No, scientists didn't discover the cause of SIDS. Here's what they did find.

Last week, a new study about SIDS went viral after news headlines and social media posts proclaimed that scientists had discovered the root cause of the condition. SIDS may soon be a thing of the past according to a press release describing the research.

An expert told Live Science that the study published in the journal eBioMedicine did not uncover the root cause of SIDS and likely won't contribute to a risk assessment or a way to prevent the syndrome.

The research showed that a newborn might have a higher risk of dying of SIDS down the line. The study suggests that an infant's risk of SIDS may be related to the activity of an enzyme in their blood. Babies who died of SIDS had relatively low BCheE activity at birth, as compared with babies who died of other causes or survived into childhood.

An important aspect of our finding is that it shows that SIDS can be different from birth. She told Live Science in an email that the finding offers nothing new to clinical practice.

It is unlikely that our finding would apply to all SIDS cases, as previous research suggests that many factors affect infants' risk of SIDS.

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It is clear that there is no single cause for SIDS, according to Dr. Richard D. Goldstein, director of the Robert's Program onSudden Unexpected Death in Children at Boston Children's Hospital and Harvard Medical School. The new study is an interesting and solid contribution to the scientific literature on SIDS, but for now, the butyrylcholinesterase story is very preliminary and needs a lot more research before we understand its actual significance.

What the study actually found 

According to the CDC, SIDS accounted for nearly 1,250 of the sudden unexpected infant deaths reported in the U.S. in 2019.

The term SUID refers to sudden and unexpected death of an infant less than 1 year old that has no obvious cause prior to investigation. Some SUIDs may be attributed to suffocation, physical trauma or some other cause, but if the child's death is not explained after a full investigation that includes a complete autopsy, review of the clinical history, and a complete autopsy, then it is not a SUID.

According to past research, infants who die of SIDS have an under functioning nervous system that controls their bodily functions. SIDS has been linked to issues with arousal, a process by which the body transitions from sleep to wakefulness.

SIDS is more likely when caregivers put babies to sleep on their stomachs, as opposed to their backs or sides, according to an editorial published in the New England Journal of Medicine. SIDS rates fell in the US in the 1990s after a federal campaign raised awareness about safe sleeping positions and sleep environments for infants. About 90 infants per 100,000 live births are the nation's SUID, and a large proportion of these deaths are attributed to SIDS.

According to the NEJM report, genetic factors and brain and nervous system differences may make it difficult for infants to wake up if they stop breathing in their sleep.

We decided to test the chemistry of the cholinergic system, which is known to play a role in arousal, from prior research.

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The cholinergic system uses a chemical messenger called ACh to communicate, and BCheE is one of the key enzymes that helps produce it. If BCheE activity is low, this may undermine the function of the cholinergic system.

The researchers measured BCheE activity in dried blood samples from 26 babies that died of SIDS. According to the U.K. National Health Service,Dried blood spot tests are done shortly after birth to screen babies for diseases like sickle cell and cystic fibrosis. The dried blood samples from 30 babies that died of other unexpected causes were analyzed by the team.

The infants who died of SIDS had lower BCheE activity than the healthy children and those who died of other causes. The authors wrote that measuring BCheE at birth could help flag infants at risk of SIDS.

There is a lot of work to be done before we understand how specifically it can identify risk.

It wouldn't be possible to develop a screening test for SIDS based on the results of the new study. The SIDS group had lower BCheE activity than the other groups, but their measurements were still in line with those of infants in the healthy group. The Atlantic reported that measuring BCheE wouldn't be a strong indicator of a newborn's future risk of SIDS.

The team analyzed BCheE activity at the time of birth, but not at the time of death, so it is not certain if the levels remained the same at the time of death. The true cause of death may have been uncertain in some cases because the study relied on coroner's diagnoses rather than autopsy reports.

There is more work to be done before we understand the role of BCheE in SIDS.

It was originally published on Live Science.