Rare Form of Autism Could Be Curable With Protein Supplements 163
ananyo writes "A rare, hereditary form of autism has been found — and it may be treatable with protein supplements. Genome sequencing of six children with autism has revealed mutations in a gene that stops several essential amino acids being depleted. Mice lacking this gene developed neurological problems related to autism that were reversed by dietary changes (abstract). According to Joseph Gleeson, a child neurologist at the University of California, San Diego, who led the study, 'This might represent the first treatable form of autism.' It is possible that some other forms of autism may also be linked to uncommon metabolic disorders — and so treatable through dietary changes, according to the scientists quoted in the piece."
Cure who? (Score:2)
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Re:Cure who? (Score:5, Informative)
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"Every time I see an article like this all I can do is think of my great grandma, who lived to 102 while eating everything cooked in pure lard and who made her sweet tea so strong you could see two teaspoons of sugar in the bottom of the thing."
why don't you think of the 100s of thousand that died early from that diet? No, no. One data point.
" i mean you can test newborns and find plastic in their blood, everything we eat is artificial, pumped full of hormones and preservatives and wrapped in leaking plasti
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I sure would hate to do without microwave ovens.
Or treating cancers with radiation "scalpels".
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Dietary interventions for autism (Score:4, Interesting)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-mark-hyman/autism-research-discovery_b_794967.html [huffingtonpost.com]
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/health-conditions/neurological-conditions/autism/ [vitamindcouncil.org]
It sounds from those two sources like many cases of autism could be prevented by higher vitamin D levels of pregnant women and better diet, but in the first few years of life after birth, some aspects of autism can be reversed with vitamin D supplements and good diet. How far and for how many kids is still an open question.
Also of general interest on eating healthier:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-mark-hyman/food-industry_b_1559920.html [huffingtonpost.com]
https://www.drfuhrman.com/library/foodpyramid.aspx [drfuhrman.com]
Re:Dietary interventions for autism (Score:5, Insightful)
The Huffington Post is not exactly known for being a reliable source. Dr. Furnham is just an ordinary MD, not a researcher, who likes to write diet books. The Vitamin D Council might be a bit biased in writing how Vitamin D can help autism.
Hope it is all true, despite the sources being sketchy.
No disrespect intended.
Hope it is all true.
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I was interested in this, but it's another 'Diet can cure Autism' bullshit with no evidence behind it at all. And parents reporting on their kids are HORRIBLE at it.
It isn't true, and I have an interest in it being true.
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You're more charitable than I am.
The Huffington Post is notorious for publishing junk medical science, particularly in regards to autism. There are enough good science resources on the internet that I have no trouble simply ignoring health articles on the Huffington Post and letting my BS detector rest. If the science is legit it will also show up in legit sources.
Dr. Fuhrman has done a lot of research... (Score:2)
...both of the library variety and the hands-on variety in his practice. He cites thousands of reference sin his book "Eat to Live" and has had thousands of patients over his career.
Researchers at Harvard University have seconded the vitamin D deficiency hypotheses as a potential cause of autism.
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/news-archive/2009/new-harvard-paper-on-autism/ [vitamindcouncil.org]
Yet your post got modded +5 insightful. Still so much mis-info on slashdot about health... But I still feel it is slowly improving. And yo
From animal models (Score:2)
Nobody knows yet if this will treat autism in humans. A major problem for developing autism therapy is that there are no validated animal models (although there are quite a few candidates). The problem is, what constitutes autism in an animal? The most troubling symptoms of autism in humans relate to social-emotional behaviors that have no strong correlates in animals. So what we have in terms of "autistic behavior" in animals are things along the lines of "does the 'autistic' mouse sniff the other mouse le
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Pay VERY CLOSE ATTENTION you what you're about to read, in this post. Agree or disagree, but please do read: ...
An evolutionary gene mutation that proves fit, happens once in (if I remember correctly;) 3000 years. (but I might be wrong).
Now, why has society advanced so much over the last 3000 years? Because of the ability to read and write. But that's not all there is to it!
Religion and later governance, has made sure that only the most fit for each particular system, survive. But how exactly does t
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Exactly. By the time that symptoms are showing it is too late. You can't 'cure' Autism once the developmental damage is done.
Anyway, autistics provide a useful social and economic function. Someone has to do computer programming, and at least this way it's voluntary.
