A weekly vitamin A supplementary program alleviates social impairment in Chinese children with autism spectrum disorders and vitamin A deficiency.

Background: Children in China with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) are prone to vitamin A deficiency (VAD). The present study compared two vitamin A supplements (VAS) in two groups of children with ASD and VAD to explore a better VAS program for children with ASD.

Method: A total of 138 3-8-year-old children with ASD (118 males and 20 females) were enrolled in this 6-month study. Of these 138 children, 82 who had VAD (ASD-VAD) were divided into two VAS groups that received the recommended VAS program (RNI-VAS) or a weekly dose of VAS (WD-VAS). The 56 children who had normal vitamin A levels (ASD-VAN) served as a control group. The Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS) was used to assess the severity of social impairment before and after the interventions. Their serum retinol (VA) and oxytocin (OXT) concentrations, the mRNA expression of retinoic acid receptors (RARs), and CD38 gene in peripheral blood was measured before and after the 6-month intervention.

Results: The WD-VAS program increased VA levels better than the RNI-VAS program did (P < 0.01), and it significantly decreased SRS scores (P < 0.05). In addition, the change in VA was positively correlated with the change in mRNA levels in RARβ (r = 0.2441, P = 0.0092), the CD38 in PBMC (r = 0.2729, P = 0.0033), and the change in OXT concentration in serum (r = 0.3735, P < 0.0001). VA was also negatively correlated with changes in SRS scores across the three groups (r = -0.2615, P = 0.0026).

Conclusion: The WD-VAS might be more suitable for children with ASD and VAD than other interventions to improve both VA and social functioning, which may be mediated through the RARβ-CD38-OXT axis.