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Possible Cure For Autism

Posted by kdawson on from the umbrella-for-the-rainman dept.

Henry V .009 writes "Scientists in New Jersey are claiming that children with autism are unable to metabolize key fatty acids that fight brain-damaging inflammations. They have already developed urine/blood tests to identify at-risk children. A preventive cure to autism may be as simple as a 'therapeutic cocktail' of fatty acids. Human trials could start later this year."

13 of 431 comments (clear)

  1. This is not good! by kraemate · · Score: 5, Funny

    What will happen now to the legions of slashdotters who claim to suffer from autism/aspergers ? How can i relate to Knuth now? I'm doomed.

    1. Re:This is not good! by Deliberate_Bastard · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Wishful thinking, really.

      People want to believe that Aspies are fakers, because Aspies generally inspire dislike, which makes people want an excuse for disliking them.

      The issue is, if people are really faking, and they *can* be likable, what is it they need an excuse for? Saying that someone is faking Asperger's to have an excuse is a bit like saying someone is faking Tourette's to have an excuse for shouting obscenities in public. If they *didn't* have Tourette's, why would they be shouting them in the first place?

      (Because it's a lot more pleasant to fit in than to not fit in, but have an excuse, even if the excuse is accepted.)

      --
      NOTICE: This notice will appear at the bottom of all my slashdot posts.
    2. Re:This is not good! by sbaker · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Let me say clearly and up-front: Full-blown autism is a terrible thing - and a cure for it is most certainly worth striving for.

      The problem is that there is no bright line between "Autism" and "Aspergers" (and no bright line between "Aspergers" and normality at the other end of the scale). We have a range of brain types ranging along a continuum from normal to completely autistic - and we've chosen to confuse matters still further by giving the people in the middle of that range another name for their position along the line.

      But this is where the moral dilemma strikes. Those of us (and I'm one of them) with Aspergers frequently benefit from it. Notably, Asperger "victims" who are programmers are able to focus their minds on a tiny problem for insane amounts of time - to be happy to amass vast amounts of ultra-detailed knowledge on ridiculously small topics. This is "A Good Thing" for some of us to be able to do.

      I for one would strongly resist being "cured". I like being this way. There are undoubtedly downsides - I'm terrible at reading sarcasm and 'undercurrents' and body language and other societal cues...I know that I suck at this and I try my hardest to make allowances for my possible lack of knowledge. I tell people I work with "don't hint - tell!" - and my wife has come to understand that - yes - I'm even worse than most guys at picking up on subtle hints. I walk on tiptoes too - a classic Asperger symptom which people think is odd. But the benefits (I'm happy and I earn a pile of cash for doing what I do) by far outweigh the downsides. I just wish someone had told me about this when I was 10 years old instead of waiting for me to figure it out in my late forties! Jeez - I have so many memories of teenage problems which just make me cringe when I look back on them and realise how things I did must have looked to other people!

      So - at what point in the fuzzy region between 'Severe Aspergers' and 'Mild Autism' do we start the magic treatment?

      We could greatly damage society by making the cut too close to the 'normality' side - we gain great benefits from Nerds. Yet we would unnecessarily ruin the lives of too many severe autism sufferers if we went too far the other way and refused to treat people with more severe symptoms.

      Where do you make the cut? It's a tough call.

      --
      www.sjbaker.org
    3. Re:This is not good! by strikerworldwide · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Thank you, Dahamma. Whenever Hollywood glamorizes a disease, it is almost the worst thing for sufferers of that disease for three reasons.

      1. If you tell people that you have , they go "Like that kid in ! Yeah? So why aren't you twitchy/shaky/screaming obscenities in public?"

      2. It gets overdiagnosed, and you become "just another aspergers/autistic kid".

      3. Help dries up. So many shockingly crap parents that want a disease to blame for their incompetence as a caregiver go out and book appointments with the specialists so you can't get in for 6 months; they buy all the pills to comatose their kids, increasing the demand so up goes the price; and all the people who once gave a crap about helping people with aspergers/autism get so disillusioned with the amount of badly raised perfectly normal kids that walk through their doors, that they unknowingly turn away the people they wanted to help.

      It's ADD all over again...

    4. Re:This is not good! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I agree, this is a dangerous game to play with. Having Asperger's Syndrome, I fall on the autistic spectrum as currently defined, and would NOT want to be 'cured'. (I might opt to have some of my more frustrating quirks toned down, though.. my pseudo-synaesthetic tactile sensitivity precludes many things)

      The best solution that occurs to me (when faced with the problem of an autism cure, not just this treatment) is to let people choose for themselves, with of course informed consent, a waiting period, and a minimum age. In the case of people who are crippled to the point that they are incapable of communicating thier decision (or having it communicated to them), is to go ahead and give them the treatment in an experiment. I doubt a profound autistic could handle the change from their normal life to "normalcy". I doubt I could make that transformation.