Sources of BCAA (Score:3, Informative)
Red meat is highest in BCAAs. Dairy products also are good protein sources and contain high amounts of BCAAs. Some healthy choices in dairy include low-fat or nonfat milk, low-fat cottage cheese, low-fat yogurt, frozen yogurt, sour cream and low-fat cheeses. MayoClinic.com recommends reducing the amount of saturated fats in your diet.
Additional dairy options include butter, cheese, cream, crème fraiche, eggnog, ghee and half-and-half. Some dairy products, such as ice cream, contain whey protein, which is loaded with BCAAs
Read more: http://www.livestrong.com/article/286637-foods-high-in-branched-chain-amino-acids/#ixzz25kJBtIEO
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Dairy also contains casein, which many believe to be problematic for AS individuals.
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Which "many" believe this? The anti-vaccine crowd?
Re:Sources of BCAA (Score:5, Insightful)
Most Americans, Canadians and Many Europeans eat large amounts of those foods, yet autism is still a problem in those countries. Something doesn't fit.
Your URL is to a web site article authored by a photojournalist. No credentials related to health, medicine or nutrition beyond being a personal trainer.
The article doesn't mention autism at all.
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Autism likely isn't a single cause or disease it's probably multiple causes showing similar effects to different degrees and I wouldn't be shocked to learn a large portion is related to our modern diet and lifestyle and it's interaction with long standing genetic mutations that were less pronounced because we were outside, far more active, and ate different food in different quantities in the past like how we didn't consume as much artificial/modified foods like HFCS or hell we never used to consume as muc
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"d I wouldn't be shocked to learn a large portion is related to our modern diet and lifestyle and it's interaction with long standing genetic mutations that were less pronounced because we were outside, "
Nope. It's the rate is same in areas with different diets. Countries that still kill what they eat.
" how we didn't consume as much artificial/modified foods like HFCS "
We ha autism before HFCS, and at the same rates.
SO shut up, you are spreading inaccuracy and propagating lies spread by idiot who eq
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Amazing! (Score:2)
Any potential treatment is lightyears beyond what is available currently. This is awesome news!
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Behavioral treatments are wildly effective - about 40-50% of kids who receive quality intervention are indistinguishable from their peers after 2-3 years. It's a shame that we allow Jenny McCarthy and other anti-vax wingnuts to dominate the conversation.
After proline, now branched amnio acids (Score:5, Informative)
We already knew about some forms of autism where a genetic disposition causes the lack of dipeptyl-peptidase IV, the enzyme responsible for breaking proline bonds during digestion. Proline needs a very special enzyme because the amine is tertiary, while it is secondary on other amino acids.
Gluten and casein contain sequences with a lot of proline, and this class of autists never digest them completely. They are left with short proline-rich peptides known as gliadomorphine and caseomorphine. As the name suggests, theses peptides are able to bind morphine receptors in the brain. And for this class of autism, symptoms disapear with a diet without casein and gluten.
And now we have autists with another genetic disposition related to protein digestion, this time with valine, leucine and isoleucine not being digested, and missing in the brain because they are essential amino acids. I wonder if we are going to discover more autism forms as being protein digestion issues
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Interesting. I'll do some googling, but do you have any bibliographic info?
quote>
Sure, here is a starter: Biochemical aspects in autism spectrum disorders: updating the opioid-excess theory and presenting new opportunities for biomedical intervention [informahealthcare.com]
I have been on a high protein diet since 18 as I noticed though experimentation and copious note taking that I was vastly more productive on a high-protein diet.
Note that there could be non proteine-related reasons to that: a high protein diet means you eat less carbohydrates, and there are many reasons why too much carbohydrates can destroy your productivity. You also mention exercise, and exercise is well known to be good for your health
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Is what I have just read implying a connection between all these (previously seemingly disparate) symptoms? Anyone?
You can try a few days without weat, barley, rye, and dairy products, and you may or may not discover a link.
