#MedicalMonday Recently, an article called “Researchers Pinpoint Reason Infants Die from SIDS” became viral on the internet. It caused a lot of discussion on whether the safe-sleep guidelines should still be followed in light of this new discovery. The short answer is that guidelines have NOT changed! But let's breakdown the science directly from the study itself to understand why. Research Motivation: The study authors wanted to discover a biomarker* that could predict an infants risk to SIDS in order to better monitor and prevent deaths. This would be groundbreaking as SIDS deaths are difficult to predict beyond basic correlates like prematurity. Study Objectives: To determine if the level of enzymes that regulate wakefulness and sleep (butyrylcholinesterase (BChE) and acetylcholinesterase (AChE)) impact the risk of SIDS. Methods: Study authors compared the levels of AChE and BChE enzymes for infants who died of SIDS with those who did not, to observe any differences in enzyme levels between the two groups. They did this by using the infants dried blood samples which are blood samples collected from all infants around two to four days after birth. A total of 722 samples were used, in which 26 infants experienced a SIDS death, 41 experienced death of a known cause and the remainder were living infants, used as controls Analysis: It was found that BChE levels are lower in infants that died of SIDS deaths compared to infants who are living. That same difference in enzyme levels was not present when comparing other known infant deaths with infants who are living. Conclusion: BChE is NOT a predictor of SIDS. However, it seems plausible that BChE and AChE levels could be a predictor of SIDS risk. It is worth a follow-up study with a bigger sample size and looking at whether there are other characteristics that might be related to enzyme levels and could be driving these results. CAPTION CONTINUED IN COMMENTS! (1/3)