PLT Test Blog

Once anyone starts to make claims that some autism is treatable, people respond in different ways.  Those applying what has always been taught in medical school, that autism is untreatable,  will either think you are making it all up, or worse, you are some evil person taking advantage of parents in emotional distress. The very few people who read the research about things like metabolic errors and intracellular signaling may well take a different view. Also the oncology/cancer researchers who themselves think about sub-types of disease that are induced by specific signaling pathways (like RAS-induced cancers for example), may well see the sense in experimentation like that in this blog. Medicine does indeed say that autism, Down Syndrome and ID/MR are untreatable; however current science does not support this.  Your local doctor applies medicine; he is likely totally out of his depth when it comes to where science is in 2016. My posts are just my take on the science, I a...

Another brief post today to draw your attention to a paper highlighted on the Questioning Answers blog. There are two virtually identically probiotics one called VSL#3 and the other called Viviomixx.  As pointed out in a recent post there is an ongoing clinical trial of Vivomixx.     Ongoing Clinical Trial of Vivomixx Probiotic in Children with Autism Some readers of this blog are trialing VSL#3 or Viviomixx. The new paper is a case study of a 12 year old boy with severe autism who was given VSL#3 at his residential care home. He has celiac disease, but his doctors were surprised that when the reduction in severity of abdominal symptoms was accompanied by an improvement in his autism. This should not come as a surprise to regular readers.  Just recall Kanner’s subject #1, Donald Triplett , who was later diagnosed with juvenile arthritis. When his arthritis was treated his autism improved.  This is exactly what should be expected. Treat your comorbidities, parti...

T his brief post addresses one further issue as to why people with autism can often suffer from various nasty gastrointestinal (GI) problems.  First a recap. Mast Cell Activation We have already seen that some people’s GI problems are caused by mast cell activation/degranulation.  These cells are activated by allergens (certain foods in this case) and then they release histamine and other pro-inflammatory agents like IL-6.  Degranulation of mast cells can itself cause pain, but the main problem is the resulting damage/inflammation caused by the IL-6 and histamine. The effective therapy is a mast cell stabilizer.  These include Verapamil (better known as a calcium channel blocker), Cromolyn Sodium, Ketotifen, Azelastine and to a lesser extent most anti-histamines like Claritin, Zyrtec etc.  Quercetin, the flavonoid, also has an effect. Pancreatic Dysfunction We also saw that L-type calcium channel (Cav1.2) dysfunction in the pancreas may disrupt the production of...

This blog is about science rather than medicine, and believe me there is a much bigger difference than you might hope for. Many aspects of the research literature indicate the potential of certain calcium channel blockers, like Verapamil, to be useful in treating autism.   As we have seen, there are many different causes of autism and what treatment works in one type may be totally ineffective in another type. For almost a year Monty, now age 11 with ASD, has taken Verapamil to control the behavioural effects of allergy that are driven by so called “mast cell degranulation”.   His pollen allergy makes his summertime behaviour dramatically worse; a reaction that is almost entirely reversed by Verapamil. In my page in this blog on Allergies and Autism I raised the question as to whether Verapamil would be effective in treating the many people with autism who have food allergies leading to gastrointestinal (GI) problems.   Many people with autism have symptoms like Irritabl...