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Low serotonin linked to SIDS

02/03/2010 12:45:00 admin

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A new study in the Feb. 3 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association suggests low serotonin levels may be at least one cause for sudden infant death syndrome or SIDS.

Hannah Kinney, MD at Children's Hospital Boston and colleagues compared serotonin levels in infants who died from SIDS to that in those who died from other medical conditions and found the former did not only have low serotonin, but also had low levels of serotonin receptors.

Serotonin is known to regulate breathing, heart rate and blood pressure during sleep. The researchers said normal infants can wake up when they experience some types of stresses like re breathing carbon dioxide when sleeping in the face down position. But infants with low serotonin would never respond to the environmental triggers.

For the study, Kinney and colleagues measured the levels of serotonin and tryptophan hydroxylase, which helps convert tryptophan, an amino acid, into serotonin, in 36 infants who died from SIDS and 5 infants from other acute causes.

Serotonin levels were 26 percent lower compared to the controls while the tryptophan hydroxylase levels were 22 percent lower and levels of serotonin receptors were 50 percent lower in infants dying from SIDS.

Kinney said cited in a press release that during pregnancy, mothers should avoid the risk factors such as smoking and drinking and until 12 months of age, infants should sleep on their backs in a crib with a firm mattress.

By Jimmy Downs

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Comments (8 posted):

Daniela on 02/03/2010 13:28:17

What about the alarming evidence that many children how die of SIDS have recently been vaccinated? I would like to see some attention paid to that fact so we don't have to lose any more children to the failed medical system.

doug on 02/03/2010 13:42:10

Daniela I hardly think our medical system is a failure. Its the best on the planet. If your talking about free healthcare...now thats a different story. I would like to see the alarming evidence. I think there was "alarming evidence" thats vaccinations were linked to autism....which by the way was just proved incorrect.

Randall on 02/03/2010 13:49:44

Yeeeeah, I don't think this "proves" much; low serotonin levels are associated with "having a bad day" or "Having a cornorary," or "Being hungry" as well. That's like blaming a traffic accident on the broken glass in the street afterward.

Anjali on 02/03/2010 14:15:38

St. John's University, where I went to school, has done some leading research on SIDS. There are a number of factors that contibute to SIDS, and avoiding smoking during and for a year after pregnancy will certainly reduce the risk. Making the baby sleep on her back, while well intentioned, may be misguided, because it slows the development of the baby's arm and leg muscles, and can delay the start of crawling.

Dr. Eric on 02/03/2010 14:32:45

If our medical system is so successfull, why do we spend the most money on healthcare of any nation, yet we are at the bottom of the list when it comes to our overall health... and the vaccination bit, if vaccinations, mmr in particular, are not responsible for autism, why don't drug companies fund larger, long-term studies, rather than conducting small, non-transparent, short-term studies that have little to no meaning except to maintain a defensive posture in the media? Plenty of MD's have stood-up against vaccines, citing lots of evidence against their efficacy and safety... unfortunately, their careers went south after trying to fight for the truth.

Bubba on 02/03/2010 14:43:58

I'm no Dr I do have some medical background. These are opinions of mine. When my wife got pregnant 4 years ago I put her on a high grade Omega 3 fish oil. My first thought was well she is growing a baby what materials would that take. My second thought was what is a baby mostly? Babies look to be mostly brain. I think there are many problems that people have that are related to the fact that they lacked the proper materials to build a healthy brain. This may account for my poor spelling and lack of grammar.

Dr. Eric on 02/03/2010 15:05:44

An important concept to remember is that your doctor is only as good as the ethics of the organization that sanctioned the use of the drug or vaccination in question. The question of the drug companies is not about how to cure a disease, but how can they make an individual a lifetime patient.

Concerned on 02/03/2010 16:08:03

Vaccination affects serotonin levels?

Bacteria, Serotonin, and Depression: A Possible New Approach to Treating Mood Disorders

http://www.psychweekly.com/aspx/article/ArticleDetail.aspx?articleid=473
Immune-mediated psychological and neuroendocrine changes were observed following vaccination with live attenuated rubella virus. A subgroup of vulnerable subjects showed a significant virus-induced increase in depressed mood up to 10 weeks following their vaccination. In a related animal study, the investigators also showed that immune activation with a variety of immune challenges induced a “depressive-like syndrome in rodents: anhedonia, anorexia, body weight loess, and reduced exploratory, and social behavior.” Chronic treatment with TCAs or SSRIs attenuated many of the behavioral effects.

A team of English investigators have, for the first time, shown a possible link between administration of a vaccine, peripheral immune activation, psychological and behavioral changes, and the brain serotonin system. The researchers used antigens derived from the bacterium Mycobacterium vaccae, a generally benign and ubiquitous agent found in dirt. After vaccination, they found that the subsequent immune activation was temporally associated with increases in serotonin metabolism within the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. Treatment with the vaccine seemed to alter behavior in mice similarly as is typically seen with antidepressants. This research was initiated following observations that human cancer patients being treated with the bacteria Mycobacterium vaccae unexpectedly reported increases in their quality of life.