Inflammation, Oxalates, diet

January 31, 2011

Inflammation is a biggie with us!Note her comment"Oxalates deplete glutathione in a big way. Oxalates may be changing the trafficking of zinc. Oxalates and inflammation seem to go hand in hand, more research needs to be done on oxalates and inflammation. Oxalates induce oxidative stress and reduce glutathione, could possibly affect TH1 to TH2 shift."OwensSince completing her masters degree at the University of Texas in Dallas, Mrs.Owens has lectured widely in the U.S, including the Center for Disease Controland the National Institute of Health in Bethesda. She has also lectured as farafield as Scotland, England, Australia, and Norway. She brings into herlectures information she has gained from ten years of interacting with parentsand doctors of children with autism while she maintained an intense study ofthe medical literature, including literature that we need to understand today'sissues, but which got lost in earlier decades. This effort has been directedmainly at finding the basic science that can tell us how the sulfur systemworks: how it is integrated, how it matures, and how it interacts with othersystems. Oxalates appear to be part of that system, but their role outside therole of binding to calcium and incidentally forming kidney stones, is littleunderstood. As a member of the Defeat Autism Now! Thinktank (a project of the AutismResearch Instiute), she continually dialogues with physicians and scientistswho treat children with autism. She also consults with sulfur scientists andother basic scientists who are on the cutting edges of their fields, attemptingto recruit them into studying autism, but also attempting to cross-pollinateinformation that generally stays behind disciplinary barriers. She doesextensive analysis of labwork, specializing in studying ratios and theirmeaning in the plasma amino acid tests and studying correlations within othertests. By comparing the findings and reference ranges from labs all over the USand world on different tests, she has developed some concerns about thesuitability of how reference ranges are calculated for urinary tests on youngchildren. She is working actively at getting some policy changes in place toassure more accurate testing for this age group. Two years ago, in order togain from the experience of those outside autism circles, she began an internetlist where people discuss successes and failures they have had withsulfur-related supplements at sulfurstories @ . It now has over720 members. She recently opened a new group called Trying_Low_Oxalates, with170 members, currently, where people can learn how to implement a low oxalatediet. She is delighted to be here to talk about the amazing improvementschildren are experiencing on the low oxalate diet. Q:Can you tell us what oxalates are, and the basics of the diet? A:Oxalates are two carbons joined together with 4 oxygens. It's a structuresimilar to sulfate. There are a lot of problems with sulfate chemistry inautism, so it's interesting that the oxalate structure is so similar. Dr.Rimland did some studies (16-18) that showed B6 was affected in autism. B6 iskey for the sulfur chemistry, and for oxalates. Whenyou have inflamed gut, Crohn's for example, very few oxalates are absorbed. Sosince autistic kids often have inflamed gut, it made sense to have alow-oxalate diet. We did a pilot study with 7 kids. All 7 were high inoxalates, and started the diet. They had problems with frequent urination, GIpain, etc. within a couple hours of eating. They had changes in behaviorfollowing eating. Things started changing with the diet. A lot of the things we'vebeen calling yeasty behaviors go away with a low-oxalate diet. A lot of thesekids had trouble taking DMG and TMG, glycine in general. We saw problems withconstipation/diarrhea in these kids before the diet, even after being treatedby GI docs. A lot of these children had trouble when introducing nuts, legumes,soy. A lot of these kids craved high-oxalate foods. Q:What foods are high in oxalates? A:Nuts, legumes, green leafy vegetables, spinach, chard, black raspberry, soy,pecans, refried beans, almond, beet, okra, sweet potatoes, chocolate, cocoa, alot of different teas, black current, dried fig, canned fruit salad, concordgrapes, rubarb, tamarillo, tapioca are all extremely high in oxalates. If yougoogle `oxalate contents of food' you should find all the details of high-oxalateand medium-oxalate foods. Itmakes sense to try low-oxalate diet for at least a week before moving tomedium-oxalates. Q:My son only eats PB & J, sugary juice, pretzels, milk, and chocolate. I have tried to limit his diet, but herefuses to eat longer than I can hold out. Any ideas on how to get him off this diet without starving? A:Some of the food preferences of these kids are changing on the diet. Rice/corncaused one child to break out – now that she's on a low-oxalate diet, thosesame foods aren't making her break out anymore. Chocolate and peanut butter arehigh in oxalates, jelly might be too. Milk is generally ok, but soy milk isextremely high in oxalate.Oxalatesare very easily produced by sugar. If you eat a lot of sugar, it depressesthiamine chemistry. Enzymes then turn things into oxalates. So don't eat a lotof sugar. Q:My son is SCD legal, but still does not have a healthy appetite. Do you haveany advice on how I can increase his appetite? A:Is he trying a low-oxalate diet yet? (no, just scd, no juice, lots ofproteins). There are children that are eating an awful lot of food, and notputting on weight, and they act starved all the time. When on a low-oxalatediet, they stopped acting starved, gained weight and height. I went on the low-oxalatediet myself a few months ago. I found that foods taste better now. Oxalatesdeplete glutathione in a big way. Oxalates may be changing the trafficking ofzinc. Oxalates and inflammation seem to go hand in hand, more research needs tobe done on oxalates and inflammation. Oxalates induce oxidative stress andreduce glutathione, could possibly affect TH1 to TH2 shift. Q:Hi , thanks for taking my question. Do you recommend doing a low oxalate diet with a gfcf