Autism, ASD
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Mitochondria are vital producers of energy, the cellular batteries, of which every cell has at least hundreds. They are surprisingly vulnerable to toxin damage, and emerging (experimental, i.e. your GP won’t know about them) laboratory technologies make it possible to identify the toxins in most cases. We can then follow the progress of removal with lab tests. Obviously this links in to the toxic factors listed above, from mercury to pesticides. There are a number of interesting papers listed on the Autism Research Institute website [http://www.autism.com/medical/research/advances/autism-mito.htm] — but bear in mind that the (mainstream medical) tests and instruments used there are not very sophisticated, and this is a rapidly developing field. We think we are doing better with the tests we use now in the UK, but this has not (yet) been demonstrated to be true for autism. You might want to look at a study that is available on the BSEM website on mitochondria in chronic fatigue [http://www.ecomed.org.uk/publications/reports/cfs-and-mitochondrial-dysfunction]. There is a doctor in London who has published a book called “Defeat Autism: A Dangerous Delusion”; he somehow managed to get unchallenged airtime on Radio 4 to promote it. On air he expressed outrage that private clinics might use the same tests on children with autism as on adults with other diagnoses. Actually that’s just the point; we are all exposed to, and damaged by, the same vast cocktail of poisons, but they affect us differently at different stages of life. As to the other major cause listed; Nutritional deficienciesToo big a subject to cover it all here, and individual assessment is advisable, but the following points stand out. |
Bruce Ames, probably the most respected nutritional researcher in the world, said in a 2002 paper; “more than a dozen reports… and a review of controlled trials have reported improvements in autistic patients with vitamin B6 and often magnesium supplementation”. In fact Bernard Rimland made the same point in the Journal of Nutritional and Environmental Medicine in 1991. It takes larger doses than the EU or the FDA would like you to take or give, of course, but with such doses about 45% of autistic children show a benefit from B6 and magnesium, across almost all the studies. (An ironic note on the above; Dr Rimland recounts that he found some of the children who took B6 actually got worse. The person who told him to give them magnesium as well, which solved it, was Adele Davis — the much-maligned author of a number of books on nutrition and health, who had no medical qualifications, but somehow managed to be right extraordinarily often). Dr Ellen Grant showed 20 years ago that children with dyslexia were likely to be zinc-deficient and have other nutritional deficits. This is even more true now, as many parents have been raised on poor diets. Good nutrition is essential to enable children to deal with the world. Many parents try omega-3/omega-6 oil supplements before bringing their child to see me; sometimes it makes a real, and rapid, difference, and a few weeks of it will do no harm at all. If there is no benefit after 3 months, there is unlikely to be any, and I would want to examine the question in greater detail, perhaps with lab tests. DiagnosticsIt’s impossible to cover all the options, but these are (most of) the tests we find typically useful and important. |