Great. (Score:1)
Tangentially... (Score:5, Interesting)
I have a metaphorical way of making sense of autistic behaviors. Let's say the brain has some kind of sensory input buffer. Defects in that buffer might lead the brain to be overstimulated with sensory input and become preoccupied with them. The other thing the buffer might do...and this is where it gets more metaphorical and maybe less factual...is serve as a feedback path for brain-generated inputs, to sort of test things. Like when someone says "Imagine what it feels like when..." or even when you just think about real experiences you had. I think of dreams as maybe working like that too: brain generated inputs get cycled back through the buffer to serve as virtual experiences for...whatever dreams are for. That way of thinking about it leads to a way of understanding stimming behaviours: they can be thought of as dream-related movement that we don't do during sleep dreams because of sleep paralysis.
I find having a (metaphorical and maybe not correct) mechanistic way of understanding autistic bahaviours makes it a lot easier to deal with them.
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So...austistic people are basically constantly tripping? That would explain a lot.
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I find having a (metaphorical and maybe not correct) mechanistic way of understanding autistic bahaviours makes it a lot easier to deal with them.
Impressively, your metaphor is actually less comprehensible than the actual autistic behaviour.
Not the first (Score:1)
This is great, but it's not the first dietary link and metabolic disorder with a connection to autism. Phenylketonurics have diminished or zero ability to process phenylalanine, an essential amino acid. The build up of that material in the body causes multiple deleterious effects, including autism. People with PKU cut their intake of phenylalanine and they don't suffer the effects they would have. That's been known for decades.
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Easiest way to avoid phenylalanine is to not drink diet sodas. They're full of the stuff.
As a father of a child with Autism... (Score:2)
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My son has Autism as well as intelecutal disability and epilepsy, I would very much like to see it cured. There are ranges and differnet underlying causes. I think that in some of the more moderate cases it may well be with in the range of normal (Unix admin) behavior and curing it would be akin to trying to cure someone from organizational skills.
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I think that in some of the more moderate cases it may well be with in the range of normal (Unix admin) behavior
I think we call it Asperger's here. Luckily, it's easy to self-diagnose:
Inability to talk to other human beings, except about computers? CHECK.
Inability to talk to females about anything? CHECK.
Diregard for tedious social conventions like washing? CHECK.
Profound certainty in one's own uniquely superior intellect? CHECK.
Tendency to write "Microsoft" as "M$"? CHECK.
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Plus I hear they really clean up at the blackjack table.
Re:As a father of a child with Autism... (Score:5, Insightful)
I have worked with many children with Ausitm.
Not the gentle, "my kid is a bit different and doesnt learn well" type, the "this child will spend
life in a wheelchair, with a head brace, except when 2-3 adults are physically helping them,
is likely to die from swallowing their own tongue/vomit/saliva, and if not could possibly live until
a good solid 15 years old, they cannot communicate in any way with those around then except
in the very most basic anger/peaceful/other level, and fights for basic existance" type
- I can assure you they would like a cure.
Count yourself lucky if your child is not in that group, and dont talk such rubbish.
I am a high-level autist (Score:5, Insightful)
Being autistic, there are some limitations in my world from the viewpoint of other people. In my view, they are limited more than I am. I can understand what people are talking about even when I can't directly relate to it through personal experience or don't give the emotional response that others might give. I, however, can see past what they're talking about in ways that they cannot because of the limitations that they have in having information filtered out that I still receive. Yes, it can be an overload at times and there are situations that I don't deal well in (like crowded rooms, loud environments, or very bright environments), but I find that my particular form of autism is a huge benefit to me. I can conceptualize things that most people can't imagine exist. I can find solutions to problems from disparate sources that other people don't see as relevant to each other.
If I had a "cure" available to me, I would refuse it. Why should I give up my giftings just to be like everybody else? Why can't I simply be accepted as me, just how I am?
Re:I am a high-level autist (Score:4, Insightful)
If I had a "cure" available to me, I would refuse it. Why should I give up my giftings just to be like everybody else? Why can't I simply be accepted as me, just how I am?
Because you aren't the presentation that such a cure would be appropriate for. But since autism is a spectrum disorder, and still a fairly general diagnosis at that, your specific presentation doesn't generalize to the affected population. Heck, we don't even define that population very concisely yet.
I'm glad you see your condition as a positive one, and I sincerely hope that those around you also view your condition positively (and I use the term "condition" here with some hesitation, only because I don't know a better term and truly don't mean to be pejorative). But I know kids with the diagnosis who I'm not sure share your feeling---if they are even that aware. And their caregivers are greatly affected by their condition as well. Even something that just significantly improves their condition, without curing it, would improve everyone's lives immensely.