diet? What is yourweb site? A:I think when you start the diet, it's a good idea to keep in place what you arealready doing, and see if getting off the oxalates changes your sensitivity tocertain things. Some folks who couldn't tolerate rice or corn can now tolerate.Another person has reintroduced gluten and casein, and is doing well.Youcan sign up to the group Trying_Low_Oxalates. You can sign up as "noemail" and not be overwhelmed by the mail. Q: Would you discuss Bvitamins and oxalate chemistry...We are SCD but I have been reading LOD board and caught bits and pieces of discussion regarding thiamine andbiotin. I am interested because Iam unable to get my son on B vitamins without alot of hyperactivity. A:The rules about intolerances to different supplements are changing. Zinc isdepleted with oxalate. A lot of kids have been on very high zinc. Now they'rereducing their zinc on the low-oxalate diet. The parents trying this diet movelow and slow (low dose, go slow with changes). Q:Might the oxalate issue be more important than GFCF issues for some kids? Do kids who respond to GFCF tend to bethe same ones who respond to this diet? Are oxalates related to metals at all? A:Gluten is metabolized towards oxalates. Casein is not a problem – but lactosemight be, because that can be metabolized towards oxalates. Oxalates arerelated to metals – they are very potent in their chelating abilities. Not surehow this relates to DMSA or DMPS, but ALA seems to reduce oxalates. So while wemight have thought it was a great chelator, perhaps the effect we're seeing isfrom the reduction of oxalates. ALA is anti-oxalate, noone has ever thought totest the other chelating agents to see if they are. Q:We've been LOD for about 1 month. Itried it because my son urinates constantly. However, I haven't adjustedsupplements. Are there supplements that we should avoid? We are starting td-ALA soon. A:The ALA should help. There are quite a few supplements that are helpful.Taurine is anti-oxalate, give more taurine. Oxalatesbind beta-alanine. If your son is urinating constantly, this diet might verywell help. Q:Hi. My son had an allergicreaction after 12 weeks to the DMPS. We are now using DMSA. I amworried he may have reacted to the sulfur. DO you think the low oxalate diet could help him not reactto sulfur? A:I do think there is a possibility that some of the kids with sulfur-sensitivitycould be the oxalate kids. A few parents reported that on the diet they wereseeing sulfur-sensitivity diminish. Children eating swiss chard and spinachevery other day don't see the differences from day to day – it may be becausetheir bodies have so many oxalates, they're not seeing the difference. Q: My daughter is takingcustom amino acids after being tested through Metametrix. She was quite low in her profile acrossthe board. Do you have experiencewith these types of products? Idon't know if it is helping A:I've been looking at the reference ranges on urinary tests. The creatininedoesn't seem stable enough. Also the reference ranges are based on adults, andthe kids doing these tests are 2 and 3. Write me off list. Q:What are some indicators that LOD might help a child...you have said problemwith sulfur supplements, urinary issues, what else? A:Issues in speech (that's the area we see improve the quickest); a lot of yeastybehaviors; if you've been on a lot of antibiotics. Q:Can you tell us more about your work as a thinktank member? What is that like? How do the members get together toshare ideas? A:It's been fabulous. There are a lot of totally dedicated people in the thinktank. The doctors compare notes, compare success stories, listen to how otherdoctors solved problems for their patients, etc. We're getting past our growingpains, and really accomplishing a lot. The internet really helps, and theworking relationship between doctors and parents. Q:I give my son 1 peeled pear and several peeled apples/ day - do you know ifoxalate levels are lower without the peels? It seems like some lists areconflicting. Also, I've heard that food high in phosphate (such as peas ithink) may also cause problem. Whatwould indicate that?A:There may be issues with phosphate with some kids, I haven't looked at it veryclosely. Even different varieties of the same type of fruit/vegetable will havedifferent oxalate content. Kiwi fruit has 100+ varieties. The oxalates varygreatly between each variety. It may also vary depending on the soil it wasgrown in. Some foods are always high; others vary. Q: How long is it takingfor kids to respond to the diet? Are any kids reacting badly to the diet? What is the difference betweenoxalates and "oxidants"? A:Astonishingly some kids show improvements in just a day or two. Occasionally achild will start and have worse behavior. If you've been really high oxalateand you remove them, oxalates get trafficked to the gut and cause really highoxalates there. We've been experiencing with calcium citrate and magnesiumcitrate, which are both anti-oxalate. The calcium is important in the gut – ifthere is calcium in the gut, the oxalates won't be reabsorbed in the body,they'll stay in the stool.Oxalatesare oxidants. And oxidant creates oxidative stress. Molecules that are notsupposed to be bound together get bound together during oxidative stress.Proteins work differently when under oxidative stress. Q:Do you know of any thing that may become an "enzyme" or"helper" for oxalates? Like Petizyde helps with cross contaminationgluten...Also,what about IP6 - that helps break apart kidney stones??? A:We have to rely on our bacteria – it breaks oxalates apart. There is a companytrying to make a probiotic, but it is about a year out. The enzymes availableare not what we need to break oxalates. Acidophilus is an oxalate eatingspecies, but if you get too much oxalate it kills off acidophilus. I'mnot familiar with IP6. Q:I have heard the NAC is helpful in detoxing poisons such as mercury (not achelator but aids in ridding the body of these chemicals) My daughters doctorsaid there are too many negative side effects but I recently realized that shetakes NAC 100mg a day in her D-Hist supplement for allergies. She seems