      Oh, as a slight tangent... I realize that many people who are not diagnosed (and probably not even aspie) are 'proud autistics', but is there really that many people who claim Asperger's as a reason for their eccentricities? I have spent the last decade and a half of my life trying to fit in, and have only just in the last half a year had reasonable success. It seems incredible to me that significant portions of the nuero-typical population would pretend to be on the spectrum.

    5. Re:This is not good! by sbaker · · Score: 5, Informative

      I don't know how old you are - I'm just over 50 years old - I only realised I am an Asperger's "victim" less than 5 years ago. When I saw a list of common symptoms (some very odd - such as the tendancy to walk on tip-toe instead of with feet flat on the floor) - it was blindingly obvious that this was me. Looking back on things that happened when I was younger, I cringe at the realisation of all of the terrible things I messed up.

      But you CAN learn to fit in - or at least to know where you're likely to have problems and make adjustments accordingly.

      You know that you can focus on pretty much any narrow subject and become insanely specialised in it. One day I decided to try to broaden my horizons - so I picked a subject far from work or computers. I decided to get interested in 1960's cars - it was interesting - it came easily - but (predictably) because I have Aspergers, I'm now a leading expert in exactly one make of car and can pretty much name every part - every change for every model year...you get the picture I'm sure. It was no harder than learning a new programming language.

      OK - so if you can do that, then you can focus on learning how conversations with other humans 'work'. You can study that with scientific rigor - and whilst it won't ever be a 'natural' thing - you'll be able to fake it pretty well. I don't feel comfortable in idle chit-chat - but I can fake it well enough to get by without coming off as being completely weirdo (or at least I think I can - maybe there are subliminal cues that I'm completely missing that say that I can't!).

      You need to do some deliberate 'horizon broadening' so you have at least a handful of interesting things that you know well - but it's not hard to do that. Then you need to sharply rein in that awful tendency we have to tell everyone who will listen the difference between the Mk I 2.5" carberettor fuel feed adjustment and the improved Mk II model. Save that for writing Wikipedia articles. Ration yourself to a few high level sentences on your favorite topics "I restore classic cars"..."I'm working on a '63 Mini Cooper"..."They were successful rally cars" - then that's your lot. You have shut the heck up about that subject and only briefly answer direct questions about '63 Mini Coopers until the next topic of conversation comes around. Learn some vapid questions that cause the other person to feel the need to talk. A 'normal' friend said that "...and how does that make you feel?" works great in response to almost anything a woman says to you. It's hard to believe it - but that seems to work really well. You can actually research that stuff.

      Make sure that people who are close to you know that you don't do well at picking up subtle cues from speech. It's no use someone dropping subtle hints that they want you to do something - you'll never notice them. Tell them: "You have to tell me directly - no matter what - you won't ever upset me by doing that". This is why we geeks have trouble with women. They are dropping large hints that they like you and want you to make your move *NOW*...you have no clue that they are saying that because they never seem to come right out and say "OK - tonight you're going to get laid" - or "Don't bother, it's never going to happen"...which is a shame because it would make life a whole lot easier if they did.

      Being tall is nothing to do with it. Being tall correlates well with success in most fields.

      You CAN learn what you need - you just have to care enough to do it. I just wish someone had told me this thirty years before I found out myself.

      --
      www.sjbaker.org
    6. Re:This is not good! by sbaker · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The problem with informed consent is that once you get sufficiently far along the spectrum to be clearly in need of treatment, you are likely to be so cut off from other people that it's going to be almost impossible for anyone to regard your consent (or otherwise) as "informed".

      Messing with peoples brains (their personalities - their 'souls' to use a quaint term) is dangerous stuff. What happens if you cure them - and only after they are "normal" do they clearly and coherently point out that they were happier beforehand?

      Not easy.

      I recently started to have hearing problems - and was told by the audiologist that a CAT scan of my head would help him to see what was going on. During the scan, they found a 2cm x 1cm x 1cm tumor on my temporal lobe - totally unrelated to the hearing problem. This (needless to say) put me into a complete state of panic - but they told me that from the way the brain was folded around it, it must have appeared when I was a small child and stopped growing in my early teens - and has not changed since. I remarked that maybe it would be a good idea to get rid of it anyway - but as the doctor pointed out - your temporal lobe is where your 'personality' lives. If we "fix" this problem you may not be "you" afterwards. Which makes me think - if that thing hadn't popped into my head at age 12 or so - I wouldn't be the "me" I am now. If I had had truly "informed consent" back when I was a kid, would I have taken it? Would I take it in hindsight?

