Re: Muscle Weakness Found in Some Autistic Children

[Guest guest]

Hi , do you know which genome to test for? Our child always had

muscle weakness and low tone and low energy, most of it has been targeted

over the years via sport and exercise, however also not that he reacts the

opposite to the rest of us when it comes to glucose tests for diabetes ­

these things have always bugged me, we are getting a lot of genome testing

done in South Africa via a company that can do it for a reduced price, they

would like to know what to test for over and above the standard tests that

are being done by quite a few companies, - do you know?

Regards

>

>

>

> Muscle Weakness Found in Some Autistic Children

>

> By Serena Gordon

> HealthDay Reporter

> Sunday, April 13, 2008; 12:00 AM

> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/13/AR200804130161

> 7.html

>

> SUNDAY, April 13 (HealthDay News) -- New research suggests that muscle

> weakness in a child with autism may point to an underlying genetic

> defect that's causing mitochondrial disease, which means the muscles

> don't get the energy they need.

>

> Conversely, it's possible that the mitochondrial disease may also play a

> role in the development of autism, perhaps by preventing the brain from

> getting the energy it needs to perform properly, the researchers noted.

>

> " In large studies of kids with autism, about 20 percent have markers of

> mitochondrial disease in the blood, " explained Dr. Shoffner, an

> associate professor of biology at Georgia State University and president

> of Medical Neurogenetics.

>

> Shoffner recently completely a retrospective analysis of 37 children

> with autism spectrum disorders and found that 65 percent of these

> children -- children who had been referred to him because their doctors

> suspected additional problems -- had mitochondrial defects.

>

> He was expected to present the findings April 13 at the American Academy

> of Neurology's annual meeting, in Chicago.

>

> Mitochondria are found in every cell of the body, with the exception of

> red blood cells, according to the United Mitochondrial Disease

> Foundation (UMDF). Mitochondria are vital to survival, because they make

> oxygen available to cells and metabolize food into energy for cells to

> thrive. Defects in mitochondria can lead to cell injury, or even cell

> death, according to UMDF.

>

> Symptoms of mitochondrial disease depend on which body system is

> affected but may include muscle weakness, loss of muscle control, poor

> growth, heart disease, diabetes, developmental delays, an increased risk

> of infection and more.

>

> Shoffner said that the mitochondrial energy production system is the

> only one in the body that requires two genomes to work -- genes

> inherited from both the mother and the father, and genes exclusively

> from the mother. " To make this system work, it requires a lot of genes.

> Hence the opportunity for lots of problems, " said Shoffner, who added

> that there are several hundred known mitochondrial disorders.

>

> Twenty-four (65 percent) of the children included in this study had

> genetic defects in their skeletal muscles. However, that doesn't mean

> that 65 percent of children with autism likely have mitochondrial

> disease. This was a select population of kids with autism, ones that had

> specifically been referred, because their doctors suspected a problem.

>

> But, Shoffner pointed out that as many as one in five youngsters with

> autism spectrum disorders have shown signs of mitochondrial disease.

>

> " If you're talking about 20 percent of kids with autism, that's a whole

> lot of children, and may represent an important segment of the autism

> spectrum disorder population. And we may be getting a foothold into the

> underlying cause of autism spectrum disorders, " he said, adding, " This

> is a really important step forward that lets us put effort into

> understanding the mechanisms of disease. "

>

> " This study is a call to action. We need to know what is the real

> prevalence of mitochondrial conditions in children with autism, " said

> Geraldine Dawson, chief science officer for Autism Speaks. " The more we

> can identify these subgroups of kids, the more we're going to parse

> apart the many forms of autism. This gives us clues to etiology. "

>

> " If we find that mitochondrial disease is a prevalent condition, having

> a better understanding of the kinds of symptoms that children may show

> if they have it might be helpful for parents, " she said.

>

> Shoffner said these findings may also open up new avenues of research

> into potentially more effective treatments for the future.

>

> More information

>

> To learn more about autism, visit Autism Speaks.

>

> SOURCES: M. Shoffner, M.D., associate professor, biology, Georgia

> State University, and president, Medical Neurogenetics, Atlanta;

> Geraldine Dawson, Ph.D., chief science officer, Autism Speaks; April 13,

> 2008, presentation, American Academy of Neurology annual meeting, Chicago

>

> © 2008 Scout News LLC. All rights reserved.

