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Rare Form of Autism Could Be Curable With Protein Supplements
ananyo writes "A rare, hereditary form of autism has been found — and it may be treatable with protein supplements. Genome sequencing of six children with autism has revealed mutations in a gene that stops several essential amino acids being depleted. Mice lacking this gene developed neurological problems related to autism that were reversed by dietary changes (abstract). According to Joseph Gleeson, a child neurologist at the University of California, San Diego, who led the study, 'This might represent the first treatable form of autism.' It is possible that some other forms of autism may also be linked to uncommon metabolic disorders — and so treatable through dietary changes, according to the scientists quoted in the piece."
How late in life can treatment begin to help? Should everyone be on an autism diet to help prevent ever even showing signs?
Learn to love Alaska
Red meat is highest in BCAAs. Dairy products also are good protein sources and contain high amounts of BCAAs. Some healthy choices in dairy include low-fat or nonfat milk, low-fat cottage cheese, low-fat yogurt, frozen yogurt, sour cream and low-fat cheeses. MayoClinic.com recommends reducing the amount of saturated fats in your diet.
Additional dairy options include butter, cheese, cream, crème fraiche, eggnog, ghee and half-and-half. Some dairy products, such as ice cream, contain whey protein, which is loaded with BCAAs
Read more: http://www.livestrong.com/article/286637-foods-high-in-branched-chain-amino-acids/#ixzz25kJBtIEO
Any potential treatment is lightyears beyond what is available currently. This is awesome news!
We already knew about some forms of autism where a genetic disposition causes the lack of dipeptyl-peptidase IV, the enzyme responsible for breaking proline bonds during digestion. Proline needs a very special enzyme because the amine is tertiary, while it is secondary on other amino acids.
Gluten and casein contain sequences with a lot of proline, and this class of autists never digest them completely. They are left with short proline-rich peptides known as gliadomorphine and caseomorphine. As the name suggests, theses peptides are able to bind morphine receptors in the brain. And for this class of autism, symptoms disapear with a diet without casein and gluten.
And now we have autists with another genetic disposition related to protein digestion, this time with valine, leucine and isoleucine not being digested, and missing in the brain because they are essential amino acids. I wonder if we are going to discover more autism forms as being protein digestion issues
I'm raising little Joey here on a vegan macrobiotic diet. Did I also mention he has autism, peanut allergies, and fibromyalgia?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
No, you need the autism vaccine for that.
Learn to love Alaska
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-mark-hyman/autism-research-discovery_b_794967.html
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/health-conditions/neurological-conditions/autism/
It sounds from those two sources like many cases of autism could be prevented by higher vitamin D levels of pregnant women and better diet, but in the first few years of life after birth, some aspects of autism can be reversed with vitamin D supplements and good diet. How far and for how many kids is still an open question.
Also of general interest on eating healthier:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-mark-hyman/food-industry_b_1559920.html
https://www.drfuhrman.com/library/foodpyramid.aspx
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Great, so no one will know they have genetic defects. Way to pollute the gene pool.
I have a metaphorical way of making sense of autistic behaviors. Let's say the brain has some kind of sensory input buffer. Defects in that buffer might lead the brain to be overstimulated with sensory input and become preoccupied with them. The other thing the buffer might do...and this is where it gets more metaphorical and maybe less factual...is serve as a feedback path for brain-generated inputs, to sort of test things. Like when someone says "Imagine what it feels like when..." or even when you just think about real experiences you had. I think of dreams as maybe working like that too: brain generated inputs get cycled back through the buffer to serve as virtual experiences for...whatever dreams are for. That way of thinking about it leads to a way of understanding stimming behaviours: they can be thought of as dream-related movement that we don't do during sleep dreams because of sleep paralysis.
I find having a (metaphorical and maybe not correct) mechanistic way of understanding autistic bahaviours makes it a lot easier to deal with them.
Equine Mammals Are Considerably Smaller
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=vitamin-d-and-autism
http://richardlouv.com/books/last-child/
BTW, eating more veggies can help with the some of the disease you mentioned:
http://www.drfuhrman.com/disease/Other.aspx
"Fibromyalgia is a disease highlighted by discomfort, pain and tenderness all over the body. The cause is unknown. Typical treatments involve pain medication and anti-depressants used to aid sleep. Better sleep has been shown to be of benefit.
I have been utilizing a high antioxidant, acrlyamide-free diet for many years with marked success. Acrylamides are toxic substances produced by baking and frying carbohydrates. The diet-style I recommend for fibromylagia patients is rich in natural plant foods especially organic berries and green vegetables and restricted in animal products and baked grains. Vegetable soups and steamed vegetables are encouraged. Fibromyalgia patients routinely get well, and they get well quickly.
Studies in the medical literature support this method of treatment.[ii] Though the researchers do not seem to have the experience and understanding of why what they are doing works, the effects are dramatic.
Similar to the nutritional treatment of most diseases, it is not one photochemical compound or the removal of one toxic habit that works; it is the symphonic combination of removing multiple nutritional stresses along with the addition of multiple beneficial nutritional compounds that results in consistent and sustained results. The high intake of polyphenolic compounds such as quercetin, myricetin and kaempherol, and the high intake of lignans and bioflavonoids are just a few of the hundreds of nutrients with unpronounceable names that can only be obtained in large amounts from a diet rich in natural plant foods."
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
This is great, but it's not the first dietary link and metabolic disorder with a connection to autism. Phenylketonurics have diminished or zero ability to process phenylalanine, an essential amino acid. The build up of that material in the body causes multiple deleterious effects, including autism. People with PKU cut their intake of phenylalanine and they don't suffer the effects they would have. That's been known for decades.
I'm still not of the belief this is something that needs to be "cured". It isn't a cancer; my son is highly functional and gifted in certain aspects. People just need to learn to accept "different".