fineshould I look into giving her more NAC since it seems that she is tolerating itwith the D-Hist? Also is LDN something that is helpful? My daughter is 6 andnon-verbal autistic. A:We have had folks doing both LDN and low-oxalate diet. One of our parents hadsuch good results on low-oxalate that she stopped LDN. It may be they'reworking on a similar system, it's too early to know. Theone consistent thing in autism is that sulfur is below the reference range. Weneed to explore the role of oxalates. Q:On the diet, is the ultimate goal to do LO foods and then you may have a certain percentage of MO foodsthat child tolerates and never high oxalate? A:We're trying to let the children tell us. We know oxalates are a problem, butfrom child to child there are different levels of absorption and otherdiffering factors. We do know that the kids that stick to low-oxalate foods aredoing very well. Q:Do you know if whey is high or low oxalate and if it can help withoxalates? Also, you mentionedusing calcium and magnesium citrate at first. Should the child get regular doses or megadoses? A:We're learning about the cal and mag citrate. Start low and slow. There was onechild that started having worse seizures after the cal citrate, but overall shehad less seizures on the low-oxalate diet. It seems the kids do better to be onthe diet several weeks, then start the cal citrate. If you start thelow-oxalate diet and see behavior issues, you might want to try low dose calcitrate. Q:You mentioned issues with speech. Have you had non-verbal children begintalking on the diet? A:We haven't had someone non-verbal try it yet. We had a child who could speak afew words, and a week into the diet was talking in 4-word sentences and makinggood eye contact. Q:Can you talk a little more about children who have problem digesting fats andoxalates? A:The idea of taking calcium in the meal is to bind the oxalate so it's notabsorbed.Thebound calcium in spinach is not a problem, it's the free oxalate that is aproblem so take calcium with it. Even better, leave out the foods with highoxalate altogether. Q:1) what might help with dyspraxia and motor planning? 2) how are peopledeciding what might be low oxalate if there isn't a test on that food? A:We have a scientist willing to test foods that are common in the autism community.You can list the food that you want tested on the group website, and hewill test.Wehave had children improving in motor skills. We totally did not expect thatgain. One of the children went to see his grandparents, and they wereastonished at his motor skill improvements, and all his improvements. Scientistshave shown there are oxalates in the brain. There are probably certain areas ofthe brain that are more vulnerable. The autistic kids might have areas of thebrain influenced by oxalates.Ifyour oxalates are higher outside the cell, you might be dragging sulfates outof the cell. These are the areas you would expect to see more functionalproblems.Hippocampusand cerebellum are two areas that are problem areas in autism…and have high oxalates. Q:Are pumpkin seeds particularly good for oxalates? Are oxalates related toautoimmune? A:Most seeds are a problem with high oxalate, but for some reason pumpkin seedsare not. Some of our moms grind up pumpkin seeds to make flour. Autoimmunityrelates to the body making antibodies to bind things that the body will get ridof. If you have an injury, the body makes antibodies to do a clean up. Inautoimmunity, something keeps the reaction going, the clean up keeps going.Itcould be that a lot of these processes could be cut back if we reduce oxalates. Q:Would a GRADUAL transfer to LOD possibly avoid the potential release ofoxalates from the tissues in to the gut that causes initial worsening ofsymptoms. A:I don't know, it's kind of a tradeoff. Like chelation, some folks go slowerthen others. Q:My son had a urinalysis which showed urine cloudy, crystals-present and _morph Ur 4+ is any of thissignificant-he's 8 yrs. old. A:It could be calcium oxalate. There are a lot of internet sites where you canlook up, but calcium oxalate is one of the major ones. Certain crystals willdissolve certain substances added to them. If you refrigerate urine and it getscloudy, it's probably crystallizing something. Q: Can you talk more abouthow the cerebellum is affected? My son has mild hyperplasia of the cerebellarvermis so I am interested A:The cerebellum is a modulator of info for the rest of the brain, a traffic cop.You can actually get by without one (a cerebellum), but if the one you have isn'tworking right, it can really mess you up.Oneof our best responders did really well for a month, then had a bad diaper andterrible behavior one day. Afterwards he said his words were stuck. Maybe thereason some of these kids aren't talking is not that they don't have language,they just can't get it out. Q:, thank you so much for your work in this area. We think we're seeing the light at the end of the tunnel forGI pain in our daughter! Will thisbe a topic at the next DAN! ? A:The oxalates will be mentioned by Maureen Mc, and Jacquelyn McCandless,but it will not be a feature this time at DAN! The first tests were in June,and the conferences are planned well in advance, so this is a little too new. Iam going to do a session, there will be a room set aside to talk about issuesthat are not part of the main conf. I'll be in that room. Q:Have kids who were not able to tolerate TMG before the diet able to tolerateafter? A:I don't know that we've had anybody that happened to, I don't recall anyonesaying that. If excess glycine was causing a backup, that might not beaddressed by the diet. Some kids have GI issues and inflammation; they areabsorbing more oxalates from their diet. Some kids have weaknesses in pathways;they might be producing more oxalates. This will take a lot of sorting out. I'mnot satisfied with current testing either, so we need to recruit scientists,laboratories. There is also work needed to characterize enzymes that werestudied in the 50's and 60's. The research is so old, the studies need to beredone. This will take fundraising and serious organizational push.

