Growth Hormone Can Significantly Improve Social Skills in Autism

26th February, 2015

27 February 2015, Autism, News of the Week, Newsletter, OT, SLP

[Source: Medical News Today]
A growth hormone can significantly improve the social impairment associated with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in patients with a related genetic syndrome, according to a pilot study conducted at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and published on Pub Med, a public database of biomedical topics maintained by the National Institutes of Health (study originally published in the December 12 issue of the journal Molecular Autism).

The study results focus specifically on the use of insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) to treat Phelan-McDermid syndrome (PMS), a disorder caused by a deletion or mutation of the SHANK3 gene on chromosome 22. Along with facing developmental and language delays and motor skill deficits, most people with PMS also have autism spectrum disorder.

Read the Rest of this Article on Medical News Today

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