...it's just a collection of behaviors occurring in the typical population at a low frequency that are unfortunately clustered in an individual. Treating "autism" isn't possible, treating the symptoms of autism are (and that's what this study is reporting).
I can buy a loaf of bread for a dollar. Off sale. Off sale 6 ounces of berries is $4.00. Not a lot of options there unless you're very, very wealthy...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
BTW, eating more veggies can help with the some of the disease you mentioned:
http://www.drfuhrman.com/disease/Other.aspx
The only study (one study) quoted from that Timecubey article of yours is in
BMC Complement Altern Med 2001
I don't have access to the study (unless I brain farted and couldn't find the free access link) and the hell if I'm paying money to get a paper from a third-rate journal, but I can tell you what I can find from the abstract.
The study was conducted on 32 people; 15 were switched to a vegan diet, and 18 were kept on their preexisting omnivorous diet. The groups differed from one-another at the beginning of the study in terms of pain and urine sodium, which is a significant red flag considering that many of they tout are directly related to one or the other. There is no comparison to other diets. There is no comparison to healthier omnivorous diets. The abstract states that many of the patients in the study were overweight, implying that the preexisting diets in many cases may have been unhealthy in general and that generally improving the quality of the diets may have been more important than the fact the new diet was vegan.
And hell, that's just what I got from the abstract. At best this is one of those "more research is required" papers, it's certainly not enough to suggest that such a radical dietary switch is a reasonable treatment plan. Moreover, it's so oddly specific in switching from an omnivorous over to a raw vegan diet, and being published in an alt-med journal, that it sounds like it was intended to be (as the article you quoted did) treated as more than it is. And the alt-med crowd (pretends to) wonder why people call them pseudoscientists.
Nice bigotry, atypical of the left these days.
Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack.
If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, acts like a duck....
"Fibromyalgia patients routinely get well, and they get well quickly."
OK, Dr. Fuhrman, care to do some even observational studies? Case controls? Publish said studies in some sort of reputable journal?
(BTW, I certainly would not advocate a diet high in acrylamides, that's why all lab personnel are told never to eat their sequencing gels when they're finished with the experiment.)
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
(I meant "many of the benefits they tout", and left out that urine sodium levels also dropped by a full 2/3, further implying that the original diets were quite unhealthy in general. I can only hope the actual paper ends with a "More research is needed" line, since all the abstract has to conclude with is "It can be concluded that vegan diet had beneficial effects")
Being autistic, there are some limitations in my world from the viewpoint of other people. In my view, they are limited more than I am. I can understand what people are talking about even when I can't directly relate to it through personal experience or don't give the emotional response that others might give. I, however, can see past what they're talking about in ways that they cannot because of the limitations that they have in having information filtered out that I still receive. Yes, it can be an overload at times and there are situations that I don't deal well in (like crowded rooms, loud environments, or very bright environments), but I find that my particular form of autism is a huge benefit to me. I can conceptualize things that most people can't imagine exist. I can find solutions to problems from disparate sources that other people don't see as relevant to each other.
If I had a "cure" available to me, I would refuse it. Why should I give up my giftings just to be like everybody else? Why can't I simply be accepted as me, just how I am?
(I also know that 15 + 18 = 33)
No. But it can core a Apple.
Taking omega 3 fish oil did wonders for me to the point where I am effectively post-autistic in the eyes of others.
I hear so many new and novel vaccines are in the works, vaccines against depression, against anxiety, against
obesity, against cancer, against crime, against drug addiction etc.etc. is there anyone working on a vaccine against
autism??
Huh? Have you ever met autistic child? I guess not.
No. But it can core a Apple.
Thank you Mr. Norton.
Now that we know this, the next logical step is to find how vaccines cause protein deficiency (*ducks*)
Well hello there, nice to meet you.
I'm autistic -- yup, a very real high-functioning autist complete with medical diagnosis and jazz. You know, based on science and medicine and modern psychology and not wish-washy nonsense like bloodletting.
Allow me to confront you on this, because I feel like everyone needs to hear this from someone who has it. I find it terribly inhumane and malicious of you to spread this sort of attitude. Because that was the consensus, for a long time. A century ago, I would have been put in a mental hospital. And a lot of good people have fought long and hard to show the world we are people. Living, breathing people.
For one, you advocate corporal punishment, so I must conclude that you are grossly uneducated on the matter about which you speak. The APA (undoubtedly more qualified than you on this subject), abhors it, and you're free to read their research should you disagree. And that's in "normal" children.
Perhaps you weren't aware, Mr. Anon, that Isaac Newton had Asperger's Syndrome, which falls into the category of ASD. And I should not have to mention Temple Grandin, who had to fight against a system hellbent on doing on just what you said to succeed and paved the way for the rest of us.
---
Don't speak so ignorantly. You don't know what it's like to always feel uncomfortable around people. You don't know what it's like being unable to communicate; your thoughts being constantly misinterpreted by those around you. Working as hard as you can and still failing at some of the most basic abilities like writing or reading.
You're the spoiled one; spoiled in the bliss of your own ignorance, unwilling to educate yourself or to understand. Shame on you.
I know you're trolling, but there are autistic kids. Really, they are. They simply do not interact with the real world. Their brain appears unable to deal with the mess of details and they obsess instead over much simpler, more ordered things.
The distinguishing abilities of a non-autistic are just one component of intelligence, so in archaic (i.e. politically incorrect terms) an autistic is just in some ways "retarded". These days we like to ignore that there are actually innately smart and less smart people because that would cast a shadow over meritocracy and make the angry, exploiting elite less justified in suggesting, "If you're poor, it's because you didn't work hard enough!" So we like to find labels to distinguish the "disabled" from the "stupid". But nature doesn't recognise these differences.
I am glad for all these labels, though, because people who are "stupid" are cruelly dismissed whereas people with another label tend to be treated with more sensitivity. I want every reason, genetic or environmental, for not being a healthy genius to be identified and labelled.