And at the rate of increase of Autism-related diagnoses without anything resembling a cure on the horizon, we don't have to continue much farther before society as a whole must plan for accommodations. Many children with the diagnosis will need intensive, life-long supervision. Think Alzheimers, but over many, many more years.
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I had very bad social problems as a kid but I've sort of adapted to "act" like everyone else. It's like training a robot to act human
You do realise that this is what every human being has to do? You don't come out of the womb as a fully formed social being, you have to learn it as you go along. Some people are more naturally social in the same way that some people are more naturally athletic or artistic. They're still just human beings.
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I can conceptualize things that most people can't imagine exist. I can find solutions to problems from disparate sources that other people don't see as relevant to each other.
Like a lot of (clever) people.
there are situations that I don't deal well in (like crowded rooms, loud environments, or very bright environments)
Like a lot of us.
Sorry, but you are just a gifted human being, not some uniquely blessed/cursed new species of being.
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Ironic (Score:3)
It's the parents who scrupulously avoid sunlight (Score:2)
that may be the worst offenders: http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/health-conditions/neurological-conditions/autism/ [vitamindcouncil.org]
This health disaster was made in part by a US RDA for vitamin D that was more than ten times too low for pregnant women, coupled with dermatologists and pediatricians frightening all parents about sun exposure for their children as creating a later in life risk for (generally easily treatable) skin cancer. Those two things together, along with an increasingly indoor lifestyle from all the fancy g
Food acceptance issues in autism (Score:5, Interesting)
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That's why they are pre med. In fact, they probably tried to diagnose everyone with something.
Just like a yellow belt wants everyone to grab their wrist.
The article isn't a study, and the 'improvement' ir parental observation; which is always horrible.
Re:Can it also cure (Score:5, Funny)
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No. But it can core a Apple.
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I knew it!
People who don't eat meat are weird.
(Brought to you by the American beef council)
In related news:
Cannibalistic ancestors [nationalgeographic.com] help against prion diseases.
(Brought to you by the American flesh council)
Let them play outdoors in the sun! & Eat veggi (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=vitamin-d-and-autism [scientificamerican.com]
http://richardlouv.com/books/last-child/ [richardlouv.com]
BTW, eating more veggies can help with the some of the disease you mentioned:
http://www.drfuhrman.com/disease/Other.aspx [drfuhrman.com]
"Fibromyalgia is a disease highlighted by discomfort, pain and tenderness all over the body. The cause is unknown. Typical treatments involve pain medication and anti-depressants used to aid sleep. Better sleep has been shown to be of benefit.
I have been utilizing a high antioxidant, acrlyamide-free diet for many years with marked success. Acrylamides are toxic substances produced by baking and frying carbohydrates. The diet-style I recommend for fibromylagia patients is rich in natural plant foods especially organic berries and green vegetables and restricted in animal products and baked grains. Vegetable soups and steamed vegetables are encouraged. Fibromyalgia patients routinely get well, and they get well quickly.
Studies in the medical literature support this method of treatment.[ii] Though the researchers do not seem to have the experience and understanding of why what they are doing works, the effects are dramatic.
Similar to the nutritional treatment of most diseases, it is not one photochemical compound or the removal of one toxic habit that works; it is the symphonic combination of removing multiple nutritional stresses along with the addition of multiple beneficial nutritional compounds that results in consistent and sustained results. The high intake of polyphenolic compounds such as quercetin, myricetin and kaempherol, and the high intake of lignans and bioflavonoids are just a few of the hundreds of nutrients with unpronounceable names that can only be obtained in large amounts from a diet rich in natural plant foods."
That's nice (Score:2)
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kale is about $1 a pound.
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And my lawn clipping are free, but I'm not eating that shit.
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that's fine. you probably have enough money to buy other healthful foods, or you can buy wonder bread. i don't care. i'm just saying there's an option.
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For the sake of argument accepting the premise that baked/fried carbs is the bugaboo: it is not expensisve at all to replace bread with boiled/steamed rice or potatoes. Impractical, maybe, but a lot of the world do eat rice as we do bread, so it can't be that bad.