      --
      www.sjbaker.org
    7. Re:This is not good! by kfg · · Score: 5, Informative

      I know a few dozen people who have self-diagnosed themselves as having Asperger's by reading the DSM and saying to themselves, "Hey, that's ME!" Some of these people are essentially dislikable, but many of them are not. A couple of them are even charming in a shy sort of way. They are odd, don't fit in, have social troubles, etc and most of them find this troublesome. They are wingnuts and nuerotics, but they are not actually aspies.

      My oldsest friend has actually been diagnosed and is on disability because he cannot perform really useful work and/or interact with people. Unlike the self-diagnosers he can creep people out just by saying hello to them, he isn't just "odd," dislikable or lacking social skills, he's clearly "wrong." People clutch their children to them when he walks by because he even moves creepy in ways that cannot be easily defined.

      But here's the thing, even though he can now talk (at tedious length) about being an Aspie he thinks he's charming - while he casually picks up someone's personal diary and starts reading it aloud in a public setting. He would have read the DSM and been absolutely clueless that he exhibited. He can say "I don't fit in," but he doesn't know he doesn't fit in.

      The real Aspie does not whine about not fitting in; he lacks the capacity to know he doesn't fit in. That's what makes him an Aspie. He walks around saying "What the fuck is wrong with them?" when people clutch their children to them when he walks by, assuming he even notices (my friend didn't know people do this until one man actually yelled at him "Stay away from my kids or I'll beat the crap out of you, you fucking creep!"). The difference between the socially awkward geek and the socially retarded Aspie is night and day when you put them next to each other. The socially awkward can go to charm school and learn; the Aspie cannot. He does not see what he is supposed to be learning and thus cannot even reproduce it on a purely mechanical level. His eyebrows or something will continue to act fucking creepy.

      One may exhibit every symptom of Asperger's to some degree or other without actually having it. It is defined by the incapacity for socialization.If you haven't been diagnosed but think you're an Aspie, you're probably just a jerk who can learn to behave better if you really want to.

      The classic Aspie isn't the socially awkward tech geek; it's the socially agressive Robert Johnson who died of trying to pick up other men's wives right in front of them; without the slightest realization that he was doing something risky. He died clueless of why he died, even while the guy knifing him was screaming "Stay away from my woman, you fucking asshole!"

      KFG

  2. Re:A blood test eh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    You seem to have a strong opinion on this... were you also diagnosed with asperger's syndrome?

  3. This prevents damage by SeanMon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    it won't cure autism. It sounds like the treatment would prevent the brain from being damaged, not that it would reverse any existing damage, for everyone with The Geek Syndrome.

    --
    "Scud Storm!" -- Jeremy of PurePwnage.com
  4. Re:Autism rates by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Please stop spreading this lie. You are killing people by convincing them to avoid vaccination. It is more likely a result of trans-fats in food. Or a new neurological virus caused by sexual promiscuity (cerebral herpes maybe). How do I know these things? Well, both have increased at the same time as rates of autism. And, both can get a rise out of people by making them feel abused by others or powers at be.

    And that, is the Modern Scientific Method.

  5. Re:Autism rates by hunterx11 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Stop trolling.

    --
    English is easier said than done.
  6. Another day, another stupid false hope. by TheMohel · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Obligatory claim of relevance: I am a pediatrician with developmental training. I am also the parent of a teenager with severe autism. It is my informed (but not omniscient) opinion that the odds that this is anything other than a complete red herring are too small to measure accurately.

    We will begin with the obvious problem that they are treating autism as a single disorder. We don't know a great deal about the spectrum, but we certainly know that autistic symptoms can be found in a large number of discrete conditions. "Autism" is probably a final common pathway of subtle neurologic failure, and the idea that a single enzyme is associated has been discredited repeatedly. In fact, every time we think we've found "the" cause, more research shows us that we have found, at most, "a" cause, and usually not one that is common. Fragile X syndrome, Rett's syndrome, and others were all previously lumped in as "autism", and I don't think we're done finding things.

    The next obvious problem is that if we indeed have a single liposomal storage disease causing most or all autism, you would find it with brain biopsy and/or MRI. We have not found this. You would expect other commonalities as well, since failures of fat metabolism generally have organ impacts outside the brain. We have not found these. I would be unsurprised to discover that there is a rare disorder of this sort with autistic symptoms present, but it means nothing for the vast majority of individuals with autism.

    Don't get me wrong - I would give the rest of my life willingly if it would cure my son. I will be grateful beyond words if this works. But it won't, any more than secretin did when it was the last great hope for autism. I have learned much in the fifteen years of my son's life, and the thing I have learned most is that people who claim to have "the cure for autism" are lying. Not always in an evil fashion, and not necessarily knowingly, but they are saying something that is not true.