Having said this, I have no doubt that there are some misdiagnoses of autism - and I don't just mean Internet self-diagnoses. And the problem with a spectrum condition is that everyone has some aspects of it, so the "very high functioning autistic" is mostly "some guy with a few mild autistic traits". These are the guys who are both capable and often willing to be LOUD about their condition, giving a very wrong impression of what autism (in the non-mild form) actually is and how much it disables a person. It would be like an amputee who has lost one foot setting up expectations wrt/ a quadruple amputee who has no limbs whatever.
Most people are in the dark ages when it comes to cannabis and rare forms of Autism.
I have a nephew with autism and any progress would be welcome in treating it. Although its one of those things where so much of it feels like that's 'his' personality and treating it feels a bit strange... also would be interesting on the affects of treatment on someone like this girl... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnylM1hI2jc&feature=youtube_gdata_player
I was diagnosed with Asperger and though some problems I have with the world may be linked to it, I strongly object to any implication of an illness or a state of health that needs to be treated or cured.
cb
I think you're missing a sarcasm-tag... either that or some serious education.
No keyboard detected. Press F1 to continue...
For some reason there is little discussion on actually a balanced diet.
Instead of proposing a prohibition of some sort of food, try to encourage the right portion percentage in your diet. Americans tend to eat too much meat. But meat isn't bad but it needs to be in the right portion, it shouldn't be our main meal but a side dish. We should eat more vegetables, but we should also take in grains and starch... We tend to eat to much salt and sugar, but we don't need to cut it out of our diet.
For the most part vegans don't seem to suffer the health effects of obesity, but they suffer other health effects from not having a proper diet. I mean if you look at many long time vegans they look years older then their peers. (I could be due to all natural drugs err ummm "inhaled herbs" use too, or just a life of being a judgmental prick building up the negativity in their body)
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I agree with the sentiment of your post, but I feel you're making some errors which harm your cause:
I find it terribly inhumane and malicious of you to spread this sort of attitude.
It is trolling. Trolls want to hear you tell them how inhumane and malicious they are. You don't buy from spammers and you don't feed the trolls.
undoubtedly more qualified than you on this subject
I have come to call this "academic Top Trumps". Appeal to authority would have harmed you for the majority of history, so I wouldn't start appealing to it now. Link to evidence produced by respected authorities, sure, but make sure the argument rests in the evidence.
Isaac Newton had Asperger's Syndrome
One simply cannot perform a diagnosis based on reading the (edited) writings of some individual and third party accounts of his behaviour. Don't do it. It's not scientific and it makes a mockery of proper autism diagnoses.
You don't know what it's like to always feel uncomfortable around people.
There are a lot more people who "always feel uncomfortable around people" and who aren't autistic.
your thoughts being constantly misinterpreted by those around you.
Thoughts cannot be misinterpreted - only the expressions of those thoughts. It is more accurate to say that the autistic person has difficulty communicating effectively. Those who are not autistic can of course try to accommodate for this difficulty, but the problem is not necessarily "misinterpretation".
Autism affects day-to-day functioning on a long-term basis. It is a disability. Civilisation tries to accommodate for those with disabilities rather than mocking them or locking them away. Ultimately, the height of civilisation involves respecting everyone well-meaning who is not a 100% healthy genius.
Wouldn't it be ironic to find out all theses parents and their modern fad diets of all organic/vegetarian/whatever... are whats causing their children to be autistic and not the very "chemicals" they are trying to avoid.
Yes brother, we must whip the demons out! To bedlam with them, followed by a Bible reading, that'll cure 'em.
Vegetable soups and steamed vegetables are encouraged. Fibromyalgia patients routinely get well, and they get well quickly.
If I was told I faced a future diet of vegetable soups and steamed vegetables I'd pretty soon change my ways too.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Nobody knows yet if this will treat autism in humans. A major problem for developing autism therapy is that there are no validated animal models (although there are quite a few candidates). The problem is, what constitutes autism in an animal? The most troubling symptoms of autism in humans relate to social-emotional behaviors that have no strong correlates in animals. So what we have in terms of "autistic behavior" in animals are things along the lines of "does the 'autistic' mouse sniff the other mouse less than normal?" But it turns out that mouse social behavior is pretty fragile: all sorts of genetic and pharmacological manipulations screw up mouse social behavior, and chances are that they are not all valid models of autism.
Now, an animal model does not have to be exactly like a human to be useful. The key question is, does a manipulation that normalizes the "autistic" animal behavior also improve the core symptoms of autism in humans? This is an area that is very much in its infancy, so nobody really knows.
Part of the problem is that we don't know what is really wrong in autism. There are clear neurochemical differences, but we don't yet know if these are a cause of the behavioral deficits in autism. One possibility is that the damage in autism occurs very early, even before birth. The brain is just miswired, and there is nothing much that can be done about it after symptoms emerge. In this case, an intervention would have to be very early, perhaps even in utero, to work. Another possibility is that the fundamental wiring of the brain is OK (on a gross level, there is no evidence of major damage, although there is evidence for subtle changes in what neurons are where), but that the signaling between neurons is off in some way that can be correctable, in which case there might be some dietary, pharmacological, or gene therapy manipulation that could bring function closer to what we think of as normal.
And of course, there are likely multiple types of autism (probably caused by different mutations), so some forms might be treatable late, while others might not.
Autism is considered a developmental disorder. But people on the autism spectrum don't necessarily stop developing. In clinical trials, typically something like a third of the patients in the placebo group show significant improvement. Many parents of children with autism are constantly trying one "treatment" or another, and when their child happens to show improvement, they credit whatever they tried last. They tell other parents, and it becomes a fad. And there are always doctors willing to offer the latest fad treatment--at a price.