Why that is: The subsidized food pyramid (Score:2)
http://www.seriouseats.com/2007/11/the-subsidized-food-pyramid.html [seriouseats.com]
"The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine has posted an easy-to-understand visual on its site that shows which foods U.S. tax dollars go to support under the nation's farm bill. It's titled "Why Does a Salad Cost More Than a Big Mac?" and depicts two pyramids -- subsidized foods and the old recommended food pyramid. It's interesting to note that the two are almost inversely proportional to each other."
Our tax dollars at work. :-( An
Re:Let them play outdoors in the sun! & Eat ve (Score:5, Informative)
BTW, eating more veggies can help with the some of the disease you mentioned:
http://www.drfuhrman.com/disease/Other.aspx [drfuhrman.com]
The only study (one study) quoted from that Timecubey article of yours is in
BMC Complement Altern Med 2001
I don't have access to the study (unless I brain farted and couldn't find the free access link) and the hell if I'm paying money to get a paper from a third-rate journal, but I can tell you what I can find from the abstract.
The study was conducted on 32 people; 15 were switched to a vegan diet, and 18 were kept on their preexisting omnivorous diet. The groups differed from one-another at the beginning of the study in terms of pain and urine sodium, which is a significant red flag considering that many of they tout are directly related to one or the other. There is no comparison to other diets. There is no comparison to healthier omnivorous diets. The abstract states that many of the patients in the study were overweight, implying that the preexisting diets in many cases may have been unhealthy in general and that generally improving the quality of the diets may have been more important than the fact the new diet was vegan.
And hell, that's just what I got from the abstract. At best this is one of those "more research is required" papers, it's certainly not enough to suggest that such a radical dietary switch is a reasonable treatment plan. Moreover, it's so oddly specific in switching from an omnivorous over to a raw vegan diet, and being published in an alt-med journal, that it sounds like it was intended to be (as the article you quoted did) treated as more than it is. And the alt-med crowd (pretends to) wonder why people call them pseudoscientists.
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(I meant "many of the benefits they tout", and left out that urine sodium levels also dropped by a full 2/3, further implying that the original diets were quite unhealthy in general. I can only hope the actual paper ends with a "More research is needed" line, since all the abstract has to conclude with is "It can be concluded that vegan diet had beneficial effects")
Lots of studies and logic back this stuff up (Score:2)
There are twelve references cited on that page. There are thousands more cited in Dr. Fuhrman's book "Eat to Live". Why do people (myself included in the past) have such a hard time accepting there is any connection between what they eat and their health? If you fed a monkey only sugar water for years and it went crazy and its fur started falling out, would you say the way to bring it back to health is to give it prescription drugs along with the sugar water?
Evan vegan diets can be messed up with too much r
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When he makes the claim that fibromyalgia can be dramatically treated with a raw vegan diet (the claim you quoted in the post I replied to) and that medical literature supports this claim, that study is the sole one he references. That study is not sufficient to support that claim in any manner whatsoever. There is no other relevant reference on that page. Abusing references to journals like this, as though he's assuming that his readers won't bother actually checking them, is misleading and unethical.
I hav
Who is being inaccurate here? (Score:2)
Here is what Fuhrman stated in the part I quoted: "I have been utilizing a high antioxidant, acrlyamide-free diet for many years with marked success. ... Studies in the medical literature support this method of treatment.[ii] "
Here is that footnoted section with *three* studies cited (I added carriage returns to make it clearer there are three studies):
[ii] Kaartinen K, Lammi K, Hypen M, et al. Vegan diet alleviates fibromyalgia symptoms. Scand J Rheumatol 2000;29(5):308-13.
Donaldson MS; Speight N; Loomis
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Apologies for not responding to this yesterday; I was busy. But I'm here now! :)
Here is what Fuhrman stated in the part I quoted: "I have been utilizing a high antioxidant, acrlyamide-free diet for many years with marked success. ... Studies in the medical literature support this method of treatment.[ii] "
Here is that footnoted section with *three* studies cited (I added carriage returns to make it clearer there are three studies):
Yep, I knew I brainfarted somewhere. I shall now revise my summary of the veracity of Fuhrman's claim: it's a load of shit, he's irresponsible for making it, and he's unethical for abusing journal references to support a claim they cannot. That is, my position remains the same, and I assure you it's not merely out of quacking. Let's look at all three studies then:
Kaartinen K, Lammi K, Hypen M, et al. Vegan diet alleviates fibro
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Thanks for the additional feedback, even as you are still discounting that this also reflects what Fuhrman and his colleagues have seen in clinical practice across a broad range of disease, and that there is essentially very-little-to-no funding to trial non-patentable medical interventions. Many medical interventions do not have "gold standard" double blind scientific support, and often as not it seems such expensive studies can't be replicated anyway -- even in the rare cases when someone can get funding
Re:Let them play outdoors in the sun! & Eat ve (Score:4, Informative)
Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack.