February 1, 2011

This is very interesting. I'm going to join this group. If they're finding a correlation between inflammation and high oxalates then I want to check into this.

Hugs,

There would be nothing to frighten you if you refused to be afraid. Gandhi

From: glory2glory1401 <glory2glory1401@...> Sent: Mon, January 31, 2011 2:17:09 PMSubject: Inflammation, Oxalates, diet

Inflammation is a biggie with us!

Note her comment

"Oxalates deplete glutathione in a big way. Oxalates may be changing the trafficking of zinc. Oxalates and inflammation seem to go hand in hand, more research needs to be done on oxalates and inflammation. Oxalates induce oxidative stress and reduce glutathione, could possibly affect TH1 to TH2 shift."

February 1, 2011

hi patty;

interesting article. but i tried for 5 min. to determine what ala and lod are. do you know? maybe my brain isnt working right today! it usually isnt.

thanks.

gg

From: glory2glory1401@...Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2011 19:17:09 +0000Subject: Inflammation, Oxalates, diet

Inflammation is a biggie with us!

Note her comment

"Oxalates deplete glutathione in a big way. Oxalates may be changing the trafficking of zinc. Oxalates and inflammation seem to go hand in hand, more research needs to be done on oxalates and inflammation. Oxalates induce oxidative stress and reduce glutathione, could possibly affect TH1 to TH2 shift."

Owens

Since completing her masters degree at the University of Texas in Dallas, Mrs.Owens has lectured widely in the U.S, including the Center for Disease Controland the National Institute of Health in Bethesda. She has also lectured as farafield as Scotland, England, Australia, and Norway. She brings into herlectures information she has gained from ten years of interacting with parentsand doctors of children with autism while she maintained an intense study ofthe medical literature, including literature that we need to understand today'sissues, but which got lost in earlier decades. This effort has been directedmainly at finding the basic science that can tell us how the sulfur systemworks: how it is integrated, how it matures, and how it interacts with othersystems. Oxalates appear to be part of that system, but their role outside therole of binding to calcium and incidentally forming kidney stones, is littleunderstood. As a member of the Defeat Autism Now! Thinktank (a project of the AutismResearch Instiute), she continually dialogues with physicians and scientistswho treat children with autism. She also consults with sulfur scientists andother basic scientists who are on the cutting edges of their fields, attemptingto recruit them into studying autism, but also attempting to cross-pollinateinformation that generally stays behind disciplinary barriers. She doesextensive analysis of labwork, specializing in studying ratios and theirmeaning in the plasma amino acid tests and studying correlations within othertests. By comparing the findings and reference ranges from labs all over the USand world on different tests, she has developed some concerns about thesuitability of how reference ranges are calculated for urinary tests on youngchildren. She is working actively at getting some policy changes in place toassure more accurate testing for this age group. Two years ago, in order togain from the experience of those outside autism circles, she began an internetlist where people discuss successes and failures they have had withsulfur-related supplements at sulfurstories @ . It now has over720 members. She recently opened a new group called Trying_Low_Oxalates, with170 members, currently, where people can learn how to implement a low oxalatediet. She is delighted to be here to talk about the amazing improvementschildren are experiencing on the low oxalate diet.

Q:Can you tell us what oxalates are, and the basics of the diet?

A:Oxalates are two carbons joined together with 4 oxygens. It's a structuresimilar to sulfate. There are a lot of problems with sulfate chemistry inautism, so it's interesting that the oxalate structure is so similar. Dr.Rimland did some studies (16-18) that showed B6 was affected in autism. B6 iskey for the sulfur chemistry, and for oxalates.