There is a gastrointestinal peptide called secretin. It regulates bicarbonate secretion in the intestines. Three autistic kids were each given a single injection of secretin (they also had GI problems, which seem to be common in autism, although nobody is completely sure whether it is part of the disorder) and it was widely reported that their autistic behavior improved dramatically. There was a huge secretin fad. Over a thousand kids were treated with secretin. The company that made it couldn't keep up with the demand. Eventually, the controlled studies were done: the secretin group got better; so did the placebo group. No difference. The experimenters couldn't believe it. There were more studies: higher doses, more injections, secretin from different species. I even found one study that put it in an ointment and smeared it on the skin. None of them worked better than placebo. As a result of the secretin fad, we now know a great deal about secretin and autism--and what we know is that it doesn't work.
Fortunately, it seems like secretin is pretty much harmless. But a lot of "autism treatments" are not. There are still kids being treated with chelating agents, based on a long-debunked notion that autism has something to do with mercury poisoning. But chelating agents have serious risk of side effects, and can be dangerous if misused, and their have been some very bad consequences.
My socially awkward and geeky personality led to pretty much every pre-med I met in college trying to diagnose me with autism. One of the diagnosis criteria that I remember them mentioning was food acceptance or preference issues (eating the same thing all the time, refusing to try new things, etc.). It's since been removed from the diagnostic criteria (it's not nearly selective enough), but it still occurs in a significant majority of cases. I'm curious if there could be a link here. The mice in the study were treated with a diet high in branched chain amino acids. According to livestrong, those foods are... well, I'd generally call those "kids food": red meat, chicken, nuts and cheese. I wonder if food acceptance issues in autism have a biological underpinning and kids are, essentially, trying to self-medicate with chicken fingers.
I knew it was vegetarian diets that was causing an increase in autism. They get what they deserve!
The message is clear: EAT MORE MEAT!!!
"It is trolling. Trolls want to hear you tell them how inhumane and malicious they are. You don't buy from spammers and you don't feed the trolls."
False. People are reading it, and peope buy into it so it needs to be addressed. Not for the troll, but for the other readers.
"I have come to call this "academic Top Trumps".
He pointed out that they are more qualified then the poster probably is; which is a safe bet.
He also pointed out that you can get the information for yourself. So no Appeal to Authority.
"Thoughts cannot be misinterpreted - only the expressions of those thoughts."
really? no shit. He is just using common dialog.
"but the problem is not necessarily "misinterpretation"."
It almost always is.
I watch and help my daughter deal with autism. You have no idea what it's like to have a daughter who is kind, smart, and wants to be friends with her peer. But her peers always misinterpret her and shy way from her. A lonely 12 year old is a very sad thing to watch.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
So she really could cure Autism with diet?
"So is the BSD licence even more 'free' (than GPLv2)? Yes. Unquestionably." --Linus Torvalds (TinyURL.com/2vugzl)
False. People are reading it, and peope buy into it so it needs to be addressed. Not for the troll, but for the other readers.
Fair enough. It depends on the environment. Sometimes you're just perpetuating abuse by feeding a troll, because you encourage them to do it more.
He pointed out that they are more qualified then the poster probably is; which is a safe bet.
This is appeal to authority.
He also pointed out that you can get the information for yourself. So no Appeal to Authority.
Making some inappropriate statements then playing a get-out-of-jail-free card is no substitute for just not making the inappropriate statements in the first place.
"but the problem is not necessarily "misinterpretation"."
It almost always is.
Autism isn't a problem with the receiver - it's a difficulty in communication experienced by the autistic person. Disability denial won't get autistic people or (where necessary) their carers anywhere.
If you express yourself badly then the other person can and absolutely should try to accommodate for it - but that doesn't mean that you didn't still express yourself badly. You must adjust your method of communication so that the receiver can understand you. In particular, it is wrong to say e.g. "I made a factually correct statement therefore only one possible context can apply to it". You have to consider the context of your statements from the PoV of the receiver. Effective interpersonal communication is hard.
I watch and help my daughter deal with autism. You have no idea what it's like
What is it with the preponderance of "you have no idea" today? Has it crossed your mind that I have had experience with autistic people?
to have a daughter who is kind, smart, and wants to be friends with her peer. But her peers always misinterpret her and shy way from her.
Are you sure that the problem is misinterpretation rather than misstatement? If the problem is that her peers "always misinterpret" then your daughter has no condition at all - her peers do.
Perhaps you are saying that her peers could make more effort to grasp what she is trying to communicate. Yes, this sort of awareness would be great. But they're still ~12 years old and adults also suck at this sort of thing. Perhaps the peers are incapable or insecure in themselves - maybe they're lovely but just not that "smart".
I have less time for people who are deliberately intolerant of the disabled, the sick or the just-not-that-bright (all the same in nature's eyes), but - absent external support - it requires a greater than average mind to adapt to a wide variety of needs.
A lonely 12 year old is a very sad thing to watch.
Hm... I had very little interest in other people when I was 12. Mind you, I've had the more traditional "socially backward" label applied to me well before my 12th birthday, many many years ago now. I don't think I was a sad thing to watch.
I regularly visit a family member who sometimes has psychotic hallucinations and talks to people who are not there - is she a sad thing to watch? Not really. It's just nature inflicting its indifferent self. Better to identify the problem and see how it can be managed. And she has managed a lot better since the days that her father and other family members, in thorough denial, wanted to do everything other than medicate and rehabilitate.
I do appreciate your response, by the way. I obviously have not lived your personal experience and I am sure that it can be very challenging for you and your daughter at times. I wish you the best.
They already had retard strength now we're going to help them bulk up?
nah, you're not autistic. There are Dr's that love to hand out that diagnosis. You're not special either.
1/10.
I have come to call this "academic Top Trumps". Appeal to authority would have harmed you for the majority of history, so I wouldn't start appealing to it now. Link to evidence produced by respected authorities, sure, but make sure the argument rests in the evidence.
