Possible Cure For Autism 431
Henry V .009 writes "Scientists in New Jersey are claiming that children with autism are unable to metabolize key fatty acids that fight brain-damaging inflammations. They have already developed urine/blood tests to identify at-risk children. A preventive cure to autism may be as simple as a 'therapeutic cocktail' of fatty acids. Human trials could start later this year."
do we want to do this?! (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:This is not good! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:A blood test eh? (Score:3, Interesting)
Apparently, those suffering from "non-chelated pervasive developmental delay not otherwise specified or Asperger's disorder" do not have "significantly increased median coproporphyrin levels", which is the method used in the article to diagnose the more severe forms of autism spectrum disorders. (Note: There is an increase in the median urinary porphyrins for those with Asperger's and PDD-NOS, but not sufficient to be statistically significant based upon the authors' criteria.)
Source: Nataf R, Skorupka C, Amet L, Lam A, et al. "Porphyrinuria in childhood autistic disorder: implications for environmental toxicity." Toxicol Appl Pharmacol 2006;214:99-108
Sounds like Lorenzo's Oil (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Autism rates (Score:5, Interesting)
purchased by a law firm for almost a million dollars. [timesonline.co.uk]
Re:Autism rates (Score:3, Interesting)
After my son was born, I had concerns about thimerosol as a preservative in various vaccines. The way I looked at it, mercury is a known neurotoxin, and I'd rather not introduce it into his system if I could help it. I had concerns. I didn't know the differences between methyl mercury and ethyl mercury (nor do I know much more now as I'm not a chemist, but those articles were helpful).
Shockingly, my wife's OB didn't know squat about my questions, or even what thimerosol was. Our pediatrician, while very good with most everything, was likewise ignorant and somewhat dismissive of my concerns. I'm happy to read any scientific material to help me make my decision, and this stuff would have been a huge help. But in my state of ignorance (at the time), I went ahead with all the vaccines but crossed my fingers, the shadow of doubt far in the back of my mind.
Why can't OBs, GPs and Peds be more informed on this kind of stuff? Oi! I felt when I said the word "thimerosol" I was getting funny looks. I wondered if I knew more (albeit misinformed) than the doc on this topic, and found that alarming.
Another day, another stupid false hope. (Score:5, Interesting)
We will begin with the obvious problem that they are treating autism as a single disorder. We don't know a great deal about the spectrum, but we certainly know that autistic symptoms can be found in a large number of discrete conditions. "Autism" is probably a final common pathway of subtle neurologic failure, and the idea that a single enzyme is associated has been discredited repeatedly. In fact, every time we think we've found "the" cause, more research shows us that we have found, at most, "a" cause, and usually not one that is common. Fragile X syndrome, Rett's syndrome, and others were all previously lumped in as "autism", and I don't think we're done finding things.
The next obvious problem is that if we indeed have a single liposomal storage disease causing most or all autism, you would find it with brain biopsy and/or MRI. We have not found this. You would expect other commonalities as well, since failures of fat metabolism generally have organ impacts outside the brain. We have not found these. I would be unsurprised to discover that there is a rare disorder of this sort with autistic symptoms present, but it means nothing for the vast majority of individuals with autism.
Don't get me wrong - I would give the rest of my life willingly if it would cure my son. I will be grateful beyond words if this works. But it won't, any more than secretin did when it was the last great hope for autism. I have learned much in the fifteen years of my son's life, and the thing I have learned most is that people who claim to have "the cure for autism" are lying. Not always in an evil fashion, and not necessarily knowingly, but they are saying something that is not true.
UMDNJ is crooked as a dog's leg (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:A blood test eh? (Score:2, Interesting)
I'd rather not go into how having this has affected my life, as that is fairly personal to me, but Asperger's Syndrome is vastly different from a diagnosis of "geek" or "smart" or whatever else. And yes, I can suffer from Asperger's and still have the capacity to wish to be seen with some sort of dignity.
