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Metabolism of autism reveals developmental origins

medicalxpress.com

101–110 of 358 posts

Re: Metabolism of autism reveals developmental origins

#101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gut issues are a common comorbidity with autism, it could just be he had some kind of gluten sensitivity and treating it allowed more energy to compensate for autism.

When “comorbidity” is used in this context, are we actually referring to people dying because of it? Or does it just mean “are found together when discussing this disease?”

Morbidity doesn’t mean dying…

Re: Metabolism of autism reveals developmental origins

#102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gut issues are a common comorbidity with autism, it could just be he had some kind of gluten sensitivity and treating it allowed more energy to compensate for autism.

When “comorbidity” is used in this context, are we actually referring to people dying because of it? Or does it just mean “are found together when discussing this disease?”

The Latin morbus is disease and mortis is [of] death but my experience - and perhaps yours too - is that when discussions of morbidity (i.e. using the word morbid/morbidity) arise, they are often in the context where someone is near death or has died so it is a natural linguistic connection to make.

Remarkably often I find my partner has a different understanding of English words from me - she was schooled in French and can communicate in Italian and Spanish, but is also fluent in English (though spoken with French mannerisms which seem odd to me as a native English speaker). We often find we descend into discussions of the most correct meaning of a word in English which has a Latin root. The dictionary agrees with her mostly but I have an occasional win.

Re: Metabolism of autism reveals developmental origins

#103
post #3

Actual paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-024-06102-y

The paper is a super fascinating read, and lines up with several key features I've noticed in both of my professionally diagnosed autistic children (good luck getting access to a competent diagnostician who understands how the ASD criteria manifest in passing adults). It's really enlightening to see the association between Xanthine, one of the end-stage products of eATP metabolization, and the anxiety that is so prevalent within my own family.

From the Discussion[1] section of the paper:

> These self-calming connections in metabolism failed to develop in ASD. The natural consequence of the loss of these metabolic safeguards to overexcitation is for children with ASD to seek sameness to avoid the anxiety produced by change91, and to be more sensitive to environmental changes across many sensory domains.

And a bit further on:

> In the current study, xanthine was the purine that gained the most stimulatory (+r) correlations in 5-year-olds with ASD. Xanthine is one of the end-products of eATP metabolism97. Xanthine is known to trigger a cascade of events that leads to mitochondrial network fragmentation, reactive oxygen species and reactive nitrogen species (ROS and RNS), eicosanoid (e.g., leukotriene, HETE, and prostaglandin) signaling, immune activation, anxiety-associated behaviors, and consolidates long-term aversive memories that make the animal hypersensitive to future environmental changes that warn of environmental danger, cause fear, and trigger anxiety in mice, and is elevated in the blood of adults with anxiety disorders98. Anxiety is a common but under-recognized problem in autism99.

Another really important observation:

> A major result of this research was that the developmental differences observed in ASD were not the result of an increase or decrease of one causal metabolite, or an isolated change in the gut-brain axis, or neuroendocrine, autonomic, cytokine, or immunologic circuits. Instead, it was the interconnectedness and developmental state of the metabolic network that underlies all these systems that was fundamentally changed.

In the last year, the All Brains Belong VT organization has been working on a collection of information they call "All The Things" [2], which lines up with the paper's observation that there is an underlying metabolic network at play. As a side note, All Brains Belong VT is a fantastic organization that focuses heavily on validation and support in a healthcare industry which often feels incredibly invalidating for individuals who have been reporting symptoms across a wide variety of siloed physician specialties.

[1]: https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-024-06102-y#Sec25

[2]: https://allbrainsbelong.org/all-the-things/

Re: Metabolism of autism reveals developmental origins

#104

Used to have a mix of what could be considered ADHD/light asperbergers. I dont eat carbs and mostly stick to a keto diet, it resolved many symptoms. Our food is poison

> what could be considered ADHD/light asperbergers

could be considered, or did you get a diagnosis from a specialist? Self diagnosis is not reliable. If you don't have an official diagnosis you can't be certain you really have ADHD. There may be several differe tfactors relevant for YOU that make keto diet work for you. Same diet can be harmful for similar people who have ADHD.