Perhaps you misunderstand the appeal to authority? It's also not invalid in all circumstances. In any case, if I were to claim that because the APA said it was bad it must be bad, but I didn't make such an assertion, although now I see how it could be interpreted that way. My fault for not making myself more clear, but the intent was that research and science had the authority.
One simply cannot perform a diagnosis based on reading the (edited) writings of some individual and third party accounts of his behaviour. Don't do it. It's not scientific and it makes a mockery of proper autism diagnoses.
Well, it's not my diagnosis. I wouldn't presume to do as much. But some very skilled and qualified researchers who, if anyone, would be entitled to make a diagnosis came to a conclusion on the matter.
There are a lot more people who "always feel uncomfortable around people" and who aren't autistic.
I was hesitant to use the word uncomfortable, but I can't think of another word to describe, since that seemed too benign. It is a definite range. Stressful, perhaps. And there are people who aren't autistic who know what that's like, but I doubt the OP is one of them. Probably bad judgment on my end to insert this bit.
Thoughts cannot be misinterpreted - only the expressions of those thoughts. It is more accurate to say that the autistic person has difficulty communicating effectively. Those who are not autistic can of course try to accommodate for this difficulty, but the problem is not necessarily "misinterpretation".
Or emm yes. That. My mistake. Anyway, what I mean is that it feels like you're being misinterpreted because to you, you're speaking in a way that makes sense to you, and other people just don't think what you're thinking. And even when you become aware of it, it's still a struggle because you don't know exactly what to say. I usually just copy mannerisms I've seen from TV and real life into a sort of script of how to act.
Well I'd hate to be special, seems like that would cut into my being me time.
Thanks for responding.
Perhaps you misunderstand the appeal to authority? It's also not invalid in all circumstances.
It is not that it is untrue to say, for example, "the APA today are more likely to say something scientific than Westboro Baptist Church". But I do not think that it adds anything to a discussion. If the writer thought that various well-respected scientific bodies could be trusted, he wouldn't have suggested that autism was unreal. So your argument comes down to "the APA has more authority than you".
You may argue that perhaps the OP wasn't aware that mainstream medicine recognises autism. But to me this is much less likely than the OP disagreeing with the opinion of mainstream medicine.
(Of course, OP was probably trolling. But I am assuming good faith.)
But some very skilled and qualified researchers who, if anyone, would be entitled to make a diagnosis came to a conclusion on the matter [nih.gov].
I am not sure they're making a diagnosis, though. In that article there is careful use of phrases from "suggestive of" or "not seem much doubt" to "seemed fairly certain". An impression from a professional is quite different from a diagnosis. IOW it is merely very plausible that Newton was Asperger.
I think there is an important distinction because giving the impression that people can be diagnosed remotely, as it were, gives the impression that an autism diagnosis is not thorough. It reinforces the belief that autism is eligible for "Internet diagnosis".
Anyway, what I mean is that it feels like you're being misinterpreted because to you, you're speaking in a way that makes sense to you, and other people just don't think what you're thinking. And even when you become aware of it, it's still a struggle because you don't know exactly what to say. I usually just copy mannerisms I've seen from TV and real life into a sort of script of how to act.
This makes sense.
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/article16.aspx
"Tragically, most people are totally unaware that they are only a few weeks of discipline away from being able to comfortably maintain healthful dietary habits -- and to keep away from the products that can result in the destruction of their health. Instead, most people think that if they were to eat more healthfully, they would be condemned to a life of greatly reduced gustatory pleasure -- thinking that the process of Phase IV will last forever. In our new book, The Pleasure Trap, we explain this extraordinarily deceptive and problematic situation -- and how to master this hidden force that undermines health and happiness."
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
If you had looked at that web page, you woudl have seen a list of references at the end:
[i] Cordain L, Lindeberg S, Hurtado M, et al. Acne vulgaris: a disease of Western civilization. Arch Dermatol 2002 Dec;138(12):1584-90
[ii] Kaartinen K, Lammi K, Hypen M, et al. Vegan diet alleviates fibromyalgia symptoms. Scand J Rheumatol 2000;29(5):308-13. Donaldson MS; Speight N; Loomis Fibromyalgia syndrome improved using a mostly raw vegetarian diet: an observational study. BMC Complement Altern Med 2001;1(1):7. Hanninen, Kaartinen K, Rauma AL, et al. Antioxidants in vegan diet and rheumatic disorders. Toxicology 2000 Nov 30;155(1-3):45-53.
[iii]Shaheen SO, Sterne JA, Thompson RL, et al. Dietary antioxidants and asthma in adults: population-based case-control study. Am J Respir Crit Care Med 2001;164(10 Pt 1):1823-8.
[iv] Huang SL, Lin KC, Pan WH. Dietary factors associated with physician-diagnosed asthma and allergic rhinitis in teenagers: analyses of the first Nutrition and Health Survey in Taiwan. Clin Exp Allergy 2001 Feb;31(2):259-64.
[v]Seaton A, Devereux G. Diet, infection and wheezy illness: lessons from adults. Pediatr Allergy Immunol 2000;11 Suppl 13:37-40.
[vi] Oddy WH; de Klerk NH; Kendall GE et al. Ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids and childhood asthma. J Asthma 2004;41(3):319-26.
[vii] Huang SL, Pan WH. Dietary fats and asthma in teenagers: analyses of the first Nutrition and Health Survey in Taiwan (NAHSIT). Clin Exp Allergy 2001 Dec;31(12):1875-80.
[viii] Farchi S, Forastiere F, Agabiti N, et al. Dietary factors associated with wheezing and allergic rhinitis in children. Eur Respir J 2003 Nov;22(5):772-80.
[ix] Scott D, Symmons DP, Coulton BL, Popert AJ. Long-term outcome of treating rheumatoid arthritis: results after 20 years. Lancet 1987;1(8542):1108-1111.
