Autism rates are stable, and only appear to be increasing due to better diagnosis. Cancer rates are increasing due to people living longer and cancer being more common the older you are. Diabetes is up due to obesity being up.

> Cancer rates are increasing due to people living longer and cancer being more common the older you are.

Then we should just compare cancer rates for people age 20-to-40 who live nowadays to cancer rates for people with the same age from, I don't know, 100 years ago? Or, better yet, compare this to people who don't live in an industrial society like ours.

You make it sound like all these have been fully figured out.

> Autism rates are stable, and only appear to be increasing due to better diagnosis.

Citation?

"Several large studies have suggested that autism rates have risen steadily in the last 20 years, but this new report suggests that rates may be leveling off. The ADDM Network’s estimated rates also plateaued between 2010 and 2012 (after increasing roughly 123% between 2002 and 2010), but then jumped 30% from 2012 to 2014."

The paper goes on to mention both measurement and environmental factors as potential causes.

People who just a generation ago would have just been classified as weird are now given an actual diagnosis.

> Citation?

I’ll refer you to the discussion on Wikipedia [1], which is fairly exhaustive. The long and the short of it is that we don’t know for certain either way, and all estimates have large uncertainties attached. However, the (tentative) prevalent opinion amongst experts can be fairly summarised as “The reported increase is largely attributable to changes in diagnostic practices, referral patterns, availability of services, age at diagnosis, and public awareness”. However, it also needs to be said that “largely” here refers to the effect size: most of the increase is probably not due to actually increased incidence. But some of it probably is.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epidemiology_of_autism#Changes...

>> But some of it probably is.

So basically you concede the original point then. That environmental factors may be increasing autism rates.

> So basically you concede the original point then.

I’m not “conceding” anything because I’m not arguing against it (I didn’t write the grandparent comment). My comment is intended to provide all the relevant information, not argue against the comment I replied to.

Can't believe you've added autism to this list.

Not all autism is the typical HN "autism is my superpower" meme. For many it is a serious struggle.

I could be wrong but my interpretation was more along the lines of autism has suffered enough from its connection with vaccine conspiracies; the last thing we should do is start associating it with environmental issues without strong evidence.

You think it was always there but autistic kids then were labeled "crazy" or weird? I strongly believe that our hormones and system can be affected by outside things such as pollution (any kind of it)

Why is nobody talking about the fact that kids mis a lot of real-life playing outside in the dirt, and sitting behind a screen... on average 6 hours a day.

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-32067158

Perhaps because it's the easy way, just blame some chemical instead of taking action. If you move to a friendly neighbourhood and have some rules about screentime kids play outside, I know from experience with my own kids.

I'm no expert, but I suspect a strong correlation in autism development and 'hours spend in front of a screen instead of playing outside with peers'.

> If you move to a friendly neighbourhood

Everyone out of the inner city!

> I'm no expert, but I suspect a strong correlation in autism development and 'hours spend in front of a screen instead of playing outside with peers'.

Autism is usually diagnosed at 24 to 36 months - you're saying that the toddlers are playing too many video games and not spending enough time building treeforts?

Are there any unknowns for the causes of higher cancer rates, autism, diabetes?

I'm with you in regards to allergies, though.

I think the increase in allergies is due to children not being exposed to allergens. It used to be the advice to not feed your child foods that are commonly allergenic but now the advice is reversed.

https://www.livescience.com/57383-peanut-allergy-prevention-...

I grew up on an acreage, drinking well water in the 80s - I doubt it was contaminated by micro-plastics. We had animals of all sorts. I still have brutal allergies - the irony being that the things I was exposed to the most (we kept horses) is the thing I'm most allergic to.

Pregnant woman feeds in such a way that develops propensity to diabetes in the baby. Certain exposures to food, bacteria, fungi, protozoa make us hypersensitive to these or other microbes over time. Your situation with the horses is curious. It may or may not be caused by genetics, I imagine you have already thought about it a lot.

There are unknowns for autism, high cancer rates, autoimmune disorders, near-sightedness

It also brought us longer lifespan?

it's not just about "us"