Whenyou have inflamed gut, Crohn's for example, very few oxalates are absorbed. Sosince autistic kids often have inflamed gut, it made sense to have alow-oxalate diet. We did a pilot study with 7 kids. All 7 were high inoxalates, and started the diet. They had problems with frequent urination, GIpain, etc. within a couple hours of eating. They had changes in behaviorfollowing eating. Things started changing with the diet. A lot of the things we'vebeen calling yeasty behaviors go away with a low-oxalate diet. A lot of thesekids had trouble taking DMG and TMG, glycine in general. We saw problems withconstipation/diarrhea in these kids before the diet, even after being treatedby GI docs. A lot of these children had trouble when introducing nuts, legumes,soy. A lot of these kids craved high-oxalate foods.

Q:What foods are high in oxalates?

A:Nuts, legumes, green leafy vegetables, spinach, chard, black raspberry, soy,pecans, refried beans, almond, beet, okra, sweet potatoes, chocolate, cocoa, alot of different teas, black current, dried fig, canned fruit salad, concordgrapes, rubarb, tamarillo, tapioca are all extremely high in oxalates. If yougoogle `oxalate contents of food' you should find all the details of high-oxalateand medium-oxalate foods.

Itmakes sense to try low-oxalate diet for at least a week before moving tomedium-oxalates.

Q:My son only eats PB & J, sugary juice, pretzels, milk, and chocolate. I have tried to limit his diet, but herefuses to eat longer than I can hold out. Any ideas on how to get him off this diet without starving?

A:Some of the food preferences of these kids are changing on the diet. Rice/corncaused one child to break out – now that she's on a low-oxalate diet, thosesame foods aren't making her break out anymore. Chocolate and peanut butter arehigh in oxalates, jelly might be too. Milk is generally ok, but soy milk isextremely high in oxalate.

Oxalatesare very easily produced by sugar. If you eat a lot of sugar, it depressesthiamine chemistry. Enzymes then turn things into oxalates. So don't eat a lotof sugar.

Q:My son is SCD legal, but still does not have a healthy appetite. Do you haveany advice on how I can increase his appetite?

A:Is he trying a low-oxalate diet yet? (no, just scd, no juice, lots ofproteins). There are children that are eating an awful lot of food, and notputting on weight, and they act starved all the time. When on a low-oxalatediet, they stopped acting starved, gained weight and height. I went on the low-oxalatediet myself a few months ago. I found that foods taste better now. Oxalatesdeplete glutathione in a big way. Oxalates may be changing the trafficking ofzinc. Oxalates and inflammation seem to go hand in hand, more research needs tobe done on oxalates and inflammation. Oxalates induce oxidative stress andreduce glutathione, could possibly affect TH1 to TH2 shift.

Q:Hi , thanks for taking my question. Do you recommend doing a low oxalate diet with a gfcf diet? What is yourweb site?

A:I think when you start the diet, it's a good idea to keep in place what you arealready doing, and see if getting off the oxalates changes your sensitivity tocertain things. Some folks who couldn't tolerate rice or corn can now tolerate.Another person has reintroduced gluten and casein, and is doing well.

Youcan sign up to the group Trying_Low_Oxalates. You can sign up as "noemail" and not be overwhelmed by the mail.

Q: Would you discuss Bvitamins and oxalate chemistry...We are SCD but I have been reading LOD board and caught bits and pieces of discussion regarding thiamine andbiotin. I am interested because Iam unable to get my son on B vitamins without alot of hyperactivity.

A:The rules about intolerances to different supplements are changing. Zinc isdepleted with oxalate. A lot of kids have been on very high zinc. Now they'rereducing their zinc on the low-oxalate diet. The parents trying this diet movelow and slow (low dose, go slow with changes).

Q:Might the oxalate issue be more important than GFCF issues for some kids? Do kids who respond to GFCF tend to bethe same ones who respond to this diet? Are oxalates related to metals at all?

A:Gluten is metabolized towards oxalates. Casein is not a problem – but lactosemight be, because that can be metabolized towards oxalates. Oxalates arerelated to metals – they are very potent in their chelating abilities. Not surehow this relates to DMSA or DMPS, but ALA seems to reduce oxalates. So while wemight have thought it was a great chelator, perhaps the effect we're seeing isfrom the reduction of oxalates. ALA is anti-oxalate, noone has ever thought totest the other chelating agents to see if they are.

Q:We've been LOD for about 1 month. Itried it because my son urinates constantly. However, I haven't adjustedsupplements. Are there supplements that we should avoid? We are starting td-ALA soon.

A:The ALA should help. There are quite a few supplements that are helpful.Taurine is anti-oxalate, give more taurine.

Oxalatesbind beta-alanine. If your son is urinating constantly, this diet might verywell help.

Q:Hi. My son had an allergicreaction after 12 weeks to the DMPS. We are now using DMSA. I amworried he may have reacted to the sulfur. DO you think the low oxalate diet could help him not reactto sulfur?

A:I do think there is a possibility that some of the kids with sulfur-sensitivitycould be the oxalate kids. A few parents reported that on the diet they wereseeing sulfur-sensitivity diminish. Children eating swiss chard and spinachevery other day don't see the differences from day to day – it may be becausetheir bodies have so many oxalates, they're not seeing the difference.