>

> The material in this post is distributed without

> profit to those who have expressed a prior interest

> in receiving the included information for research

> and educational purposes.For more information go to:

> http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html

> http://oregon.uoregon.edu/~csundt/documents.htm

> If you wish to use copyrighted material from this

> email for purposes that go beyond 'fair use', you

> must obtain permission from the copyright owner*.*

>

>

[Guest guest]

,

Rushing to a genome test may be premature. The WaPost/HeatlhDay article

is filled with spin - toward " must be genetic " and away from

pollutant-induced mito dysfunction, including thimerosal-induced

mito-dysfuction. AutismSpeaks and other establishmentarians want us to

continue blaming the genetics and use the strategy of not mentioning

sources of mercury and other mito-disrupting pollutants.

On other lists, Owens commented on the WaPost article by producing

abstracts relating muscle weakness to oxalates. A clinician researcher

said that all the WaPost subjects ought be tested for markers of (not

necessarily genetic) mito dysfunction. On yet another list, Boyd Haley

called attention to factors like amalgams - which WaPost didn't mention.

He too senses that article's deliberate distractioneering. Your son

sounds like an individual with complex physiology. 'Tis hard to predict

the most beneficial tests.

Re: Muscle Weakness Found in Some Autistic Children

Posted by: " " maryhe@... maryhe2001us

Date: Sun Apr 13, 2008 5:00 pm ((PDT))

Hi , do you know which genome to test for? Our child always had

muscle weakness and low tone and low energy, most of it has been targeted

over the years via sport and exercise, however also not that he reacts the

opposite to the rest of us when it comes to glucose tests for diabetes ­

these things have always bugged me, we are getting a lot of genome testing

done in South Africa via a company that can do it for a reduced price, they

would like to know what to test for over and above the standard tests that

are being done by quite a few companies, - do you know?

Regards

> >

Muscle Weakness Found in Some Autistic Children

> >

> > By Serena Gordon

> > HealthDay Reporter

> > Sunday, April 13, 2008; 12:00 AM

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/13/AR2008041301617.\

html

[Guest guest]

Hi,Z!

You have to be highly motivated to do your exams and

any work. My motivation are my children. I will do

everything with God's help to make them happy and

healthy. Ane one more thing, I love Montessori theory,

this is my nature, because I feel myself as a child,

and my knowledge I received from education helped me

alot, even with little English.My written English is

moch better then spoken.

Good luck to you. See you both in summer.

L. with love.

--- Binstock wrote:

> Muscle Weakness Found in Some Autistic Children

>

> By Serena Gordon

> HealthDay Reporter

> Sunday, April 13, 2008; 12:00 AM

>

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/13/AR2008041301617.\

html

>

>

> SUNDAY, April 13 (HealthDay News) -- New research

> suggests that muscle

> weakness in a child with autism may point to an

> underlying genetic

> defect that's causing mitochondrial disease, which

> means the muscles

> don't get the energy they need.

>

> Conversely, it's possible that the mitochondrial

> disease may also play a

> role in the development of autism, perhaps by

> preventing the brain from

> getting the energy it needs to perform properly, the

> researchers noted.

>

> " In large studies of kids with autism, about 20

> percent have markers of

> mitochondrial disease in the blood, " explained Dr.

> Shoffner, an

> associate professor of biology at Georgia State

> University and president

> of Medical Neurogenetics.

>

> Shoffner recently completely a retrospective

> analysis of 37 children

> with autism spectrum disorders and found that 65

> percent of these

> children -- children who had been referred to him

> because their doctors

> suspected additional problems -- had mitochondrial

> defects.

>

> He was expected to present the findings April 13 at

> the American Academy

> of Neurology's annual meeting, in Chicago.

>

> Mitochondria are found in every cell of the body,

> with the exception of

> red blood cells, according to the United

> Mitochondrial Disease

> Foundation (UMDF). Mitochondria are vital to

> survival, because they make

> oxygen available to cells and metabolize food into

> energy for cells to

> thrive. Defects in mitochondria can lead to cell

> injury, or even cell

> death, according to UMDF.

>

> Symptoms of mitochondrial disease depend on which

> body system is

> affected but may include muscle weakness, loss of

> muscle control, poor

> growth, heart disease, diabetes, developmental

> delays, an increased risk

> of infection and more.

>

> Shoffner said that the mitochondrial energy

> production system is the

> only one in the body that requires two genomes to

> work -- genes

> inherited from both the mother and the father, and

> genes exclusively

> from the mother. " To make this system work, it

> requires a lot of genes.

> Hence the opportunity for lots of problems, " said

> Shoffner, who added

> that there are several hundred known mitochondrial

> disorders.

>

> Twenty-four (65 percent) of the children included in

> this study had

> genetic defects in their skeletal muscles. However,

> that doesn't mean

> that 65 percent of children with autism likely have

> mitochondrial

> disease. This was a select population of kids with

> autism, ones that had

> specifically been referred, because their doctors

> suspected a problem.