If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, acts like a duck....
"Fibromyalgia patients routinely get well, and they get well quickly."
OK, Dr. Fuhrman, care to do some even observational studies? Case controls? Publish said studies in some sort of reputable journal?
(BTW, I certainly would not advocate a diet high in acrylamides, that's why all lab personnel are told never to eat their sequencing gels when they're finished with the experiment.)
Overcoming Duckspeak (Score:2)
If you had looked at that web page, you woudl have seen a list of references at the end:
[i] Cordain L, Lindeberg S, Hurtado M, et al. Acne vulgaris: a disease of Western civilization. Arch Dermatol 2002 Dec;138(12):1584-90
[ii] Kaartinen K, Lammi K, Hypen M, et al. Vegan diet alleviates fibromyalgia symptoms. Scand J Rheumatol 2000;29(5):308-13. Donaldson MS; Speight N; Loomis Fibromyalgia syndrome improved using a mostly raw vegetarian diet: an observational study. BMC Complement Altern Med 2001;1(1):7.
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Only one of those references directly deals with the fibromyalgia and raw vegan diet claim that you quoted, and as I pointed out above [slashdot.org] that study cannot be used to support such a major claim. Simply throwing journal references on things doesn't make them any more true, that type of thinking nothing more than cargo cult science [wikipedia.org]
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Maybe that is not the best study in the world, but you seem to me to be ignoring the context here. I was originally responding to a comment that included stuff on asthma, allergies, and fibromyalgia. The page I am citing and the references covers many allergies, and fibromyalgia in that context (fibromyalgia in practice perhaps often being a catch-all phrase for joint pain which can have multiple causes). Also, you are just out of hand dismissing an MD's report on his own decades of clinical experience. An
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For some reason there is little discussion on actually a balanced diet.
Instead of proposing a prohibition of some sort of food, try to encourage the right portion percentage in your diet. Americans tend to eat too much meat. But meat isn't bad but it needs to be in the right portion, it shouldn't be our main meal but a side dish. We should eat more vegetables, but we should also take in grains and starch... We tend to eat to much salt and sugar, but we don't need to cut it out of our diet.
For the most part
Many vegans eat too much refined starch & suga (Score:2)
http://veganlunchbox.blogspot.com/2006/06/interview-with-dr-joel-fuhrman.html [blogspot.com]
"Most vegans fall short in that they follow the same suboptimal and outmoded nutritional recommendations as omnivores, utilizing grains or white potatoes as the major source of calories in the diet and wind up eating a diet low in high phytochemical foods such as green vegetables and raw nuts and seeds. They do not understand that 90 calories from a pretzel or white potato does not have the nutrient richness of 90 calories from a k
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Vegetable soups and steamed vegetables are encouraged. Fibromyalgia patients routinely get well, and they get well quickly.
If I was told I faced a future diet of vegetable soups and steamed vegetables I'd pretty soon change my ways too.
Escaping the Pleasure Trap (Score:2)
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/article16.aspx [drfuhrman.com]
"Tragically, most people are totally unaware that they are only a few weeks of discipline away from being able to comfortably maintain healthful dietary habits -- and to keep away from the products that can result in the destruction of their health. Instead, most people think that if they were to eat more healthfully, they would be condemned to a life of greatly reduced gustatory pleasure -- thinking that the process of Phase IV will last forever. In our new bo
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That poor little kangaroo!
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I also recommend you a sattvic diet:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sattvic_diet [wikipedia.org]
But be careful with gluten, which is present in all forms of wheat, and used in vegan recipes.
I believe that our body can only absorb a given amount of gluten in our lifetime.
I'm gluten intolerant, and removing gluten from my food tremendously improved my life, by curing my IBS.
