Experts Re-Think Autism and Autism Treatments Leading to New Treatments that WorkFortunately, scientists are now unraveling more of the mystery. “In spite of so many years of assumptions that a brain disorder like this is not treatable, we’re helping kids get better. So it can’t just be genetic, prenatal, hardwired, and hopeless,” says Harvard pediatric neurologist Martha Herbert, one of a number of experts shedding new light on autism. • Experts are thinking that autism may not be rigidly determined but instead may be related to common gene variants, called “polymorphisms,” that may be derailed by environmental triggers. • Affected genes may disturb “pathways” in the body that can lead to chronic inflammation in the brain, the immune system, and in the digestive system. • Autism is considered to be caused, at least in part, by a malfunction in the immune system, according to new studies. Researchers studying the brains of people with autism say they have found strong evidence that parts of the immune system were overactive, causing chronic inflammation. (Dr. Carlos Pardo Villamizar, a neuroimmunologist at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Md) A New Approach for Autism TreatmentsAutism treatments are changing because inflammation is treatable by using nutrition, supplements and nutraceuticals.Scientists are giving a new emphasis to the interaction between vulnerable genes and environmental triggers – giving credibility to what parents have reported for decades -- that: • Low-dose, multiple toxic and infectious exposures may be a major contributing factor to autism and its related disorders. Experts think that a child's genes would “load the gun,” but extra factors in the environment would end up “pulling the trigger” that causes autism. • Clinicians using this information are being effective at helping re-balance the overactive immune system and chronic inflammation of children with autism triggered by these factors. New Basis for Autism Treatment that WorkThe devastating derangements of autism show up not only in the brain, but they also show up in the gut and in the immune system.• That unexpected discovery is sparking new treatments that target the body in addition to the brain. • “I no longer see autism as a disorder of the brain but as a disorder that affects the brain,” says Martha Herbert. Martha Herbert is a Harvard pediatric neurologist and author of a paper in the journal Clinical Neuropsychiatry that re-conceptualizes the universe of autism, pulling the brain down from its privileged perch as an organ isolated from the rest of the body. Autism, says Dr. Herbert, “Also affects the immune system and the gut. I can’t think of it as a coincidence anymore that so many autistic kids have a history of allergies, eczema, or chronic diarrhea.” • One very striking piece of evidence many of us have noticed is that when autistic children go in for certain diagnostic tests and are told not to eat or drink anything ahead of time, parents often report their child’s symptoms improve—until they start eating again after the procedure. If symptoms can improve in such a short time frame simply by avoiding exposure to foods, then we’re looking at some kind of chemically driven ‘software’ — perhaps immune system signals—that can change fast. This means that at least some of autism probably comes from a kind of metabolic encephalopathy—a system wide process that affects the brain -- just like cirrhosis of the liver affects the brain.” Why Different Paths Can Lead To AutismEven though each child’s path to autism may be distinct, say the experts, they likely share common inflammatory abnormalities. Studies are examining contributing factors ranging from:• vaccine reactions • low-grade environmental toxins • atypical growth in the placenta • abnormal tissue in the gut • inflamed tissue in the brain • food allergies • disturbed brain wave synchrony But Dr. Martha Herbert has shown that the end result is similar -- through morphometric brain imaging, that white matter—which carries impulses between neurons—is larger in children with autism. Autism Treatments: Inflammation and the Immune SystemCould white matter of the brain become chronically inflamed? It may well be, according to new research from Carlos Pardo, a neurologist at Johns Hopkins.Dr. Pardo reported in a study in the Annals of Neurology, that he found inflammation in immune-responsive brain cells of autistic patients. “Patients with autism report lots of immunological problems. We looked for the fingerprints of those problems in the brain,” says Dr. Pardo. “We had brain tissue from autistic individuals as young as 5 and as old as 45 and we found neuroglial inflammation in all of them. Neuroglia are a group of brain cells that are important in the brain’s immune response. This inflammatory reaction appears to happen both early and late in the course of the disorder. If it happens early, it could dramatically influence brain development. We’re very excited about this research because one potential treatment approach, then, is to down regulate the brain’s immune response.” • New autism treatments include clinicians using genetic test results to recommend nutrition, nutritional therapies, while others employ drugs and nutraceuticals to fight viruses and quell inflammation. • Researchers are also finding that inflammation and the immune response can be helped with nutritional therapy and with nutraceuticals. New Findings: Autism Metabolic GenomicsExciting new research being done by Dr. Jill James, who is the director of the Autism Metabolic Genomics Laboratory at the Arkansas Children’s Hospital Research Institute, has found that:• Many children with autism do not make as much of a compound called glutathione as neurotypical children do. • Glutathione is the cell’s most abundant antioxidant, and it is crucial for removing toxins. • If cells lack sufficient antioxidants, they experience oxidative stress, which is often found with chronic inflammation. • Glutathione “feeds the immune” and helps regulate the inflammatory response. • Studies are underway to improve the “glutathione pathways” with nutritional supplements and nutraceuticals. Helping Children with Toxins and Immune ChallengesThat many children with autism have low production of glutathione may explain both the toxin and the immune system connection. Why?• Glutathione is the body’s detoxifier, so that this detoxification “defense system” is deficient, there can be an “inflammatory response.” • Glutathione also "feeds the immune system" and helps to regulate an "over-active" immune response. There is a growing sense among experts that our heavily industrialized, chemical-soaked environment—and the way it acts on vulnerable genes in some individuals—may be a major culprit. In December 2006, Harvard researchers announced in the journal The Lancet that industrial chemicals may be impairing the brain development of children around the entire world. And at a November 2006 conference at the University of California at Davis’s M.I.N.D. Institute, Pessah gathered experts to discuss the clinical implications of environmental toxicology in autism. Scientists discussed the enormous number of chemicals in our environment and how little we know about chronic, low-dose, multiple exposures and their effect on diseases like autism. • Fortunately, more successful autism treatments are being developed based on these new scientific findings, using novel nutritional approaches. These are based on counteracting inflammation in the gut and the brain and improving the “detox – pathways” and the immune system of affected children. Send Me More About What’s Helping Autistic ChildrenLinks & Sources for Autism TreatmentsDISCOVER MAGAZINE: Autism It’s Not Just In the Head
• A Silent Pandemic: Industrial Chemicals Are Impairing the Brain Development of Children Worldwide • Healing Auto Immune Diseases and “Inflammatory Immune Responses” Naturally New Autism Treatments: New Hope for Autism with Nutrition and Science of the Brain and the Immune SystemGO to Health Discoveries HOME PAGE from Autism Treatments •
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