PLT Test Blog

A recent post looked again at inflammation in autism and some possible therapies to try.  Over Christmas and New Year, Monty, aged 11 with ASD, had occasional outbursts, more typical of his summertime raging, which was later solved using allergy /mast cell therapies. At least it did let me establish whether Verapamil was a universal “cure” for SIB.  It is not.  It works great for allergy-driven aggressive behaviors, but had no effect on these ones. Christmas is often a stressful period for many people with, or without, autism; but Monty likes presents and he loves food. Having pulled out a wobbly tooth on Boxing Day and noticed an apparent behavior change, I thought that perhaps the loss of milk teeth and development of permanent teeth might cause an effect similar to that of his mild pollen allergy.  Monty, in common with many people with autism, has a high pain threshold.  While teething causes well known problems in babies, most children have minimal problems...

If you are a regular reader of this blog you will know that the key to controlling autism is reducing oxidative stress and neuroinflammation.   One of the key drivers of the on-going neuroinflammation are signalling molecules called cytokines ; if you can limit the release of harmful cytokines you can reduce neuroinflammation.   This appears to be easier said than done.   I learnt that some statins limit the release of pro-inflammatory cytokines and neuroscientists in the US are researching their use, but not yet in autism.   I did some home research and found a positive effect within 24 hours. It turns out there is an entire field of neuroscience relating to cytokines as a mediator of disease and this is all channelled through the Vagus nerve .  There is an eminent  neuroscientist, Kevin Tracey, who dominates this field; he is credited with discovering that vagus nerve stimulation inhibits inflammation by suppressing pro-inflammatory cytokine production ....

In my previous posts on histamine, you would have read that I found that Claritin appeared to reduce autistic behaviours.   Once I had got to the bottom of what was going on, I found out that histamine has a long record of stimulating challenging behaviour in all children.   It also became clear that typical anti-histamines (H1 antagonists) are all slightly different and one may be effective in one person and ineffective in another.   Each one tends to have additional secondary effects. It now appears that the secondary effect of certain H1 antagonists may actually be more important than the primary intended effect of reducing itchy eyes and runny noses. There are three generations of H1 drugs.   The fastest working and most potent is still the first generation, the second generation are non-drowsy derivatives of the first generation.   The third generation are the active metabolite of the second generation.   As you will see in today’s central paper, the t...

I have recently started learning the workings of the human immune system, while 12 year old Ted (“normal” except for a Star Wars obsession) has been discovering Star Trek.   Last weekend we went to the cinema with Adrian “Mole” to see the latest release.   Mr Spock made one interesting observation, regarding what can happen when the interests of the many outweigh the interests of the few; this will be the tittle of a forthcoming post about the fate of Dr Wakefield and his vaccine theory. Cytokines Cytokines really do exist, even though they sound like something from science fiction.   They are signalling molecules associated with inflammation.  Several inflammatory cytokines are induced by oxidative stress.   The fact that cytokines themselves trigger the release of other cytokines and also lead to increased oxidant stress, makes them important in chronic inflammation.   In extreme cases, there is a downward spiral of inflammation making it worse and wors...