[x] Jones M, Symmons, Finn J, Wolfe F. Does exposure to immunosuppressive therapy increase the 10 year malignancy and mortality risk? British Journal of Rheumatology 1996; 35(8):738-745.
[xi]Fuhrman J, Sarter, B, Calabro DJ. Case Studies of Medically Supervised Water-only Fasting Resulting in Remission of Autoimmune Disease. Alternative Therapies 2001;8(4):1-3.
[xii] Kjeldsen-Kragh J, Hvatum M, Haugen M, Forre O, Scott H. Antibodies against dietary antigens in rheumatoid arthritis patents treated with fasting and a one-year vegetarian diet. Clin Exp Rheumatol 1995;13(2):167-172.
Maybe you are the one just quacking the party line?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Newspeak_words#Duckspeak
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
http://www.seriouseats.com/2007/11/the-subsidized-food-pyramid.html
"The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine has posted an easy-to-understand visual on its site that shows which foods U.S. tax dollars go to support under the nation's farm bill. It's titled "Why Does a Salad Cost More Than a Big Mac?" and depicts two pyramids -- subsidized foods and the old recommended food pyramid. It's interesting to note that the two are almost inversely proportional to each other."
Our tax dollars at work. :-( And then a lot of the rest of our tax dollars go pay to deal with the medical consequences... And then even more tax dollars go to pay for the cultural and psychological consequences (including aggressiveness and poor thinking) that also flow from poor nutrition:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2006/oct/17/prisonsandprobation.ukcrime
"Omega-3, junk food and the link between violence and what we eat; Research with British and US offenders suggests nutritional deficiencies may play a key role in aggressive behaviour"
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
There are twelve references cited on that page. There are thousands more cited in Dr. Fuhrman's book "Eat to Live". Why do people (myself included in the past) have such a hard time accepting there is any connection between what they eat and their health? If you fed a monkey only sugar water for years and it went crazy and its fur started falling out, would you say the way to bring it back to health is to give it prescription drugs along with the sugar water?
Evan vegan diets can be messed up with too much refined sugar and refined starch, btw:
http://veganlunchbox.blogspot.com/2006/06/interview-with-dr-joel-fuhrman.html
"Dr. Fuhrman: Most vegans fall short in that they follow the same suboptimal and outmoded nutritional recommendations as omnivores, utilizing grains or white potatoes as the major source of calories in the diet and wind up eating a diet low in high phytochemical foods such as green vegetables and raw nuts and seeds. They do not understand that 90 calories from a pretzel or white potato does not have the nutrient richness of 90 calories from a kiwi or red kidney beans. Without the knowledge of nutrient density they are eating in the dark and not optimizing their longevity.
The second serious error of the vegan community is the heavy use of fake meat and cheese analogues usually made from soy and almost always high in salt. Besides the lack of nutrients and high levels of acrylamides in these highly processed foods, with continuation of the high salt diet hemorrhagic strokes are even more likely in a vegan than in a person on a heart-disease promoting diet rich in animal products. Consuming salted foods should not be taken lightly; it is a killer.
The third error common in the vegan community is the lack of concern for individual differences which may heighten nutritional requirements in some individuals, especially the elderly, which make it advisable to supplement when appropriate with Vitamin D, B12, Taurine, DHA, or iodine, for example, to assure that no one develops a medical condition as a result of sub-optimal nutritional intake. To better assure nutritional completeness I recommend to my patients my vegan multi Gentle Care Formula and my vegan DHA Purity, and then if not getting regular sunshine to also add a Vitamin D supplement. Many vegans think supplementing with B12 is enough to guarantee nutritional excellence for most people. Long-term nutritional deficiencies are not harmless. Omnivores develop deficiencies, too, and blood tests can be used to ascertain if deficiencies exist."
Eating meat poses at least six big problems:
* the environmental impact & resource usage
* e-coli from manure runoff contaminating vegetables
* the cruelty of factory farming
* meat has few plant-based phytonutrients your body needs to work well and resists cancer (though it can have some essential nutrients like omega-3s if it is a high quality meat, which is rare these days).
* animals typically eaten in the USA are fed non-organic grain with various pesticides on it and other toxins, the animals then concentrate those toxins in their fat which they eat 10X grain to make per calorie, so when you eat typical US meat product, you are getting potentially up to 100X the exposure to pesticides than a vegan eating organic veggies.
* When you cook meat, you usually produce cancer causing acrylamides.
So, with standard meat, you both get more exposure to cancer-causing compounds and you get less phytonutrients to fight cancer. Plus you undermine our collective future environmentally and morally. So, in the long term, that all undermines your health. None-the-less, Fuhrman is not a total extremist on such things -- he says as long as 90% of you calories are from what he recommends, you will get most of the benefits.
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
...both of the library variety and the hands-on variety in his practice. He cites thousands of reference sin his book "Eat to Live" and has had thousands of patients over his career.
Researchers at Harvard University have seconded the vitamin D deficiency hypotheses as a potential cause of autism.
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/news-archive/2009/new-harvard-paper-on-autism/
Yet your post got modded +5 insightful. Still so much mis-info on slashdot about health... But I still feel it is slowly improving. And you are reasonable to be skeptical.
You might like this article critical of Dr. Hyman:
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2009/09/08/dr-mark-hyman-mangles-autism-science-on/
None-the-less, if you truly are a hard-working skeptic and not just a lazy skeptic-of-just-new-ideas, the entire scientific enterprise has failed in several big ways in relation to medicine, as I quote here: http://www.pdfernhout.net/to-james-randi-on-skepticism-about-mainstream-science.html#Some_quotes_on_social_problems_in_science
"Much of what medical researchers conclude in their studies is misleading, exaggerated, or flat-out wrong. So why are doctors -- to a striking extent -- still drawing upon misinformation in their everyday practice? Dr. John Ioannidis has spent his career challenging his peers by exposing their bad science."
