It has been a few hectic days on every single front, any point of analysis that I potentially covered at some point, there was some impactful news. We even jokingly said, “This week, a decade happened”. To top all that, I got sick with something, I don’t bother testing, but given the amount of sick people I saw around on public transport merely a few days ago, it was probably Covid.
I will reserve the commentary on the symptoms and all else in the comment section if you are curious. I would like to thank the patience of paid subscribers too !
As usual, it just makes me really… well… dumb. While I am behind on a lot of articles I want to publish, this one holds more significance than all else. Because it brings a lot of hope (incidentally, it also proves many of my observations right…hehe).
First, the news article per the title, after we go through the published paper.
Finding the paper after reading this article wasn’t too hard, after all, I and any person interested in this subject would want to know exactly what was observed, and done, any piece of information that can provide some new data points or insight. I have my own perspective on Autism, but a remaining truth is that Autism is highly complex, and as we will see here, quite literally unique even in twins, fraternal twins in this particular case.
Reversal of Autism Symptoms among Dizygotic Twins through a Personalized Lifestyle and Environmental Modification Approach: A Case Report and Review of the Literature
Throughout my “scientific” journey, I have always ended up being an outlier, and my first disagreement with the consensus was Autism. While I came to terms with the spectrum part of it, I refused to accept it couldn’t be dealt with, or at the very least alleviated, achieving a higher level of function.
Here a multi-disciplinary (my favorite type) team of clinicians used a multi-modal (many types/things) non-pharmacological approach, a very fancy sciency way to say “supplements, vitamins, and natural elements”.
The paper has many details, but the first one that I would like to bring to attention is how unique Autism, is to the barebones of an individual level. These are sisters, and twins, and even with this similarity in genetics, they had distinctive aspects to each one. They were diagnosed with Level 3 ASD, the “most severe” form usually requiring substantial and significant support, and the reversal took 2 years of very extensive and complex work.
Findings of these tests in both twins included biomarkers associated with mild gastrointestinal inflammation (one child with low elastase and the other with significant fat staining, though plentiful lactobacillus and bifidobacteria and unremarkable secretory IGAs), fatty acid imbalances (high omega 6:3 ratio), nutrient deficits (minerals tested below the 50th percentile, and both twins were relatively low in vitamins C, B12, and B3, alpha lipoic acid, glutathione) with signs of mold exposure (highly elevated urinary ochratoxin and citrinin), fungal issues (elevated arabinose for both girls, and elevated tartaric acid for L), signs of bacterial overgrowth (elevated hippuric acid for P and dihydroxyphenylpropionic acid for L), metal excretion (high aluminum in both girls), sensitivities to common foods, and urinary excretion of toxic compounds and their metabolites (some >100th percentile, glyphosate at or above 75th percentile for both twins).
L and P were both diagnosed with ocular motor dysfunction in Spring 2022
At another point in this report, the authors point out that mold was not found anywhere but one window in the twin’s bedroom was marked for further evaluation, with no additional information provided. This is important because they were diagnosed with fungal/mold issues, but also bacterial issues, among other “defects” (I hate this word).
Worth noting that the twin’s deficiencies are both related to antioxidation and methylation. Both had impaired serotonin metabolism, their diet rich in tryptophan, “strictly gluten-free, casein-free diet that was low in sugar and had no exposure to artificial colors, dyes, or ultra-processed foods, they consume foods rich in B12, B6, and folate.” Both had genetic variants that increased their risk for systemic inflammation.
They also had unique genetic variants, P had a higher need for Vitamin D, L variant increased her risk for neuroinflammation, oxidative stress, and compromised detox (which is a direct byproduct of the first two).
B12 and Folate support methylation, among dozens of other highly important aspects of health, B6 helps the body metabolize tryptophan, thus helping poor serotonin metabolism while helping the body avoid entering the Kynurenine Pathway, a known contributor to ASD. Vitamin D plays a direct role in children's neurodevelopment, and it would be good to know the mother’s levels since it affects these pathways.
Low vitamin D levels could result in reduced brain serotonin levels through either insufficient intake or impaired vitamin D absorption82,83
This 2020 case study also comes to mind, because after fungal treatment against Aspergillus, the child experienced a complete and fast recovery from ASD. TLR4 and NF-kB have both been known to play a role in ASD too, and so do higher levels of RAGE and you probably guessed it, HMGB1, also here.
The bacteria, the fungi/mold all contribute to both TLR4, RAGE, HMGB1, low-level of endotoxin, a leaky gut, the failure in detox pathways and Vitamin D levels will contribute to a shift in the immune system and something I forecasted long, long ago. SARS-CoV-2 Spike Protein affecting ASD via Th17 pathway. Imbalance on Th17 and T-Reg (regulatory) cells will contribute to it, and all discussed above will influence these mechanisms.
It should be no wonder that something I hypothesized at the time (2021), was then tested in mice and found out to alleviate Autistic-like behavior. Metformin. Another potential helpful intervention would be Taurine. The point is, that many of the supplements I suggest for Covid or in my “brain stack” can help ameliorate and alleviate autistic symptoms, but especially, and the main goal, avoid the long-term impact of SARS-CoV-2.
Also, FYI one of the most protective interventions against developing autism is breastfeeding. And so does colostrum.
The primary goal of bringing this paper to your attention is there is hope, that you can reverse or at a minimum significantly improve ASD. Although for many it is not realistic to pay thousands of dollars out of pocket for many tests, so a better strategy, the famous play smart, not hard would be either pinning down what you suspect are the most likely culprits, the common denominators, and test it.
Or the arduous task of generalizing and supplementing and taking good notes, observing and iterating on top, and testing when possible. You can easily extrapolate from dozens of my articles to use and understand parts of the complex puzzle that is autism. The reason I mention this is precisely because I suspect ASD will increase at a higher rate than even the experts suspect.
Given how much work I am behind, and how many different events took place, you may get almost daily e-mails, shorter and less complex that builds upon other recent articles (I am well aware shorter and simpler articles do better, but I prefer making my reader’s brain work, like a cognitive gym). There is a lot to talk about.
Once again, I appreciate both the support and the patience.
The only pathogen that causes intense muscle pain in me is Covid, and given that I saw hundreds of people on the metro system sick at the same time (plus dozens around my neighborhood) safe to say it was Covid.
While I am an outlier, thus each infection usually presents itself in a different way than the majority of the population, I have never felt such an absurdly strong brain fog. The virus bypassed everything, it went directly to my nerves and brain, and yes I know it went through the nerves because all my cranial nerves burnt for a few days.
This insane brain fog put Long Covid neurological problems in a new perspective, I can now understand fully why many of them suffer from clinical depression. This is horrible, trying for hours to read or write the simplest thing and fail, among other things.
My brain today was finally working, close to normal, so I got a lot of catch up to do. In the Covid articles I will write my current suggestions, because this one was nasty. I felt better when I had a brain clot LMAO.
If you are a paid subscribers or donated, thank you for your patience, not fond of earning money without working =P.
Are you familiar with Dr Robert Naviaux' work (https://naviauxlab.ucsd.edu/publications/) "The suramin autism treatment-1 (SAT-1) trial was a small double-blind, placebo-controlled, translational pilot study of 10 male subjects with ASD, ages 5-14 years, to examine the safety, activity, pharmacology, and metabolomics of low-dose suramin in children with ASD. A single infusion of suramin was associated with improved scores for language, social interaction, and decreased restricted or repetitive behaviors measured by ADOS"
His cell danger response hypothesis is quite interesting too, and your research seems to point in similar direction. Thank you fo your work, and speedy recovery, without stress, because that too is contagious (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28550792/).