Abstract
Objective:
Copper ion which has important functions in metabolic processes may also cause toxic effects due to its accumulation in the organism. In some studies, hair and serum copper levels which has toxic effects on central nervous system have been measured higher in autistic children than healthy subjects. This study’s aim is to search the serum and hair copper levels in autistic and healthy children, both of them without pica.
Method:
Serum copper levels have been measured in 45 autistic children (39 boys, 6 girls) having a mean age of 6.4 ± 2.2 and in 41 healthy children (35 boys, 6 girls) having a mean age of 6.7 ± 2.5, with atomic absorbtion spectrophotometry method. Hair copper levels were also measued in these two groups, but in 15 autistic and 17 healthy children hair copper levels have not been measured because of insufficiency of hair specimens. Hair copper levels were measured with flamed spectrophotometry in the specimens picked up from the occipital areas of 30 autistic and 24 healthy children.
Results:
Serum copper levels of autistic children were significantly higher than healthy children. Any significant difference for hair copper measurements was not found between the two groups.
Conclusions:
The importance of the increase of serum copper levels of autistic children for the etiopathogenesis have not been exposed yet.
Keywords: Autism, copper, serum, hair
