Norberto: Accountant supermarket manager http://www.trainingfortransformation.ie/index.php/essay-for-college-admissions online essay writing service review In 2008, Van de Water found that roughly a quarter of 61 women with autistic children carried in their blood an unusual group of antibodies—large, Y-shaped proteins with sticky ends that normally bind to and destroy foreign or potentially harmful microbes. Some of these, called autoantibodies, occasionally go rogue and attack the body's healthy cells, causing autoimmune diseases such as lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. The higher the level of autoantibodies in the mother's blood, the more severe the child's autistic symptoms, Van de Water observed. She hypothesized that these autoantibodies were attacking proteins necessary for fetal brain development.