PLT Test Blog

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...

Today’s post is to highlight an unusually well informed article about autism, pointed out to me by our reader Natasa.   It is about how autism is treated by Dr Richard Frye at Arkansas Children's Hospital.  If you read the article, you may wonder why your pediatrician is unaware of these methods. Click the link below to read the article. Tackling autism, child by child 

Alli from Switzerland discovered the autism benefits of Bio Gaia Gastrus. This probiotic contains two different bacteria:- ·         Lactobacillus reuteri  17938 ( Lactobacillus reuteri   Protectis)   ·         L actobacillus   reuteri   ATCC PTA 6475 These two bacteria have different effects. The first bacteria is very well researched and recently was shown to increase oxytocin in autism mouse studies.  It is available on its own and this is the product most people I know are using. The second bacteria is included in Bio Gaia Gastrus specifically for its additional anti-inflammatory effects. Recent comments on this blog have shown that some people have a negative “histamine-y" reaction to Bio Gaia Gastrus.  This is entirely logical since the mode of action of the second bacteria is to generate histamine to activate H2 receptors in the gut. This might sound rather odd since histamin...

It's September again and about time most Autism “Experts”, therapists, advocates, charities and journalists went back to school as well Today’s post is a brief one to highlight a mainstream scientific paper that highlights what regular readers will have already determined; autism/ASD is not a valid diagnosis.  Hundreds of different biological dysfunctions may lead to behaviors, in some shape or form, that will be diagnosed as autism. So a behavioral diagnosis of autism is just the start of the process to determine what the biological problem(s) are. Several readers have already highlighted the paper, but it is important enough for its own post. This also means that clinical trials that are based on a group of subjects with completely different biological dysfunctions, but vaguely similar behavioral issues, are likely often to be of little value. Fortunately, there are shared pathways affected by many of these numerous biological dysfunctions, so there will be some therapies that ap...

I wrote several posts about why PAK1 inhibitors should be beneficial in some autism and indeed some schizophrenia. We also saw that PAK1-blocking drugs could be potentially useful for the treatment of neurofibromatosis type 2, in addition to RAS-induced cancers and neurofibromatosis type 1. One problem with drugs developed for cancer is that, even if they finally get approved, they tend to be ultra-expensive.  Production volumes are low because even if they “work” they do not prolong life for so long and cancer has numerous sub-types. Cheap drugs are ones used to treat common chronic conditions like high blood pressure, high cholesterol and indeed treatment of male lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS), like benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH). A small number of readers of this blog have confirmed the beneficial effect of PAK inhibitors in their specific sub-types of autism.  The problem is that there are no potent PAK1 inhibitors suitable for long term use that are readily avail...

Today’s post is rather light on the usual science. One reader recently suggested a post on wandering. Wandering off and getting lost is a common event for many with more severe autism and while for some it may be an issue only in childhood, for many it will continue to adulthood.  US news reports frequently feature this kind of wandering, but it occurs everywhere. Minions like to wander too The broader issue here is that many people with severe autism remain child-like their entire lives.  So they continue to face many of the same risks as a neuro-typical toddler. If you do not pay great attention to your typical two year they also may have all kinds of accidents, but they soon figure out that roads are dangerous and falling from a window is going to hurt. There are lots of clever high tech tracking solutions to help find your child, but the ideal solution must be not to lose him in the first place. We have a high fence around our garden; we have a cover on our pool that even ...

Memantine (Namenda/ Ebixa) is an Alzheimer’s drug that has been used off-label in autism for many years; but does it actually work? More than a thousand people with autism have completed clinical trials and yet more trials are in progress.  A few years ago, at the FDA’s request, the producer of the drug, Forest Laboratories, funded two clinical trials enrolling 903 children with autism.  The results were never fully published because the trials were deemed to have failed to find any positive effect and a note to reflect this is included in each pack of Namenda. A quick look at ClinicalTrials.gov website shows yet more autism trials in the pipeline. What is going on? When Dr Chez made a trial in 2007 he found Memantine to be effective; he has since moved on to stem cell therapy which he also finds to be effective. The latest study to be published includes Dr Hardan from Stanford, who published that study showing NAC to be effective in autism.  This time his study shows no...