There is a chance that, had my condition been diagnosed at the age of 12 rather than at 22, that I could have had a normal relationship with my family and my now-fiancee, rather than being thrown into occasional depressive episodes due to the stress of attempting to associate closely with a neruotypical individual.
Give me a break. I wish.
Re:This is not good! (Score:2, Interesting)
It has? I don't see famous antisocial geeks next to Elvis, Cary Grant, DeCaprio, or James Dean.
Re:Autism rates (Score:2, Interesting)
Three years before my son started talking again and after 10 years he has yet to call me Dad.
Re:Another day, another stupid false hope. (Score:2, Interesting)
I was diagnosed at 16 with Nonverbal Learning Disability, a condition on the spectrum which mimics both generic HFA and Asperger's in some respects. I had the usual types of social problems at school, although they weren't as severe as those encountered by most, and in hindsight I've realised that at school I was actually considered highly charismatic by some, but that I was simply too focused on my own pain at the time to see that.
However, one thing I was never able to do until the age of 26 was develop any kind of relationship with a member of the opposite sex. Then in 2001 I was introduced to marijuana, which in addition to reading certain texts on social interaction, I believe greatly assisted me in becoming someone who a larger group of people could relate to more easily than previously. I became more capable of diplomacy, and less insistent on pointing things out to people in the misguided interests of honesty, as I had previously. I also gradually began to shed the Stallmanite tendency to believe in the comparitive superiority of my own morality, or to insist that others adopt it.
I believe myself that in the case of many people at least, there is a correlation between autism and abnormally high intelligence. That is not always the case, but it very often is. I also believe that marijuana reduces intelligence, if enough of it is consumed over a sufficiently long period of time. A reduction of intelligence in a person with high functioning autism (HFA) in my own observation is very likely to also cause a reduction in autistic symptoms as well.
Because of the other problems marijuana can use, as well as its' illegality in many jurisdictions, I do not advocate partaking of it in excessive amounts. However, anyone here with HFA who is finding that they are suffering due to autistic symptoms could perhaps try the odd medicinal joint for a few months to a year or so. You possibly won't be able to code as well at the end of it, but you might find that your ability to relate to the neurotypical population has increased as well.
Re:do we want to do this?! (Score:3, Interesting)
There's a lot of human variability, and that includes mental capacity.
If you had the option to eliminate the genes that made men weigh over 200 pounds, would that be a good deal? It would definitely get rid of the male obesity problem. It would reduce deaths due heart disease. It would also make football and heavyweight boxing pretty lame, and it would reduce the physical labor capacity of the population immensely - sometimes a heavily muscled construction worker type is damn useful.
Sure, it's obvious that full blown autism is strictly bad - in extreme cases an autistic person my never develop language skills.
That's very different from "mild autistic spectrum disorders", where the symptoms seem to consist entirely of being intelligent and hating social interaction (at least that's how it's portrayed on the intertubes). If those are really the symptoms, that's not something we want to be fixing - people like that are extremely socially valuable.
Emulating human interactions (Score:1, Interesting)
I was pretty damn awkward in high school, never looking people in the eye, saying weird things in conversation, slouching oddly, etc. But with a few years of work, my behavior is a lot more normal. People feel much more comfortable around me, and I'm somewhat more comfortable around them.
In everyday situations, look at people now and then and try to figure out what they're doing, what you're doing, and how you can emulate them. If you keep at this, and spend just 15-20 minutes a day of practice in front of a mirror, you really can accomplish a lot. It can also help to ask a trusted friend for advice, but this isn't as important as consciousness of your surroundings, and practice.
You can't change your personality in this way -- not that I'd want to -- but it really can help in interacting face-to-face with other people. Of course, it is not easy, it takes continual effort, and I seriously doubt that a program of self-correction would work for someone who is actually autistic.