There is a correlation between IBS and Emotional Intelligence.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19575489 [nih.gov]
Re:Feed them meat, you hippies! (Score:4, Funny)
I'm gluten intolerant, and removing gluten from my food tremendously improved my life
Well, yes, it would wouldn't it? That's like saying that someone who would die of anaphylactic shock if stung by a bee has improved their quality of life remarkably by avoiding getting stung by bees.
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I discovered that I was gluten intolerant AFTER stopping ingesting gluten.
In fact, I didn't perform the tests to validate my intolerance, since they require a biopsy, and I should eat gluten during at least 30 days.
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I'm raising little Joey here on a vegan macrobiotic diet. Did I also mention he has autism, peanut allergies, and fibromyalgia?
I think it would be a trivially simple thing to show a correlation between autism and vegetarianism wouldn't it? If it existed.
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This whole article is stupid and so is your comment and now I'm mad at myself for wasting my time.
As for you AC eat a damn fish. Fishing is relaxing and maybe it will do you some good. Fish oil also cures AC syndrome I hear.
Secretin: a cautionary tale (Score:2)
Autism is considered a developmental disorder. But people on the autism spectrum don't necessarily stop developing. In clinical trials, typically something like a third of the patients in the placebo group show significant improvement. Many parents of children with autism are constantly trying one "treatment" or another, and when their child happens to show improvement, they credit whatever they tried last. They tell other parents, and it becomes a fad. And there are always doctors willing to offer the late
Re:Autism is just code for lazy and spoiled childr (Score:5, Insightful)
Well hello there, nice to meet you.
I'm autistic -- yup, a very real high-functioning autist complete with medical diagnosis and jazz. You know, based on science and medicine and modern psychology and not wish-washy nonsense like bloodletting.
Allow me to confront you on this, because I feel like everyone needs to hear this from someone who has it. I find it terribly inhumane and malicious of you to spread this sort of attitude. Because that was the consensus, for a long time. A century ago, I would have been put in a mental hospital. And a lot of good people have fought long and hard to show the world we are people. Living, breathing people.
For one, you advocate corporal punishment, so I must conclude that you are grossly uneducated on the matter about which you speak. The APA (undoubtedly more qualified than you on this subject), abhors it, and you're free to read their research should you disagree. And that's in "normal" children.
Perhaps you weren't aware, Mr. Anon, that Isaac Newton had Asperger's Syndrome, which falls into the category of ASD. And I should not have to mention Temple Grandin, who had to fight against a system hellbent on doing on just what you said to succeed and paved the way for the rest of us.
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Don't speak so ignorantly. You don't know what it's like to always feel uncomfortable around people. You don't know what it's like being unable to communicate; your thoughts being constantly misinterpreted by those around you. Working as hard as you can and still failing at some of the most basic abilities like writing or reading.
You're the spoiled one; spoiled in the bliss of your own ignorance, unwilling to educate yourself or to understand. Shame on you.
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I agree with the sentiment of your post, but I feel you're making some errors which harm your cause:
I find it terribly inhumane and malicious of you to spread this sort of attitude.
It is trolling. Trolls want to hear you tell them how inhumane and malicious they are. You don't buy from spammers and you don't feed the trolls.
undoubtedly more qualified than you on this subject
I have come to call this "academic Top Trumps". Appeal to authority would have harmed you for the majority of history, so I wouldn't start appealing to it now. Link to evidence produced by respected authorities, sure, but make sure the argument rests in the evidence.
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"It is trolling. Trolls want to hear you tell them how inhumane and malicious they are. You don't buy from spammers and you don't feed the trolls."
False. People are reading it, and peope buy into it so it needs to be addressed. Not for the troll, but for the other readers.
"I have come to call this "academic Top Trumps".
He pointed out that they are more qualified then the poster probably is; which is a safe bet.
He also pointed out that you can get the information for yourself. So no Appeal to Authority.
"Thou
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False. People are reading it, and peope buy into it so it needs to be addressed. Not for the troll, but for the other readers.
Fair enough. It depends on the environment. Sometimes you're just perpetuating abuse by feeding a troll, because you encourage them to do it more.
He pointed out that they are more qualified then the poster probably is; which is a safe bet.
This is appeal to authority.
He also pointed out that you can get the information for yourself. So no Appeal to Authority.