>

> But, Shoffner pointed out that as many as one in

> five youngsters with

> autism spectrum disorders have shown signs of

> mitochondrial disease.

>

> " If you're talking about 20 percent of kids with

> autism, that's a whole

> lot of children, and may represent an important

> segment of the autism

> spectrum disorder population. And we may be getting

> a foothold into the

> underlying cause of autism spectrum disorders, " he

> said, adding, " This

> is a really important step forward that lets us put

> effort into

> understanding the mechanisms of disease. "

>

> " This study is a call to action. We need to know

> what is the real

> prevalence of mitochondrial conditions in children

> with autism, " said

> Geraldine Dawson, chief science officer for Autism

> Speaks. " The more we

> can identify these subgroups of kids, the more we're

> going to parse

> apart the many forms of autism. This gives us clues

> to etiology. "

>

> " If we find that mitochondrial disease is a

> prevalent condition, having

> a better understanding of the kinds of symptoms that

> children may show

> if they have it might be helpful for parents, " she

> said.

>

> Shoffner said these findings may also open up new

> avenues of research

> into potentially more effective treatments for the

> future.

>

> More information

>

> To learn more about autism, visit Autism Speaks.

>

> SOURCES: M. Shoffner, M.D., associate

> professor, biology, Georgia

> State University, and president, Medical

> Neurogenetics, Atlanta;

> Geraldine Dawson, Ph.D., chief science officer,

> Autism Speaks; April 13,

> 2008, presentation, American Academy of Neurology

> annual meeting, Chicago

>

> © 2008 Scout News LLC. All rights reserved.

>

> The material in this post is distributed without

> profit to those who have expressed a prior interest

> in receiving the included information for research

> and educational purposes.For more information go to:

> http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html

> http://oregon.uoregon.edu/~csundt/documents.htm

> If you wish to use copyrighted material from this

> email for purposes that go beyond 'fair use', you

> must obtain permission from the copyright owner*.*

>

>

> [Non-text portions of this message have been

> removed]

>

>

________________________________________________________________________________\

____

Be a better friend, newshound, and

know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now.

http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ

[Guest guest]

,

The most amazing story on LOD is the story of a little boy in Spain who had

hydrocephalus as an infant and had failure to thrive. When he arrived at a

DAN! doctors office when he was four and a half, he could not move at all

independently except for shaking his head stimming. He still couldn't hold

up his head. He didn't have eye contact. He was thought for a while to be

both deaf and blind but that wasn't true, but he couldn't attend to his

parents or therapists or anyone else. He was still as little as a toddler,

and he had no muscle tone or strength. He couldn't even reach out for

food, and the doctor said his parents could lay him down on the examining

table and he wouldn't move at all. There was no risk of him falling since

he was just like a bag of potatoes. He was really worse than a newborn.

His doctor treated him with typical DAN! protocols, but he didn't change

significantly in that year, and then his doctor witnessed the success of

another patient of hers on LOD and started this child on LOD. The first

thing that changed was that he got the strength to hold up his head. Then

he got trunk strength. Then he could sit up. Soon he could scoot on his

bottom. Then he began to commando crawl. At the same time he developed

eye contact, was able to attend to his mother, started being drawn to

looking at books, and started to be motivated to move because of his now

evident curiosity about the world. By several months later he could start

to feed himself, and he started crawling, and got to be a marathon crawler

and loved to try and find his mother in the house. He also began enjoying

crawling through tunnels at therapy. Then he started to cruise and to

bring himself up from crawling to standing. They had to do surgery to

lengthen his leg muscle so that he could stand up properly. I've lost

touch since his parents speak Catalan and I don't even speak Spanish and he

stopped going to the therapist who was keeping me assessed of his

progress. Basically, he seemed to be doing at about a normal pace the same

things at age six as most children do in infancy, and he was going through

all the normal stages of infancy.

After seeing this astonishing progress, his doctor decided to try all her

patients on LOD at the beginning of treatment for autism. Not all have

responded the same, and for a few the " dumping " (detox from oxalate) got

too severe and they stopped, but for most of her patients it has been a

very good thing. She sent me data from her practice on all the children

and adults she has had on LOD and included notes on who progressed in

behavior and cognition at three levels of improvement. What was

interesting in her data was that the oxalate level on the original Great

Plains OAT on her patients (which she does routinely), had NO predictive

value on which children responded the best to LOD. I'll have to ask if

anything this doctor noted clinically at the beginning was predictive of

greater success.

I thought the urinary test might not be useful for " do the diet " and " don't

do the diet " decisions as I don't think we can count on urinary secretion

of oxalate being normal in the autism population.