But I really think that 90% of you Slashdotting Aspergers-syndrome geeks (usually self-diagnosed) are using this condition as an excuse for stop trying. And yeah, it is difficult, but I urge you: get out there, be brave, and try to enrich your life.
One minor niggle. (Score:3, Interesting)
(Although Aspergers differs mechanistically from the other types of autism, by my understanding of the fMRI studies on the subject, it is entirely possible that "classic autism" is simply Asperger's with any other disorder that disrupts the brain's ability to filter and process data correctly. Asperger's might also be the point of intersection of autism and an as-yet unidentified condition. Or one of any number of billion other possibilities.)
I agree that there are probably no "cures" for autism, as there is still so much uncertainty as to what it is we mean by autism and what it is we mean by "cure" in this context. And even if these were known, it would seem unlikely that the means to implement such a cure exist. How do you go about fixing a mirror cell? Certainly not by any kind of classical medicine. Are there methods of limiting its impact? Possibly. An interesting book, "Somebody, Somewhere", documents an interesting theory - that some forms of autism limit the ability to cope with the flood of information from a "noisy" world and that people with this form of autism may be coping with this by setting up mental blocks to avoid being totally overwhelmed. If this sounds reasonable, then it would seem to me that replacing coping mechanisms that don't work well for an individual with ones that might work better could help a lot.
(I have Asperger's and actually don't want a total cure. It is actually a big help in the IT profession. However, I could do without some of the more debilitating aspects, if it's possible to benefit from the positives whilst limiting the negatives.)
Re:This is not good! (Score:1, Interesting)
Granted, they are remembered not for what people thought of them (Newton was an asshole, Einstien cheated on his wife with several women, and Gogh had that bit with his ear), but rather they are remembered for what they did with their lives.
Id rather be someone like that, then a transitory pop icon like Elvis.
(In the interest of full disclosure, I am an Aspie and this post was meant to indicate that Autism is not glamorous, but does not need (or want, from my view point) to be)
Re:A blood test eh? (Score:2, Interesting)
(Yes, I am aware of the irony of my calling someone else insensitive given my claim, picture a big Monty Python foot in here somewhere if you like)
I am one of the many people who may well have Asperger's Syndrome. Certainly I have all the classic signs. Unfortunately I cannot say definitively that I do in fact have it, since I have been labeled with a host of disorders, Asperger's being one of the later ones. Many others who may have this condition may never be specifically diagnosed with it. Between my normal antisocial reticence and my traumas at the hands of mental health professionals I rarely talk about it.
First, Asperger's is known as what is called as a Spectrum Disorder, which means any one person could have some symptoms but not others, it also means one could be greatly or only mildly affected by it. Someone could be mild to moderately affected and would never get referred to someone for diagnosis and treatment, everyone would just think of him as being something of a loner with poor social skills. (Otaku anyone?)
Second, some of the symptoms of Asperger's as the same as symptoms found in ADD/ADHD, ODD and a host of other general Learning Disabilities. I personally have been diagnosed, at various times, with being "Hyperactive" (my first diagnosis predated the adoption of the ADD and later ADHD labels), ADD, ADHD, Latent sociopathy, PTSD, ASPD and several other convenient labels which describe but do not illuminate the nature of the problem. All too often, doctors play a guessing game when several conditions have overlapping symptoms. Sometimes they figure out which condition it was when they find the right drug that treats it. (If such a drug exists)
Third, almost no-one knew about the Asperger's Syndrome diagnosis until sometime in the 80's. I was diagnosed by a specialist at Toronto's Wellesley Hospital sometime around '88 or '89 as I recall and it was described to my mother as being a very new understanding. I have learned since then that it wasn't all that new, just suffering from the "not invented here" syndrome. Thus, even today there can be a much higher incidence of people affected by this condition then anyone really suspects.
