Autism Tooth Fairy Studies Promise Insights into Environmental Risks

Two autism studies conducted this year reveal that baby teeth can be used to access crucial information. Baby teeth can be analyzed for many different things that may point to health problems.

Key takeaways:

• Fallen baby teeth can be used to track exposure to chemicals that may trigger autism during pregnancy and infancy.
• Tooth enamel forms at different stages and will absorb chemicals circulating in the body. It therefore acts like an archaeological record showing when exposure to certain chemicals happened.
• Baby teeth could also be used as a painless way to extract DNA required to identify changes in the genes that could be linked to autism.

“Taken together, research on baby teeth will inform us about potential causes of autism and who might be most vulnerable,” says Dr. Palmer, who is not directly involved in the UCLA study.

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