Q: My daughter is takingcustom amino acids after being tested through Metametrix. She was quite low in her profile acrossthe board. Do you have experiencewith these types of products? Idon't know if it is helping

A:I've been looking at the reference ranges on urinary tests. The creatininedoesn't seem stable enough. Also the reference ranges are based on adults, andthe kids doing these tests are 2 and 3. Write me off list.

Q:What are some indicators that LOD might help a child...you have said problemwith sulfur supplements, urinary issues, what else?

A:Issues in speech (that's the area we see improve the quickest); a lot of yeastybehaviors; if you've been on a lot of antibiotics.

Q:Can you tell us more about your work as a thinktank member? What is that like? How do the members get together toshare ideas?

A:It's been fabulous. There are a lot of totally dedicated people in the thinktank. The doctors compare notes, compare success stories, listen to how otherdoctors solved problems for their patients, etc. We're getting past our growingpains, and really accomplishing a lot. The internet really helps, and theworking relationship between doctors and parents.

Q:I give my son 1 peeled pear and several peeled apples/ day - do you know ifoxalate levels are lower without the peels? It seems like some lists areconflicting. Also, I've heard that food high in phosphate (such as peas ithink) may also cause problem. Whatwould indicate that?

A:There may be issues with phosphate with some kids, I haven't looked at it veryclosely. Even different varieties of the same type of fruit/vegetable will havedifferent oxalate content. Kiwi fruit has 100+ varieties. The oxalates varygreatly between each variety. It may also vary depending on the soil it wasgrown in. Some foods are always high; others vary.

Q: How long is it takingfor kids to respond to the diet? Are any kids reacting badly to the diet? What is the difference betweenoxalates and "oxidants"?

A:Astonishingly some kids show improvements in just a day or two. Occasionally achild will start and have worse behavior. If you've been really high oxalateand you remove them, oxalates get trafficked to the gut and cause really highoxalates there. We've been experiencing with calcium citrate and magnesiumcitrate, which are both anti-oxalate. The calcium is important in the gut – ifthere is calcium in the gut, the oxalates won't be reabsorbed in the body,they'll stay in the stool.

Oxalatesare oxidants. And oxidant creates oxidative stress. Molecules that are notsupposed to be bound together get bound together during oxidative stress.Proteins work differently when under oxidative stress.

Q:Do you know of any thing that may become an "enzyme" or"helper" for oxalates? Like Petizyde helps with cross contaminationgluten...

Also,what about IP6 - that helps break apart kidney stones???

A:We have to rely on our bacteria – it breaks oxalates apart. There is a companytrying to make a probiotic, but it is about a year out. The enzymes availableare not what we need to break oxalates. Acidophilus is an oxalate eatingspecies, but if you get too much oxalate it kills off acidophilus.

I'mnot familiar with IP6.

Q:I have heard the NAC is helpful in detoxing poisons such as mercury (not achelator but aids in ridding the body of these chemicals) My daughters doctorsaid there are too many negative side effects but I recently realized that shetakes NAC 100mg a day in her D-Hist supplement for allergies. She seems fineshould I look into giving her more NAC since it seems that she is tolerating itwith the D-Hist? Also is LDN something that is helpful? My daughter is 6 andnon-verbal autistic.

A:We have had folks doing both LDN and low-oxalate diet. One of our parents hadsuch good results on low-oxalate that she stopped LDN. It may be they'reworking on a similar system, it's too early to know.

Theone consistent thing in autism is that sulfur is below the reference range. Weneed to explore the role of oxalates.

Q:On the diet, is the ultimate goal to do LO foods and then you may have a certain percentage of MO foodsthat child tolerates and never high oxalate?

A:We're trying to let the children tell us. We know oxalates are a problem, butfrom child to child there are different levels of absorption and otherdiffering factors. We do know that the kids that stick to low-oxalate foods aredoing very well.

Q:Do you know if whey is high or low oxalate and if it can help withoxalates? Also, you mentionedusing calcium and magnesium citrate at first. Should the child get regular doses or megadoses?

A:We're learning about the cal and mag citrate. Start low and slow. There was onechild that started having worse seizures after the cal citrate, but overall shehad less seizures on the low-oxalate diet. It seems the kids do better to be onthe diet several weeks, then start the cal citrate. If you start thelow-oxalate diet and see behavior issues, you might want to try low dose calcitrate.

Q:You mentioned issues with speech. Have you had non-verbal children begintalking on the diet?

A:We haven't had someone non-verbal try it yet. We had a child who could speak afew words, and a week into the diet was talking in 4-word sentences and makinggood eye contact.

Q:Can you talk a little more about children who have problem digesting fats andoxalates?

A:The idea of taking calcium in the meal is to bind the oxalate so it's notabsorbed.

Thebound calcium in spinach is not a problem, it's the free oxalate that is aproblem so take calcium with it. Even better, leave out the foods with highoxalate altogether.