Fourth, the anti-social or dis-social aspects of Asperger's and similar conditions predisposes someone with it to a more or less solitary life. Yet most are of entirely normal intelligence and there is one theory that suggest such people are actually higher in average IQ than the general population. (Just as some people have highly developed emotional reasoning and can be great with people at the expense of being slightly below average, the theory states that Asperger's kids are likely to bemore intelligent than the average because more of the developmental focus is on language and reasoning skills and less on emotional/social skills.) Intelligent minds are minds hungry for stimulation. Until very recently, this came in the form of reading, model building and other quiet hobbies. Now the Internet can provide more stimulation than any bricks and books library, computers offer more opportunities for endless design and tinkering than any model set. Thus, I suspect that you will encounter a higher proportion of people with Asperger's online than you will in the big room with the blue ceiling. Also, someone with Asperger's is a little more likely to devote a large chunk of their waking hours online than a "normal" person is because for an Asperger's person, the real world is confusing at the best of times, slightly annoying most of the time and generally just an all around irritation.
If my own experiences are anything to go by, most people with Asperger's Syndrome are likely to avoid talking about it. Our emotions are not as yours, thus we simply don't care all that much if we have it or not, all we care about is aping the nonsensical habits of our society so we don't stick out. Also, our slanted emotional set means we really don't care if you know we have it or not. In my point of v
Re:Autism rates (Score:3, Interesting)
The grandparent post mentioned 2 possibilities. You tear down one, but ignore the other, where your objection is not valid. Herpes has become far more common in recent generations; the majority of the adult population have an immune response to HSV-1 (Herpes Simplex Virus, type 1; generally acquired during childhood), and a sizable minority (20% or so) respond to HSV-2. Furthermore, herpes is known to be able to cause serious neurological damage - when it attacks the brain (amusingly there was even an episode on House mentioning that). Other viruses in the same family can cause lasting neurological damage as well (postherpatic neuralgia).
I am not claiming that herpes is in any way a likely explanation for the rise in autism. But, on the face of it, it is about as plausible as mercury in vaccinations - both are known to potentially cause brain damage, and both have risen in prevalence in recent generations. So, the grandparent post had a valid point. The conclusion should be to investigate such suspicions (it would not be hard to e.g. check for immune responses to herpes among autistic and normal children). So far tests regarding mercury seem to indicate it is not the culprit, according to the research I have read, at least.
Re:This is not good! (Score:5, Interesting)
The best solution that occurs to me (when faced with the problem of an autism cure, not just this treatment) is to let people choose for themselves, with of course informed consent, a waiting period, and a minimum age. In the case of people who are crippled to the point that they are incapable of communicating thier decision (or having it communicated to them), is to go ahead and give them the treatment in an experiment. I doubt a profound autistic could handle the change from their normal life to "normalcy". I doubt I could make that transformation.
Oh, as a slight tangent... I realize that many people who are not diagnosed (and probably not even aspie) are 'proud autistics', but is there really that many people who claim Asperger's as a reason for their eccentricities? I have spent the last decade and a half of my life trying to fit in, and have only just in the last half a year had reasonable success. It seems incredible to me that significant portions of the nuero-typical population would pretend to be on the spectrum.
Re:This is not good! (Score:5, Interesting)
Messing with peoples brains (their personalities - their 'souls' to use a quaint term) is dangerous stuff. What happens if you cure them - and only after they are "normal" do they clearly and coherently point out that they were happier beforehand?
Not easy.
I recently started to have hearing problems - and was told by the audiologist that a CAT scan of my head would help him to see what was going on. During the scan, they found a 2cm x 1cm x 1cm tumor on my temporal lobe - totally unrelated to the hearing problem. This (needless to say) put me into a complete state of panic - but they told me that from the way the brain was folded around it, it must have appeared when I was a small child and stopped growing in my early teens - and has not changed since. I remarked that maybe it would be a good idea to get rid of it anyway - but as the doctor pointed out - your temporal lobe is where your 'personality' lives. If we "fix" this problem you may not be "you" afterwards. Which makes me think - if that thing hadn't popped into my head at age 12 or so - I wouldn't be the "me" I am now. If I had had truly "informed consent" back when I was a kid, would I have taken it? Would I take it in hindsight?
