PLT Test Blog

We have learnt that autism is just a description of symptoms, it is not a biological diagnosis.   A biological diagnosis is what you actually need. I continue to be amazed how loosely this autism description is now applied, to the point that it can become rather trivial. We have a new assistant working with my son, Monty, at school after lunch.  She has been doing a degree in looking after people with autism, for the last four years, and has done plenty of work experience in special schools. So I suppose she should know what autism means in 2016.  She was really surprised how much Monty can do for himself, how good his handwriting is and what he can do academically at school; she had expected less.   So for her “autism” generally means more severe than my son. What counts as autism very much depends on where you live, and when.  The more developed the country, the milder the symptoms need to be to warrant an autism diagnosis and in recent times there has be...

A rather simpler type of cascade Today’s post was really to explain why for some people with autism their GI problems disappear when they take the calcium channel blocker verapamil.  Along the way, we will see that a similar mechanism is behind the effectiveness of both low dose aspirin and even high doses of omega 3 oil, when combined with lower dietary intake of omega 6. There have been several studies regarding omega 3 oil in autism, but overall they are not very conclusive.  A small number of people with autism and ADHD seem to benefit. Low dose aspirin is now very commonly prescribed to people at risk of a heart attack. In essence you can say that too much of the omega-6 fatty acid arachidonic acid   (AA) is potentially bad for you;  it allows for the body to become inflamed, but more important seems to be the AA cascade which determines whether the AA is converted to prostaglandins or leukotrienes.  Fortunately prostaglandins and leukotrienes tend to act ...

The common form of Leucovorin Calcium is for injection, but it exists in  tablet form.  Maybe another opportunity for intra-nasal delivery? As pointed out by Tyler, Richard Frye has published his trial on the effect of mega-dose folinic acid in children with autism and language impairment. FRAA (folate receptor- α autoantibody) status was predictive of response to treatment.  This means that people who are FRAA positive are likely to really benefit from folinic acid treatment. There are different types of folinic acid .  Dr Frye uses Calcium Leucovorin ( Calcium Folinate ) , which is used in chemotherapy.  It is given by intramuscular injection or orally. Dr Frye uses the oral form. Folinic acid should be distinguished from   folic acid   (vitamin B 9 ). However, folinic acid is a   vitamer   for folic acid, and has the full vitamin activity of this vitamin. The dose is huge by normal standards of vitamin B 9 .  It was 2   mg/   kg ...