A report published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine suggests circumcised boys are more likely to develop autism than boys who have not been circumcised, according to PsyPost.
Research into the link between autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and circumcision was done in Denmark by following 340,000 boys that were born between 1994 and 2003. The boys were followed until the age of nine, and almost 5,000 cases of ASD were diagnosed.
The study also found a higher risk of a hyperactivity disorder in circumcised boys in non-Muslim families, PsyPost reported.
"Our investigation was prompted by the combination of recent animal findings linking a single painful injury to lifelong deficits in stress response and a study showing a strong, positive correlation between a country's neonatal male circumcision rate and its prevalence of ASD in boys," said lead researcher Morten Frisch of the Statens Serum Institut, Copenhagen.
"Possible mechanisms linking early life pain and stress to an increased risk of neurodevelopmental, behavioral or psychological problems in later life remain incompletely conceptualized," Frisch said. "Given the widespread practice of non-therapeutic circumcision in infancy and childhood around the world, our findings should prompt other researchers to examine the possibility that circumcision trauma in infancy or early childhood might carry an increased risk of serious neurodevelopmental and psychological consequences."