Re:This is not good! (Score:2, Interesting)
Come on, now. Do you know how much pussy Elvis got? Seriously?
Watch Elvis on Tour [imdb.com] and you'll see what I mean.
Besides, Elvis has had staying power and a significant effect on culture...not unlike van Gogh who was trying quite hard to gain his own fame, or at least commercial success. Because it took his widow years after his death to make it happen, doesn't mean popularity was unimportant to his ultimate recognition.
Re:This is not good! (Score:2, Interesting)
A friend's daughter is a high-function-autistic. It was caught early on in her life and her parents were able to help her overcome some of her extremes very early on (anti-social behavior, odd phobias, etc).
Her mother is one of those researcher-types, and brought her two children along with her on a recent trip to Africa. This 7 year old girl spent two weeks living among the native population and playing with the local children, and by the end of those two weeks she was fluent enough in swahili to act as a translator for most of the adults! Her ability to learn the completely new language in such a small time has been attributed to her autism. I'm told she has some interesting "quirks", although I've seen the child and I can not tell what they are. Society will definitely benefit from this child's autism.
Do we really want to stamp that out completely? It's a very very tough call that should not be answered with a knee-jerk reaction or else the law of unintended consequences could rear its ugly head once again.
Re:This is not good! (Score:5, Interesting)
I did think about asking slashdot, but they were sod all use when I lost my Swiss army knife. P.S. I found it now - no thanks to you. Bastards.
Re:Autism rates (Score:3, Interesting)
Just to throw in another possibility previously discussed on slashdot, perhaps "TV" helps cause autism in those susceptible to it. See:
"TV Really Might Cause Autism"
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/
Though others disagree:
"Does Watching TV Cause Autism?"
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,15
(even suggesting indoor air quality might be part of the problem).
See also:
"Toddlers' TV habits may 'rewire' brains"
http://www.sptimes.com/2004/04/05/Worldandnation/
"Very young children who watch television face an increased risk of attention deficit problems by school age, a study has found, suggesting that TV might overstimulate and permanently "rewire" the developing brain.
Autism (or other similar seeming behavioral issues) it likely to be a multi-factorial disease, with many interacting causes -- genetics, diet, heavy metal exposure, viruses, TV, stress, and so on. Some of these factors may weigh more than others -- probably all are involved to some degree or another, and the amount may vary by individual based on how well their genetics can compensate for various problems whether they are too little good fats, too much heavy metals from whatever sources, or exposure to rapidly flickering changing scenes on TV. And it remains true that eating right, exercising, moderation in vices like TV, and trying to reduce stress are all good things to do in almost any situation (which is why I like that omega-3 suggestion, because it is probably not going to hurt, but generally may improve health). So too for not watching TV -- getting rid of your TV can't hurt much, and probably will improve health. Vaccination is admittedly a much more controversial topic. Here is one of the less sensationalized books on that:
"Vaccinations: A Thoughtful Parent's Guide: How to Make Safe, Sensible Decisions about the Risks, Benefits, and Alternatives"
http://www.amazon.com/Vaccinations-Thoughtful-Sen
Autism is not a disease (Score:2, Interesting)
This article makes it sound like autism is a bad thing like the HIV virus. "A preventative cure" You cure diseases, you don't cure an alternative intelligence. I was diagnosed with Aspergers at a young age and have recently been confirmed by another expert. Sure I sometimes don't take subtle hints but how is that a disease? My inability to lie (that part of my brain doesn't work) is actually a benefit in so many ways. I'm upfront so people would be more comfortable in partaking in a business deal with me rather then with someone who can and does lie.
Oh wow maybe we should cure all that so I can lie, cheat and steal. My brain is perfectly fine as it is. It's people's attitudes to autism that are the problem. I'm fed up of people presuming I'm stupid and incapable because I have a form of autism. That is the disease, not the autism itself.
