:43 pmDude, right on there btroher.
July 9th, 2011 at 10:18 pmThe study above is flawed. How do you introduce toxin levels that is found in human breast milk? What is the amount of toxins found human mothers pumped into a tiny rat or was it adjusted to the rats size? Anyway,this study has been used to manipulate and mislead. It is so sad. It lacks any intelligence whatsoever. Breastfeeding is best and it is also hard, messy, unbearable and nearly impossible at times but it is worth it! I have seen many mothers just say, “We couldn’t” No, “you wouldn’t”.
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