AutismOne: Jill James

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Friday, May 27 – 8:00-8:50am CT

The first person we heard speak at AutismOne was S. Jill James, Ph.D., director of the Biochemical Genetics Laboratory at ACHRI and professor of pediatrics, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences College of Medicine. I think you can pretty safely cross her off the “autism quack doctor” list.

The oxidative stress diagram I posted a few entries ago came from her slides (PPT, 2.4MB). The title of her talk was Pathogenic Implications of Low Glutathione Levels And Oxidative Stress in Children with Autism: Metabolic Biomarkers and Genetic Predisposition. Fourty-five power-point slides later, she summarizes with this:

The abnormal metabolic profile in children with autism strengthens the hypothesis that an inability to maintain glutathione redox status and to control oxidative stress may be central to the development of neurologic, immunologic, and gastrointestinal dysfunction that occur with autism.

The key biochemical relationship to understand – which was explained by several of the presenters at AutismOne – is shown below.

It’s kinda hard to explain this fully without being able to point to different things. Basically, what you see is that when things on the left side get screwed up it translates to low levels of glutathione and high levels of GSSG. That’s the opposite of what it should be an is the essence of oxidative stress. According to James’ research, the suplemental combination that helps the left side of this diagram work correctly is folinic + methl-B12 + betaine.

It’s important to note that this is seen in many, but certainly not all, people with autism.

For more info check out the slides and/or google Jill James.

More AutismOne entries coming soon… (15 or so)