OT: 2 new studies - Autism is physical medical (and treatable? )

[Guest guest]

Two studies out recently point to significant biochemical and medical problems in autistic children (and seem to support the rationale of DAN! doctors and others who promote and use biomedical treatments for autism)

I might have sent one of these out already to some of you. But I have the fulltext now. I would attach them but one list prohibits attachments- see links below to get the fulltext free. Cerebral Folate Receptor Autoantibodies in ASDCerebral

folate deficiency (CFD) syndrome is a neurodevelopmental disorder typically caused by folate receptor autoantibodies (FRAs) that interfere

with folate transport across the blood-brain barrier. In this study, released in Molecular Psychology on January 10th, serum FRA concentrations were measured in 93 children with ASD and

a high prevalence (75.3%) of FRAs was found. Children with FRAs were treated with oral leucovorin calcium. Compared with controls, significantly higher improvement ratings were observed in treated children over a mean period of 4 months in verbal communication, receptive and expressive language, attention and stereotypical behavior.

Approximately one-third of treated children demonstrated moderate to much improvement.download here<http://www.nature.com/mp/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/mp2011175a.html>Bacteria in the gut of autistic children different from non-autistic children The

underlying reason autism is often associated with gastrointestinal problems is an unknown, but new results were published in the online journal mBio on January 10 reveal that the guts of autistic children differ from other children in at least one important way: many children with autism harbor a type of bacteria in their guts that non-autistic children do not. The study was conducted by Brent and colleagues at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University.<http://mbio.asm.org/content/3/1/e00261-11>