PLT Test Blog

The three autism comorbidities that I have chosen to investigate are asthma, high cholesterol and various types of seizure.   Phase 1 The first phase is the easy one.   I just need to see if my autism drugs are proven to be effective in the each comorbidity.   The results really surprised me. With the exception of bumetanide and asthma, there is a perfect overlap.   Even more surprising, is that another loop diuretic, called furosemide, which is very similar to bumetanide, has been showed to be effective in asthma when given in the inhaled form. In the case of cholesterol, I am looking at elevated levels in cardiology.   The use of bumetanide in people with heart problems associated with high cholesterol is to reduce blood pressure (anti-hypertensive).     You can check use of my autism drugs in each comorbidity using Google, or just look at the links I selected below.   Asthma/COPD NAC improves effectiveness of the conventional corticosteroid the...

You might have been wondering why there has been a pause in my blog posts; rather than post nonsense, I have been exploring some new directions. The current combination of bumetanide + NAC + atorvastatin does continue to be effective, but clearly there can be more. I recently read a paper by a researcher who concluded that he thought autism was so heterogeneous there might well never be a drug therapy for autism.   I certainly see where he is coming from, but I think this tells us two things:-   1.       Do not expect conventional medical research to come up with an autism drug any time soon.   2.       It would be wise to read up on the medical research outside the realm of autism, where perhaps a more can-do approach and better resourcing might be evident. This brings me to comorbidities .   In case you are not familiar with this term, in medicine, comorbidity is the presence of one or more disorders (or disease...

This post has something for both the casual reader and the scientists among you.   Today I will start with the science. Epigenetics Epigenetics are chemical markers that can appear on your DNA as the result of some environmental exposure, like diet or stress.   Methylation is a type of epi gene tic change in which methyl groups are added to DNA and switch on or off the underlying gene.   This can have severe consequences depending on which gene is affected. Identical Twins It seems that if one identical twin has autism, there is a 70% chance that the other twin will be autistic.   In 30% of the cases the twin is neurotypical.   Researchers have very cleverly started to analyse pairs of twins from this 30% group and look for epigenetic marks.   This would highlight genetic causes of autism. Apoptosis Apoptosis is a tricky word to spell, for somebody like me, but is actually something quite simple;  i t is programmed cell death.   Apoptosis happens...

You may have noticed a week ago SAP, the German software giant, announced that it will in future try to ensure that 1% of its 60,000 workforce are autistic.   This attracted quite a lot of publicity.   It might have been kinder if they had referred to Asperger’s, or at least High Functioning Autism. Not all autistic people are savants or computer wizz kids. When it comes to TV, the messages are often either trivial or sensational.   But, t hanks to the internet, you can access very relevant and intelligent films, and all for free. The MIND Institute at the University of California in Sacramento, has a rich library of material, from some very well qualified people.   http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/mindinstitute/videos/video_autism.html These films are typically an hour long and cover many of the subjects that have appeared in this blog.   If you are a fan of Temple Grandin, you can even watch her film.   I liked the one by Deborah Fein, halfway down the li...

On 5 th February 1958, Manchester United played away to Red Star in Belgrade.   What is remembered is not the match, but the flight home; having stopped to refuel in Munich, the plane crashed on take-off with 23 fatalities and 21 survivors. Matt Busby, the Manager, survived the accident and ten years later he led a new team of Busby Babes to win the European Cup.   Bobby Charlton and Bill Foulkes survived the crash and played against Benfica in that final. Why am I telling you about this?   The reason is the air crash investigation that followed.   It was convenient to blame the pilot, Captain James Thain.  The German enquiry blamed him for not deicing the wings and claimed that this ice prevented the plane from taking off, as it reached the end of the runway. For ten years Thain tried to clear his name and insisted there had been no ice on the wings and that a deep layer of water and slush on the runway caused the accident.   Finally, Harold Wilson, the t...

At the time of writing this post Angelina Jolie’s aunt has succumbed to the same cancer that killed Angelina’s mother and she announced that she also carried the same defective gene.   She opted to take pre-emptive action and, in effect, cheat a nasty early death from breast or ovarian cancer. I have read so much research into autism, that it is pretty clear to me, that you could calculate an Autism Risk Factor (ARF) for prospective parents, if you really wanted to.   Would you really want to?   I expect those with direct experience of autism might be in favour, the others probably would not even bother to answer the question.  Since few truly autistic people have children, it is really more of a question for their siblings; do they want Destiny’s Child? It may sound depressing, or something to do with eugenics, but actually it does not have to be.   I am not suggesting the sort of genetic and chromosome testing that is already routinely done for conditions like...

Ted, (aged 12, and supposedly “normal”) and his brother Monty (aged 9, and now steadily becoming more “normal”, as this blog progresses) go to the same school as a Swedish family.   In Ted’s class is a Swedish girl, Charlotte, and her younger brother is in the Primary school along with Monty.   I have been both surprised and impressed, by how nice the kids in Primary are to kids with any kind of special need.   However, once they make the big leap to Secondary, they stop being so nice; it becomes cool to be critical and even cruel. Ted’s Swedish friend, Charlotte, was explaining to their class that her younger brother had something called Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, but it was OK, because he only had 10% ADHD .   Ted of course then replied “and you have got the other 90%”.   Some of the other things they get up to are far, far worse; one reason why I put Monty down a couple of years in Primary. But, the Swedish Disease is not ADHD. During my resea...