الفهرس 
AUTISMOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder which usually develops in early 3 years of life. ASDs are a heterogeneous group of complex biological and neurodevelopment diseases.
It is characterized by defiance in social reciprocity and in language skills that are associated with repitition behavior and restricted interests.
The apparent increase in the prevalence of autism over the last 20 years corresponds with the increasing medical advice to avoid the sun, an advice that has probably lowered vitamin D level. Autism is more common in areas of limited sun exposure such as urban areas and areas of high air pollution. It is also more common in dark skinned persons and in infants exposed to severe maternal vitamin D deficiency in utero. Such epidemiological distribution of autism would theoretically greatly lower activated vitamin D ”calcitriol” levels especially in developing brains. Interestingly, some children with vitamin D deficiency rickets were reported to have several autistic markers that apparently disappeared with high dose vitamin D treatment.
We aimed to assess the level of 25 OH cholecalceferol as a sensitive biomarker of vitamin D level in a group of autistic infants and children compared to controls and correlated it with the severity of autistic manifestations. On the other hand, evaluation of the role of therapeutic doses of vitamin D on the severity of autistic manifestations was explored.
The study is a clinical trial study was carried out in child psychiatry clinic, children hospital, ain shams university