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Newsletter>
A missing piece of the puzzle?
March 4, 2004
Newsletter March 4th 2004
Maybe … just maybe … one of the missing pieces of the
jigsaw puzzle ?
Dear parents,
There have been some very important discoveries made in the
last month by research workers trying to discover why some
children develop Autistic Spectrum Disorders and others do
not.
Researchers at Northeastern University, Boston and the
Johns Hopkins Institute, Baltimore think that they may have
unravelled the mystery, or at least part of it.
You can check the Scientific paper by going to
www.nature.com/mp and clicking on ‘Advance online
publications’ and then selecting the paper entitled
‘Activation of methionine synthase by insulin-like growth
factor-1’
The paper goes on to discuss the normal development of
brain cells and how they are ‘instructed’ by the DNA in the
cells to develop into normal healthy brain cells. It also
gives a scientific explanation as to what may go wrong and
why.
Basically we start life as a fertilised egg – one cell. We
then develop into a ball of cells all derived from the
original fertilised egg. As we get bigger, some of these
cells are ‘instructed’ by the DNA inside them to develop
into brain cells, skin cells, bone cells and so on.
It is the ‘instruction’ of these cells – or DNA methylation
as it is called – that is stopped by various agents
including heavy metals such as Mercury and Aluminium. Once
this signalling is interrupted no further cell development
can occur; and some cells actually die off.
This could explain the reason why in Regressive Autism,
skills that a child had, are lost and new skills fail to
develop.
Many things will follow from this pioneering work, but
already this understanding of the mechanisms of development
of (some, maybe not all) aspects of ASD has led to a number
of new therapeutic opportunities.
DAN ! Physicians have suggested a new treatment programme
designed to address the process of DNA methylation – or
signalling – and to try to restore it to normal. If this
can be done then lost skills could be regained and because
we have a huge store of ‘spare’ nerve cells these could be
kick-started to develop into replacement nerve cells to
take over the normal function of the cells that have been
previously damaged.
We are currently evaluating this new therapy and will work
out how it will best fit in to the existing therapeutic
programme. Once we have done so, we will post this
information on our website.
New tests available
Genomic profiling
For parents worried about the risk of their child
developing ASD, there is a new test available which
evaluates the likelihood of this condition developing in
certain circumstances. The test involves collecting a
sample of saliva from the inside of the cheek, using a
cotton-wool swab on a stick – easy to do. This will allow
the laboratory to check the child’s DNA profile and this
will in turn provide a ‘risk assessment’ of the likelihood
of that child developing ASD. This test is particularly
useful in a brother or sister of an ASD-affected child.
Other tests we recommend (also detailed elsewhere on our
website)
Hair analysis
Those children who have been exposed to heavy metals, such
as Mercury, Lead and Aluminium don’t progress well until
these are removed from the body by a process called
Chelation.
Chelation is simple to perform, although it does take some
time to remove these metals, depending on the level of
toxicity.
Hair analysis is an accurate and simple way to test for
heavy-metal toxicity and can be repeated after some time on
chelation therapy to assess the response to chelation.
Stool analysis
Many children have bacteria growing in their intestine
which produce toxins (poisons) which worsen the symptoms of
ASD. ( see ‘Dysbiosis’ on our website )
Finding and identifying these bacteria and eliminating them
can result in amazing progress in a child’s symptoms.
The test is easy to do and results take about a week.
For more information about any of these tests please
contact us at Secrenase, by e-mail or ‘phone.
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