Re:This is not good! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:This is not good! (Score:3, Interesting)
No amount of practice can make a deaf person hear.
That's the whole point: a deaf person does not know what it is to hear. No matter how intelligent they are they cannot compensate for their inability to hear without substantial guidance from a hearing counsellor.
It is equally unlikely that anyone with a clinical presentation of Aspergers would be able to successfully emulate "natural" behaviour without effective counselling. Otherwise they have no way of judging which behaviours are natural and appropriate to a situation and which are not. People with Aspergers don't primarily lack skills, they lack the awareness required to learn the skills that other people pick up naturally in the course of their development. Working with a counsellor--or an understanding and supportive parent, or whoever--can help a person with Apsergers use surrogate measures for the kinds of awareness they lack. But the lack of awareness prevents them from doing so themselves.
People with sub-clinical presentations, who lean in the direction of Aspergers but who are not diagnosable, may be able to do themselves some good with self-help. But the GP is not talking about those people, and it is very important to understand that simply because someone who leans in that direction can help themselves a little does not by any means imply that such advice will be of value to the majority of people diagnosed with the condition.
Re:This is not good! (Score:3, Interesting)
I repeat, I have maintained a friendly relationship with one for decades, a man other grown men will literally hide from if they see him coming. I also tutor them in math and music, because they want me to, because they can be at ease around me, something they aren't used to and they like it.
. .
Perhaps you should change your user name to Clever Hans. You are actually observeing and reacting to extremely sublte clues that you are not even aware of, all while drawing on a wellspring of "innate" understanding of what is and is not appropriate behavior. An autistic spectrum person does not have that wellspring and may not even be able to recognize the look of extreme horror on the face of the person they are talking to and continue to blithely "fake" it "successfully", where you would realize that your faking it wasn't working and adopt a new strategy of faking it until you found one that worked.
Which isn't faking it. That's how it's really done. Your toolkit for "faking" it is different from theirs. You have bash, sed, awk and perl; and know how to use them.
They have Gnome, and do not. They can, with a bit of work, at least learn to use Gnome better, but they cannot learn to use command line. Because that is what autism is. A disfunction of certain kinds of perception/interaction. An apparent inability to understand the very tools.
The only way for you to know whether what you see is true is to actually observe the effects of someone with the syndrome talking with someone else - and I somehow doubt you've done that.
Someday you'll have to do lunch with me and my Aspie friend, but you'll need a very high embaressment tolerance for the way he interacts with the waitress. Seriously. The behavior of Aspies is chronically inappropriate, because they do not see what you see; and never have. They do not see and do not see that they do not see, because they have not seen. To one degree of another their world is closed in upon themselves. They are insensate. Yeah, they can often learn to mechanistically get through a first date with a chance for a second, so long as the date follows the script. You can only keep that sort of thing up for so long before the cracks start to show.
Thus to interact "positively" with an autistic you must entirely abandon your concept of appropriate behavior, accept them for what they are, and follow their lead (which often leads straight to a double bind).
In point of fact, you must fake it. They live in an alternate reality you have not, because you cannot, visit. Just as they have not visited yours. They are more alien than a cat or dog. They are rather like shark. They understand you like a shark understands a cat.
Yes, I have interacted with shark in the wild; and helped the crew of the Calypso haul the carcasses of the ones where the interaction did not go smoothly up on the beach. They never show you that part on The Undersea World of.
Came as a bit of shock to me, but then I didn't know any Aspies at the time. I was young and naive.
Better eating on a hammerhead then on an Aspie though. I wasn't a vegetarian yet. Just so you know, iguana tastes like . .
Good though.
And remember, always act appropriately here on Slashdot (with the highest density of Aspies on the web), because the Webernets are serious fucking business. Fortunately we have the GNAA Frist P0sTerS to show us how it's done right.
KFG