So, it is hard to move beyond that. Look at what happened to the guy who suggested doctors wash their hands after dissecting corpses before they then deliver babies: ... ... He died after two weeks, on August 13, 1865, aged 47, from a gangrenous wound, possibly caused by the beating. ..."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis
".. As a result, his ideas were rejected by the medical community. Other more subtle factors may also have played a role. Some doctors, for instance, were offended at the suggestion that they should wash their hands, feeling that their social status as gentlemen was inconsistent with the idea that their hands could be unclean.[7]:9[Note 6]
Specifically, Semmelweis's claims were thought to lack scientific basis, since he could offer no acceptable explanation for his findings. Such a scientific explanation was made possible only some decades later, when the germ theory of disease was developed by Louis Pasteur, Joseph Lister, and others.
During 1848, Semmelweis widened the scope of his washing protocol, to include all instruments coming in contact with patients in labour, and used mortality rates time series to document his success in virtually eliminating puerperal fever from the hospital ward.
In 1865 JÃnos Balassa wrote a document referring Semmelweis to a mental institution.
Cold fusion has gotten the cold shoulder too for twenty years...
http://pesn.com/2012/09/06/9602177_LENR-to-Market_Weekly_September6/
Who are the real charlatans of medicine?
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/PCI_angioplasty_article.aspx
"In the most recent study investigators reviewed 61 trials, involving 25,388 patients, in a meta-analysis comparing angioplasty and stent placement with no treatment or medications alone. A meta-analysis pools numerous studies on the same subject. The findings indicated that there was no evidence that angioplasty and stent placement for coronary artery disease resulted in fewer heart attacks or deaths when compared to patients with the same level of disease who
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Here is what Fuhrman stated in the part I quoted: "I have been utilizing a high antioxidant, acrlyamide-free diet for many years with marked success. ... Studies in the medical literature support this method of treatment.[ii] "
Here is that footnoted section with *three* studies cited (I added carriage returns to make it clearer there are three studies):
[ii] Kaartinen K, Lammi K, Hypen M, et al. Vegan diet alleviates fibromyalgia symptoms. Scand J Rheumatol 2000;29(5):308-13.
Donaldson MS; Speight N; Loomis Fibromyalgia syndrome improved using a mostly raw vegetarian diet: an observational study. BMC Complement Altern Med 2001;1(1):7.
Hanninen, Kaartinen K, Rauma AL, et al. Antioxidants in vegan diet and rheumatic disorders. Toxicology 2000 Nov 30;155(1-3):45-53."
The one you refere to is actually from "Scand J Rheumatol. 2000;29(5):308-13."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11093597
not "BMC Complement Altern Med 2001":
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC57816/
The third BTW:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11156742
So, whatever you think of all three studies (including conflicts of interests in the second), and Fibromyalgia falls into the class of "rheumatic disorders" related to the third, your statement that he cites only one study is inaccurate. Yet you got modded +5 informative for making a strongly worded assertion that is easily disprovable by looking at the original source. Not sure how to interpret that as far as slashdotters and cargo cult science. :-)
For what is is worth, vitamin D and eating more veggies also greatly improved my own joint pain, so there is another anecdote you can dismiss. But that helps explains why I'm more willing to believe such studies -- I tried them and they worked for me. However, such advice also makes evolutionary sense, assuming humans are adapted to a life in the sun eating mostly a variety of vegetables (and maybe a bit of "free range organic" animal products like termites and fish of the purer sort available 100,000 years ago but rare now, as even Gorillas eat termites). In general, eating that way reduces the risk of being "suddenly dead" from strokes and heart attacks. Hopefully after reviewing the three references, and then looking at the many more he cites elsewhere, you might revise your opinion eventually? But even if not, good luck in finding what works for you to bring you abundant good health.
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
http://veganlunchbox.blogspot.com/2006/06/interview-with-dr-joel-fuhrman.html
"Most vegans fall short in that they follow the same suboptimal and outmoded nutritional recommendations as omnivores, utilizing grains or white potatoes as the major source of calories in the diet and wind up eating a diet low in high phytochemical foods such as green vegetables and raw nuts and seeds. They do not understand that 90 calories from a pretzel or white potato does not have the nutrient richness of 90 calories from a kiwi or red kidney beans. Without the knowledge of nutrient density they are eating in the dark and not optimizing their longevity."
Many become deficient in Omega-3s, Iodine, and B12. Of course, when a meat eater dies at 65 of a heart attack, we commonly blamd the the "genes". When a Vegan dies for whatever reason, we blame the "diet". In reality, it is an interactio of diet, lifestyle, and genes. As Dr. Fuhrman says, genes may give us "weak links", but whether they get pulled on is a function of diet and lifestyle.
We need a new term for someone who eats a lot of vegetables and other high-nutrient foods and avoids junk foods. Dr. Fuhrman coined the term "Nutritarian" for that, but it is not in widespread use. And as he says, eating lots of vegetables and a little meat is much healthier than a diet that is full of refined grains and processed sugar.
Thanks for your insightful post, including the humor and insights into psychology and health. :-)
On finding balance, see stuff on "the pleasure trap", which can make balance hard to achieve sometimes:
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/article16.aspx
Humans were not adapted to a world full of refined sugar, refined starch, salt everywhere, easy-to-get fats, and so on. Our natural inclinations are geared to a world where such are rare and we have to work physically at a moderate level every day to get something to eat.
Yet the modern food industry profits from just giving us what our genes say we should have as much of as we can because it is historically rare. But now that is is not rare, it is literally destroying our health. And pleading for individual self-control goes against our genetically-based survival strategies to eat the richest food first. Thus in industrialized countries, we now almost all suffer from the "diseases of kings" from the past cause by such a diet -- diabetes, gout, heart disease, stroke, dementia, etc... And even autism in the case of people (especially pregnant women) who no longer need to go outdoors in the sunshine for many hours every day.