Q:1) what might help with dyspraxia and motor planning? 2) how are peopledeciding what might be low oxalate if there isn't a test on that food?

A:We have a scientist willing to test foods that are common in the autism community.You can list the food that you want tested on the group website, and hewill test.

Wehave had children improving in motor skills. We totally did not expect thatgain. One of the children went to see his grandparents, and they wereastonished at his motor skill improvements, and all his improvements.

Scientistshave shown there are oxalates in the brain. There are probably certain areas ofthe brain that are more vulnerable. The autistic kids might have areas of thebrain influenced by oxalates.

Ifyour oxalates are higher outside the cell, you might be dragging sulfates outof the cell. These are the areas you would expect to see more functionalproblems.

Hippocampusand cerebellum are two areas that are problem areas in autism…and have high oxalates.

Q:Are pumpkin seeds particularly good for oxalates? Are oxalates related toautoimmune?

A:Most seeds are a problem with high oxalate, but for some reason pumpkin seedsare not. Some of our moms grind up pumpkin seeds to make flour.

Autoimmunityrelates to the body making antibodies to bind things that the body will get ridof. If you have an injury, the body makes antibodies to do a clean up. Inautoimmunity, something keeps the reaction going, the clean up keeps going.

Itcould be that a lot of these processes could be cut back if we reduce oxalates.

Q:Would a GRADUAL transfer to LOD possibly avoid the potential release ofoxalates from the tissues in to the gut that causes initial worsening ofsymptoms.

A:I don't know, it's kind of a tradeoff. Like chelation, some folks go slowerthen others.

Q:My son had a urinalysis which showed urine cloudy, crystals-present and _morph Ur 4+ is any of thissignificant-he's 8 yrs. old.

A:It could be calcium oxalate. There are a lot of internet sites where you canlook up, but calcium oxalate is one of the major ones. Certain crystals willdissolve certain substances added to them. If you refrigerate urine and it getscloudy, it's probably crystallizing something.

Q: Can you talk more abouthow the cerebellum is affected? My son has mild hyperplasia of the cerebellarvermis so I am interested

A:The cerebellum is a modulator of info for the rest of the brain, a traffic cop.You can actually get by without one (a cerebellum), but if the one you have isn'tworking right, it can really mess you up.

Oneof our best responders did really well for a month, then had a bad diaper andterrible behavior one day. Afterwards he said his words were stuck. Maybe thereason some of these kids aren't talking is not that they don't have language,they just can't get it out.

Q:, thank you so much for your work in this area. We think we're seeing the light at the end of the tunnel forGI pain in our daughter! Will thisbe a topic at the next DAN! ?

A:The oxalates will be mentioned by Maureen Mc, and Jacquelyn McCandless,but it will not be a feature this time at DAN! The first tests were in June,and the conferences are planned well in advance, so this is a little too new. Iam going to do a session, there will be a room set aside to talk about issuesthat are not part of the main conf. I'll be in that room.

Q:Have kids who were not able to tolerate TMG before the diet able to tolerateafter?

A:I don't know that we've had anybody that happened to, I don't recall anyonesaying that. If excess glycine was causing a backup, that might not beaddressed by the diet. Some kids have GI issues and inflammation; they areabsorbing more oxalates from their diet. Some kids have weaknesses in pathways;they might be producing more oxalates. This will take a lot of sorting out.

I'mnot satisfied with current testing either, so we need to recruit scientists,laboratories. There is also work needed to characterize enzymes that werestudied in the 50's and 60's. The research is so old, the studies need to beredone. This will take fundraising and serious organizational push.

February 1, 2011

Hi, All

Epsom foot soak, bath soak is good for detox, but also castor oil pack on the liver

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Dr. , M.D., the wonderful holistic healer said he always recommends his cancer patients (and those with other degenerative conditions) use a "castor oil pack." When asked why, he explained that he has found the primary reason that people die of cancer and other diseases is "liver toxemia." This simply means an overload of the liver's ability to cleanse the blood. He said that doctors are not trained to look for toxemia as an effect of cancer and other diseases. They simply only consider it when there is some poison accidentally swallowed. Then, they are trained to get it out with induced vomiting, etc. But they get no training ever about toxemia and its relation to chronic degenerative conditions like cancer. Dr. is convinced, and I certainly agree with him now, that cancer deaths are simply a result of liver toxemia. This is the result of the toxins our body gets from dental work and our food combined with the heavy toxin

load produced by the cancer, the weakening of our immune system by stress, etc.

The castor oil pack, which is quite simple, is a great way to cleanse the liver with an external "poultice." You simply soak a piece of cotton (a t-shirt works fine) in castor oil and put it on the skin over the liver (lower right abdomen) and wrap saran wrap around it to control the dripping. You then start with 2 or 3 hours and work up to where you can keep it on all night. The castor oil will draw the toxins out of the liver through the skin. Incredible!! I had just read about this same healing treatment in the "Save Your Life Course" as one of the most common things Dr. Schulze used to heal his "terminal" patients.

