PLT Test Blog

Most readers of this blog are in North America and I think this will be by far the largest market for any new drugs approved for autism. An even bigger market by population (508 million vs 354 million) is the European Union, where the drug regulator is now developing guidance for those developing new treatments for autism.  They are asking for comments. The only people really qualified to give comments are those with some experience of treating autism, very few of whom live in Europe. Regardless of where you live, I would suggest that the doctors and researchers who read this blog take a look at the short guideline document and pass on any comments they may have to the European Medicines Agency.   For everyone else, I do not suppose they expect to get comments from lay people, but why not go ahead and surprise them? The obvious comment would be to hurry up, but there are many more constructive comments that can be made.  The Press Release: Facilitating development o...

As we have seen at various points in this blog, there is mounting evidence to support the use of steroids in autism, particularly in regressive autism. Since long-term steroid use has side effects, there have been no large long-term trials.  There is plenty of anecdotal evidence, particularly from the US.  We saw a paper on Immunomodulatory Therapy, by Michael Chez, which discussed the benefits of Prednisone , a very cheap oral steroid. Immune Therapy in Autism: Historical Experience and Future Directions with immunomodulatory Therapy In the days before inhalers for asthma, it was low dose oral prednisone that kept many sufferers from an early death.  It did result in reduced height, but this is probably a price worth paying to stay alive. A paper was recently published by specialists at Harvard Medical School on the subject of steroids and regressive autism. Corticosteroid therapy in regressive autism: a retrospective study ofeffects on the Frequency Modulated Auditory E...

It came as no surprise to me that many people involved in high profile mass shootings suffer from mild autism (Asperger’s).  What did surprise me was that so many people with TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury) also commit such crimes.   Indeed in a recent study (see later) of 239 killers, 28% appear to have autism and 21% suffered from TBI. Indeed the name used by the Austrian, Hans Asperger, in 1943 for his newly identified condition was “Autistic Psychopathy”, it was only many decades later when his work was discovered for the English-speaking world by Lorna Wing in 1981, that the condition became known as Asperger’s.  Wing did not like the term “Autistic Psychopathy” that Asperger had chosen, because she thought it would apply sociopathic (violent) behaviour to the lay public. Wing recently passed away and the New York Times wrote a nice article about her. Dr. Lorna Wing, Who Broadened Views of Autism, Dies at 85 Her paper, that first established Asperger’s syndrome, is here...

One effective intervention in autism, particularly to reduce stereotypy, is N-acetylcysteine (NAC).  Here NAC is being used as an anti-oxidant in its own right and as a precursor to the body’s own main anti-oxidant, called GSH.  Classic autism is associated with oxidative stress and so NAC should be beneficial. In much of Europe, NAC is seen primarily as a pharmaceutical, in North America, and much of the rest of the world, NAC is primarily just another supplement. As a drug, it is mainly used as a so-called mucolytic agent , and as such is used as a cough medicine, because it breaks down mucus and liquefies it, making it easier to cough up.  It is frequently prescribed by doctors for children, but only in some parts of the world. The problem with NAC, and all supplements, is quality control.  There is pressure to drive down prices and so quality will vary.  NAC is not particularly stable (it is labile) and so it tends to break down and release some foul smellin...

Age-appropriate behaviour is not something you can really teach a child with autism.   In the toddler years, so many other children are behaving "badly", that nobody is really bothered by other toddlers with their autistic behaviours.   As children get older, the limits of acceptable behaviour change and it is then that many kids with special needs gradually get left behind.   Monty, aged 10 with ASD, has a classmate from Angola called José.   Monty’s big brother, Ted aged 13, goes to the same high school as José’s big brother Eduardo. Yesterday was José’s birthday party and so I decided to ask Ted if he would go to the party and look out for his brother.   Prior to this Monty always has had a parent close by, in full view, in case of need. It turned out that the plan was to go to see a movie, Spiderman 2.   Ted had already seen it and said that it is really long; nearly two and half hours, and he thought that no way was his brother going to sit through tha...

   Warsaw University of Life Sciences, Source: Wikipedia Regular readers of this blog will have noticed there are some strange things going on related to endocrinology in the autistic brain; in effect there are low levels of certain critical hormones. We saw in research from the Harvard Medical School that it seemed that oxidative stress in the brain affected the level of a key enzyme D2 ( iodothyronine deiodinase type 2).   D2 has an important role; it converts the passive thyroid pro-hormone T4,   into the active thyroid hormone T3.   Without enough T3, you are said to be hypothyroid.   When the brain is affected, it is called central hypothyroidism. As T3 is essential for cellular metabolism, growth and differentiation, and thus critical for brain development, thyroid deficiency during embryonic or early postnatal periods would likely lead to developmental abnormalities, including autism. Now we have some follow up research from Harvard and Warsaw Univ...