And sadly, on extremes and addiction: ... Already someone trying to live well would seem eccentrically abstemious in most of the US. That phenomenon is only going to become more pronounced. You can probably take it as a rule of thumb from now on that if people don't think you're weird, you're living badly. ..."
http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html
"The world is more addictive than it was 40 years ago. And unless the forms of technological progress that produced these things are subject to different laws than technological progress in general, the world will get more addictive in the next 40 years than it did in the last 40. The next 40 years will bring us some wonderful things. I don't mean to imply they're all to be avoided. Alcohol is a dangerous drug, but I'd rather live in a world with wine than one without. Most people can coexist with alcohol; but you have to be careful. More things we like will mean more things we have to be careful about.
Maybe we need to find healthy addictions before the unhealthy ones find us?
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Okay. I'm anonymous here. Why not speak freely.
This approach is...questionable.
I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia some years ago. A lifetime of problems, culminating in muscle weakness and fatigue so severe that it looked like I was going to be put in a care facility. There were days I couldn't hold my head up or lift my arms, let alone walk.
You know what? I can end all my suffering in about 20 minutes. Not suicide. Cured. No fatigue. No pain. A little lingering muscle weakness, but nowhere near as bad as it has been. Nothing that couldn't be explained by muscle atrophy.
Cured.
I take Ribose. It's a simple carbohydrate. A sugar. You buy it at vitamin world. A few grams. 20 minutes later, I'm fine.
Research shows 2 out of 3 people with Fibromyalgia get better with Ribose.
http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/abs/10.1089/acm.2006.12.857
Whether that's a placebo effect is a good question. The studies were preliminary and not double-blind. Ribose is, after all, literally a sugar pill.
Then again, Ribose is a key intermediate metabolic product, intricately linked to numerous critical cellular functions. (It's the backbone of RNA, closely linked to the backbone of DNA, a crucial component for ATP synthesis, etc.)
Fibromyalgia is a diagnose of exclusion. If your doctor doesn't know why you're ill, and you meet some very general criteria, you're diagnosed with Fibromyalgia.
There's this little known genetic disease called Adenosine Monophosphate Deaminase Deficiency. It's also called Myoadenylate Deaminase Deficiency.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adenosine_Monophosphate_Deaminase_Deficiency_type_1
It's common as dirt. Millions of people have it. Something like 1%-2% of the European descended population has it. From what I can tell, nearly all of them get diagnosed with Fibromyalgia or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.
It's a simple genetic metabolic defect. Easily treated. No radical diet alterations needed.
Speaking of diet, decades ago I was diagnosed with IBS. I knew I was intolerant of lactose. That was obvious. The other parts weren't so clear cut.
Digging into Merck Manuals, I finally put it together.
http://www.merckmanuals.com/home/digestive_disorders/symptoms_and_diagnosis_of_digestive_disorders/symptoms.html
There are sugars found in some fruits, such as hexitols, sorbitol, mannitol, etc. Their effects are identical to ingesting lactose: Extreme abdominal pain, chronic diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, weakness, and dehydration.
Those fruits and berries you are suggesting would kill me.
Steamed veggies are great. So are meats for that matter. They're yummy. But the calorie content of both is abysmal.
In this land of the chronically overweight, I've been starving to death. Nearly every junk food you see is toxic to me. If it's not lactose contaminated it contains fruit sugars.
And yes, insufficient caloric intake is almost certainly what precipitated my acute symptoms that lead to my fibromyalgia diagnosis.
First and foremost, I need to be able to eat, and absorb, enough calories to survive.
that may be the worst offenders: http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/health-conditions/neurological-conditions/autism/
This health disaster was made in part by a US RDA for vitamin D that was more than ten times too low for pregnant women, coupled with dermatologists and pediatricians frightening all parents about sun exposure for their children as creating a later in life risk for (generally easily treatable) skin cancer. Those two things together, along with an increasingly indoor lifestyle from all the fancy gadgets we have, have cause a expensive health disaster of unprecedented proportions in all industrialized countries. And it is not just autism, it is also cancer, heart disease, diabetes, arthritis, depression, and others. Diet is part of that too though, but lack of sunlight (or proper supplements) is the single worst part that is easiest to fix.
The La Leche league (pro-breastfeeding) also contributed to the disaster with saying "breast is best" while ignoring that if the mother was vitamin D deficient, she could not pass enough on to her children via breast milk. The have recently been improving on that score, but only after a vast number of children were harmed. Vitamin D was probably one of the few things infant formula got right (as bad as formula is in many other ways).
So, in that sense it was the most conscientious up-to-date parents, listening to their doctors and the government, that have been hardest hit by this disaster. The parents who did not pay attention to the dermatologists, who got sun tans themselves, who let their kids play in the sun a lot anyway like the parents did when they were young, their kids were probably better off in this sense. That is not exactly the irony you mentioned (various synthetic chemicals can indeed be bad for the health, especially as endocrine disruptors), but it is related.
See also:
"A Decade Of Vitamin D Supplementation Would Save $4.4 Trillion Over A Decade; Would Save $1346 Per Person Per Annum"
http://www.lewrockwell.com/sardi/sardi111.html
By the way, 100 years ago pretty much most of what most people ate was organic and vegetarian, so it is hard to call that kind of diet "modern" or a "fad". It is precisely because it is what humans are adapted for which is why it is healthiest to eat that way. What is modern and a fad is eating lots of fatty factory-farmed meat raised on pesticide-laden grains and eating lots of refined starches and sugars and eating stuff with artificial colors and such. In the past, only the very richest could afford that fancy stuff, and eating that way produced the diseases of kings, like heart disease, diabetes, gout, cancer, etc.. Now almost everyone in the industrialized world suffers from the diseases of kings, with most of us stuck in "the pleasure trap":
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/article16.aspx
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.