At any rate, BIG changes in motor skills has been one of the most

consistent findings on LOD. These kids just have more energy, and they

start enjoying it by participating in things like sports, becoming normal

participants in activities with siblings and neighbors. On our poll of

parents, the most frequently reported change was in sociability,

however. Some make huge improvements in cognition which was what the

doctor in Spain reported changing

At any rate, we know from the science on oxalates that oxalate impairs

specific mitochondrial enzymes, and especially Complex II. That is why

these changes didn't surprise us. We expected them! What we didn't expect

was this incredible demonstration that developmental delay that is even six

years behind can pick up when the offending toxin is removed. For this

child oxalate was it. It has been exciting also to hear of a 46 year old

man who is starting to go through the terrible two thing after years of

being the same. His mom is needing to " babyproof " their house, for now he

has so much curiosity that he is getting in things he always ignored. They

are going very slow with MOD (medium oxalate diet) because they want to

keep the negative symptoms limited. His new trick is that when he

accompanies his mother to senior aerobics, he is now able to follow along

with the movements and enjoy himself.

This is the stuff of model-breaking... when we find that what we thought

was impossible to change DOES change. There isn't any more exciting work

to be part of in this world than seeing someone get a life who never had one!

Of the fifteen children whose lab reports she sent me, seven had

improvements in behavior and eleven had improvements in cognition on

LOD. Four of these children got her top ratings for improvements in both

behavior and cognition. Three who she didn't say responded were

adults. From the story of this 46 year old man who is not her patient and

has been in DAN! treatment for about twelve years, he is " dumping " most

days of the week, and when he is dumping he is not too happy, so it may be

that with adults you have to go more slowly and the changes are more subtle

and take longer to show up! We just don't have enough experience with

adults. In genetic hyperoxaluria, the detox process for the body could

last as long as four years, but it might be as short as months. There is a

lot of individuality. I think for little children, you make progress much

faster.

, I'm sure there were many doctors that saw this boy in Spain and

would have said he had some inborn error that just couldn't be fixed since

he spent more than five years at the same stage with absolutely no

progress, despite being in physical and occupational therapy.

Dr. M., I'll be thinking of you and your arm!

At 03:15 PM 4/14/2008, you wrote:

>,

>

>Rushing to a genome test may be premature. The WaPost/HeatlhDay article

>is filled with spin - toward " must be genetic " and away from

>pollutant-induced mito dysfunction, including thimerosal-induced

>mito-dysfuction. AutismSpeaks and other establishmentarians want us to

>continue blaming the genetics and use the strategy of not mentioning

>sources of mercury and other mito-disrupting pollutants.

>

>On other lists, Owens commented on the WaPost article by producing

>abstracts relating muscle weakness to oxalates. A clinician researcher

>said that all the WaPost subjects ought be tested for markers of (not

>necessarily genetic) mito dysfunction. On yet another list, Boyd Haley

>called attention to factors like amalgams - which WaPost didn't mention.

>He too senses that article's deliberate distractioneering. Your son

>sounds like an individual with complex physiology. 'Tis hard to predict

>the most beneficial tests.

>

>

>

>Re: Muscle Weakness Fouonnd in Some Autistic Children

>Posted by: " " <mailto:maryhe%40xtra.co.nz>maryhe@...

>maryhe2001us

>Date: Sun Apr 13, 2008 5:00 pm ((PDT))

>

>Hi , do you know which genome to test for? Our child always had

>muscle weakness and low tone and low energy, most of it has been targeted

>over the years via sport and exercise, however also not that he reacts the

>opposite to the rest of us when it comes to glucose tests for diabetes ­

>these things have always bugged me, we are getting a lot of genome testing

>done in South Africa via a company that can do it for a reduced price, they

>would like to know what to test for over and above the standard tests that

>are being done by quite a few companies, - do you know?

>Regards

>

> > >

>Muscle Weakness Found in Some Autistic Children

> > >

> > > By Serena Gordon

> > > HealthDay Reporter

> > > Sunday, April 13, 2008; 12:00 AM

><http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/13/AR200804130161\

7.html>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/13/AR2008041\

301617.html

>

>

>

--

No virus found in this outgoing message.

Checked by AVG.

Version: 7.5.519 / Virus Database: 269.23.0/1379 - Release Date: 4/15/2008 6:10

PM

[Guest guest]

Dr. JM.,

I thought you would find it interesting that one of the patients of the

doctor in Spain who has done well on LOD has HIV although she didn't

mention if he had improvements in cognition and behavior....Another child

who had had chronic seizures had them stop completely after one week on LOD

and she is otherwise very much improved. Another who had improvements in

behavior and cognition had Rett Syndrome.

--

No virus found in this outgoing message.

Checked by AVG.

Version: 7.5.519 / Virus Database: 269.23.0/1379 - Release Date: 4/15/2008 6:10

PM