Making some inappropriate statements then playing a get-out-of-jail-free card is no substitute for just not making the inappropriate statements in the first place.
"but the problem is not necessarily "misinterpretation"."
It almost always is.
Autism isn't a problem with the receiver - it's a difficulty in communication experienced by the autistic person. Disability denial won't get autistic people or (where necessa
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1/10.
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I have come to call this "academic Top Trumps". Appeal to authority would have harmed you for the majority of history, so I wouldn't start appealing to it now. Link to evidence produced by respected authorities, sure, but make sure the argument rests in the evidence.
Perhaps you misunderstand the appeal to authority? It's also not invalid in all circumstances. In any case, if I were to claim that because the APA said it was bad it must be bad, but I didn't make such an assertion, although now I see how it could be interpreted that way. My fault for not making myself more clear, but the intent was that research and science had the authority.
One simply cannot perform a diagnosis based on reading the (edited) writings of some individual and third party accounts of his behaviour. Don't do it. It's not scientific and it makes a mockery of proper autism diagnoses.
Well, it's not my diagnosis. I wouldn't presume to do as much. But some very skilled and qualified researchers who, if anyone,
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Thanks for responding.
Perhaps you misunderstand the appeal to authority? It's also not invalid in all circumstances.
It is not that it is untrue to say, for example, "the APA today are more likely to say something scientific than Westboro Baptist Church". But I do not think that it adds anything to a discussion. If the writer thought that various well-respected scientific bodies could be trusted, he wouldn't have suggested that autism was unreal. So your argument comes down to "the APA has more authority than you".
You may argue that perhaps the OP wasn't aware that mainstream medicine recognises auti
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Well I'd hate to be special, seems like that would cut into my being me time.
Re:Autism is just code for lazy and spoiled childr (Score:4, Insightful)
I know you're trolling, but there are autistic kids. Really, they are. They simply do not interact with the real world. Their brain appears unable to deal with the mess of details and they obsess instead over much simpler, more ordered things.
The distinguishing abilities of a non-autistic are just one component of intelligence, so in archaic (i.e. politically incorrect terms) an autistic is just in some ways "retarded". These days we like to ignore that there are actually innately smart and less smart people because that would cast a shadow over meritocracy and make the angry, exploiting elite less justified in suggesting, "If you're poor, it's because you didn't work hard enough!" So we like to find labels to distinguish the "disabled" from the "stupid". But nature doesn't recognise these differences.
I am glad for all these labels, though, because people who are "stupid" are cruelly dismissed whereas people with another label tend to be treated with more sensitivity. I want every reason, genetic or environmental, for not being a healthy genius to be identified and labelled.
Having said this, I have no doubt that there are some misdiagnoses of autism - and I don't just mean Internet self-diagnoses. And the problem with a spectrum condition is that everyone has some aspects of it, so the "very high functioning autistic" is mostly "some guy with a few mild autistic traits". These are the guys who are both capable and often willing to be LOUD about their condition, giving a very wrong impression of what autism (in the non-mild form) actually is and how much it disables a person. It would be like an amputee who has lost one foot setting up expectations wrt/ a quadruple amputee who has no limbs whatever.
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Yes brother, we must whip the demons out! To bedlam with them, followed by a Bible reading, that'll cure 'em.
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You'd have to have an idea of what to vaccinate against. It's not like anybody has identified an autism virus.
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Many people with Asperger's are perfectly fine. The may not be very good in social situations, but they have intense interests that can be very rewarding and can lead them into good careers. I imagine that a substantial fraction of my classmates at MIT would be diagnosed with Asperger's today. But there are also people with autism who can't speak, who are constantly in emotional turmoil, and who require constant care.
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"of my classmates at MIT would be diagnosed with Asperger's today. "
Probably not, but hey lets not let science govern our opinion, lets just slap an incorrect public view of things, cause that will work out.
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I was diagnosed with Asperger and though some problems I have with the world may be linked to it, I strongly object to any implication of an illness or a state of health that needs to be treated or cured.
cb
Fine, if it's not an illness, fucking deal with it. In fact, fucking deal with it anyway. The rest of us are imperfect too, you know. Just don't use it as a handy excuse like some people do.
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It's not a 'handy excuse' you poor excuse of a loose wristed cum stain.