Re: Metabolism of autism reveals developmental origins

#105

Used to have a mix of what could be considered ADHD/light asperbergers. I dont eat carbs and mostly stick to a keto diet, it resolved many symptoms. Our food is poison

> what could be considered ADHD/light asperbergers could be considered, or did you get a diagnosis from a specialist? Self diagnosis is not reliable. If you don't have an official diagnosis you can't be certain you really have ADHD. There may be several differe tfactors relevant for YOU that make keto diet work for you. Same diet can be harmful for similar people who have ADHD.

I have a diagnosis, i just dont trust doctors. please stop gaslighting me

Re: Metabolism of autism reveals developmental origins

#106
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then people should stop conflating the two. This whole "spectrum" nonsense is nonsense. Your coworkers are not autistic - they are weird or whatever other more PC term you might want to use, and that's great - many, if not most, great engineers are!. There is no need to pathologize differences in people. Your relative, by contrast, is. If you have a habit of feeling sleepy at work, it's not like we say you're on the…

There is a continuous range of people in between. Where do you draw the line?

[deleted]

Re: Metabolism of autism reveals developmental origins

#107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>People like to call themselves autistic when it's just social awkwardness, and some doctors might even improperly diagnose them, but these are separate from the condition. What makes such a diagnosis incorrect when various forms of social awkwardness satisfy criteria A and D of the diagnostic criteria [1], and all of the criteria for social pragmatic disorder[2]? In the DSM-V-TR era psychiatrists are instructed to n…

You cannot self-diagnose, and only a trained medical professional can diagnose autism. By trained medical professional, I mean an autism expert who is either a therapist (PHD, PsyD, LMFT, etc.) or a psychiatrist. Most people who use terms like autistic, bi-polar, sociopath, narcist, etc. are using the terms incorrectly. Also, I suspect you are correct that most ASD diagnoses do not use brain scans and rely on a train…

I’m not sure you think the word “cannot” means what most people think it means.

Re: Metabolism of autism reveals developmental origins

#108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> defined in such a way that two with the same label can have remarkably little overlap in terms of observed behaviour I believed this until my daughter was diagnosed and then I was later diagnosed. My experience with (some) professionals was a surprise to me; a much wider variety of "observed behaviors" than I expected seem to stem from sensory issues for example. And I think it makes sense that humans might adopt a…

If you ask the majority of people if somebody who they do not perceive as engaging in autisitic behaviours, and was not diagnosed as autistic, but considers themselves autistic, is autistic, they will say no. Scientifically (which how it’s defined in the OP), it’s not defined by psychiatrist appraisal and self-assessment plays no necessary role in the process and alone holds no diagnostic validity. We can also invert…

I’ve never met anyone that self identifies as autistic that didn’t have some obvious behaviors (in the tech world there are a lot). This seems like a strawman.

Re: Metabolism of autism reveals developmental origins

#109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you ask the majority of people if somebody who they do not perceive as engaging in autisitic behaviours, and was not diagnosed as autistic, but considers themselves autistic, is autistic, they will say no. Scientifically (which how it’s defined in the OP), it’s not defined by psychiatrist appraisal and self-assessment plays no necessary role in the process and alone holds no diagnostic validity. We can also invert…

I’m not sure what point you are making with this reply. I’m late/adult self-identifying autistic. I’ve done this with some of the standard tests that psychiatrists use, attended workgroups related to the topic, and studied extensively. Self-diagnosis is highly accurate for autism, both for positive and negative evaluations. I am also pursuing a formal diagnosis because so many people downplay it when I tell them I’m…

Adults that get diagnosed later typically have developed very good ability to mask so casual acquaintances probably don’t suspect they are autistic. So it’s not surprising they would downplay it.

Re: Metabolism of autism reveals developmental origins

#110
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then people should stop conflating the two. This whole "spectrum" nonsense is nonsense. Your coworkers are not autistic - they are weird or whatever other more PC term you might want to use, and that's great - many, if not most, great engineers are!. There is no need to pathologize differences in people. Your relative, by contrast, is. If you have a habit of feeling sleepy at work, it's not like we say you're on the…

There is a continuous range of people in between. Where do you draw the line?

This is like asking where to draw the line when somebody is bald. Are you bald if you have 1 hair? Yes. 2? 3? 137? There's of course reasonable room for discretion in saying what is or isn't bald. But it isn't reasonable to say somebody with a full-on afro is on the spectrum of being bald.

Literally some of the most high functioning and successful individuals are being diagnosed as "on the spectrum" of what is, in its "real" form, a completely crippling and disabling condition that yields individuals who would have simply been classified as mentally retarded in the past. This is just completely nonsensical.

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