Of , course this would apply for those women with implants as our liver is over-loaded............

From: G M GRETTA <glass3311@...> Sent: Tue, February 1, 2011 9:26:48 AMSubject: RE: Inflammation, Oxalates, diet

hi patty; interesting article. but i tried for 5 min. to determine what ala and lod are. do you know? maybe my brain isnt working right today! it usually isnt. thanks. gg

From: glory2glory1401@...Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2011 19:17:09 +0000Subject: Inflammation, Oxalates, diet

Inflammation is a biggie with us!

Note her comment

"Oxalates deplete glutathione in a big way. Oxalates may be changing the trafficking of zinc. Oxalates and inflammation seem to go hand in hand, more research needs to be done on oxalates and inflammation. Oxalates induce oxidative stress and reduce glutathione, could possibly affect TH1 to TH2 shift."

Owens

Since completing her masters degree at the University of Texas in Dallas, Mrs.Owens has lectured widely in the U.S, including the Center for Disease Controland the National Institute of Health in Bethesda. She has also lectured as farafield as Scotland, England, Australia, and Norway. She brings into herlectures information she has gained from ten years of interacting with parentsand doctors of children with autism while she maintained an intense study ofthe medical literature, including literature that we need to understand today'sissues, but which got lost in earlier decades. This effort has been directedmainly at finding the basic science that can tell us how the sulfur systemworks: how it is integrated, how it matures, and how it interacts with othersystems. Oxalates appear to be part of that system, but their role outside therole of binding to calcium and incidentally forming kidney stones,

is littleunderstood. As a member of the Defeat Autism Now! Thinktank (a project of the AutismResearch Instiute), she continually dialogues with physicians and scientistswho treat children with autism. She also consults with sulfur scientists andother basic scientists who are on the cutting edges of their fields, attemptingto recruit them into studying autism, but also attempting to cross-pollinateinformation that generally stays behind disciplinary barriers. She doesextensive analysis of labwork, specializing in studying ratios and theirmeaning in the plasma amino acid tests and studying correlations within othertests. By comparing the findings and reference ranges from labs all over the USand world on different tests, she has developed some concerns about thesuitability of how reference ranges are calculated for urinary tests on youngchildren. She is working actively at getting some policy changes in place toassure more accurate testing for

this age group. Two years ago, in order togain from the experience of those outside autism circles, she began an internetlist where people discuss successes and failures they have had withsulfur-related supplements at sulfurstories @ . It now has over720 members. She recently opened a new group called Trying_Low_Oxalates, with170 members, currently, where people can learn how to implement a low oxalatediet. She is delighted to be here to talk about the amazing improvementschildren are experiencing on the low oxalate diet.

Q:Can you tell us what oxalates are, and the basics of the diet?

A:Oxalates are two carbons joined together with 4 oxygens. It's a structuresimilar to sulfate. There are a lot of problems with sulfate chemistry inautism, so it's interesting that the oxalate structure is so similar. Dr.Rimland did some studies (16-18) that showed B6 was affected in autism. B6 iskey for the sulfur chemistry, and for oxalates.

Whenyou have inflamed gut, Crohn's for example, very few oxalates are absorbed. Sosince autistic kids often have inflamed gut, it made sense to have alow-oxalate diet. We did a pilot study with 7 kids. All 7 were high inoxalates, and started the diet. They had problems with frequent urination, GIpain, etc. within a couple hours of eating. They had changes in behaviorfollowing eating. Things started changing with the diet. A lot of the things we'vebeen calling yeasty behaviors go away with a low-oxalate diet. A lot of thesekids had trouble taking DMG and TMG, glycine in general. We saw problems withconstipation/diarrhea in these kids before the diet, even after being treatedby GI docs. A lot of these children had trouble when introducing nuts, legumes,soy. A lot of these kids craved high-oxalate foods.

Q:What foods are high in oxalates?

A:Nuts, legumes, green leafy vegetables, spinach, chard, black raspberry, soy,pecans, refried beans, almond, beet, okra, sweet potatoes, chocolate, cocoa, alot of different teas, black current, dried fig, canned fruit salad, concordgrapes, rubarb, tamarillo, tapioca are all extremely high in oxalates. If yougoogle `oxalate contents of food' you should find all the details of high-oxalateand medium-oxalate foods.

Itmakes sense to try low-oxalate diet for at least a week before moving tomedium-oxalates.

Q:My son only eats PB & J, sugary juice, pretzels, milk, and chocolate. I have tried to limit his diet, but herefuses to eat longer than I can hold out. Any ideas on how to get him off this diet without starving?

A:Some of the food preferences of these kids are changing on the diet. Rice/corncaused one child to break out â€“ now that she's on a low-oxalate diet, thosesame foods aren't making her break out anymore. Chocolate and peanut butter arehigh in oxalates, jelly might be too. Milk is generally ok, but soy milk isextremely high in oxalate.