Lorenzo's Oil for Autism
From the article, about the kid's dad. Genetics much?
Scientific studies have shown that autistics have a dysfunctional immune system. The Th1 part that fights viruses and fungal infections is weak. The Th2 part that's associated with autoimmunity and allergies is overactivated.
Then how come I don't get sick OR have severe allergies? (The worst I get in allergic reaction is some sinus problems when there's a ton of pollen outside...)
Pretty simple. Even though autistics as a group have immune system problems, there are exceptions just like any other medical condition. For example, one infection can cause 5 diseases with symptoms ranging from none to death. You could have had a super immune system that autism lessened resulting in it now being only above average instead of super.
Effective for what? Curing the root condition? WRONG.
WRONG. The root cause has never been found - except in genetics.
WRONG. Any effort to cure the incurable is quackery - as well as dangerous. And far from harmless to boot. Especially as one is acting OUTSIDE medicine.
And not peer reviewed and labelled by those who know as rubbish. I have no such problems and neither do a number of Aspies I know. Any immune system issue is seperate to the Autistic Spectrum - a seperation that you always deny exists. Erroneously.
If the cause hasn't been found, then you can't honestly say a treatment is ineffective at treating it. Doctors used to blame their patients for getting stomach ulcers by telling them they were caused by stress. Now it's been proven that a bacterial infection with H. pylori is the cause and can be treated with antibotics. Before it was proven, antibiotics were just as effective yet you would have labeled antibiotic treatment quackery because it wasn't proven yet and you would have been wrong.
Researchers believe multiple sclerosis may be caused by a virus (such as HHV-6a) but it hasn't been conclusively proven. But that doesn't change anything. Anti-viral treatments are still just as effective before it's proven than after it's proven.
There's increasing evidence that autism may be caused by a virus but it takes decades to find a virus and conclusively prove it causes a disease. This man quit a high-paying job, researched autism 90 hours a week to help his kid, and you quickly judge him as a quack. That is wrong. If he is proven right and his treatment works, you will have been proven a liar.
There is NO evidence that autism is incurable and plenty of evidence that it is curable. Acting outside of mainstream medicine is dangerous? NO. Conventional medicine, which kills an estimated 100,000 people every year, is dangerous. I think everyone should act outside of mainstream medicine, go to alternative doctors, reject vaccines, most antibiotics, and most drugs in favor of all natural nutrients and herbs.
I forgot. You know more than all the researchers and experts who believe otherwise. I'll let you debate it with them if you want. I'll take the words of the experts.
Zendell:
I wouldn't like to get into an argument over this, but I am just curious. You keep repeating that there is plenty of evidence which proves that autism is curable, and that it is causd by a virus. Could you actually provide some of it here? With quotes and references, if possible.
I have been hearing lots of vague statements about autism being possible to cure, but I have yet to come across a SINGLE case desciption where a child was actually cured and it was proven with 100 percent certainty. Granted, lots of children do make a dramatic improvement, but that is a different matter altogether.
And yes, alternative medicine CAN be just as dangerous as conventional treatments, provided it is misused. To give you the simplest possible examples: most medicinal herbs contain alkaloids and other highly poisonous substances, and if one does not use them properly one may suffer serious damage to one's body or even die; large doses of vitamins are quite harmful for the body, and cause illness in exactly the same way as lack of vitamins does; and so forth.
Besides, quackery does exist, regardless of whether one is comfortable with this idea or not. There are plenty of dubious things going on within the official medical system too, of course, but the situation there is kept more or less under control. There is some monitoring of the treatments and their effects, and however insufficient it might be, it still helps a great deal. In alternative medicine there is NO such control whatsoever. One may basically advertise and sell any "treatment" one likes in order to make a profit, and there will be nobody to check whether it is actually effective or not (at best - at worst it could be overtly damaging).
This is what worries me most when it comes to the theories about autism being curable. There is no guarantee whatsoever that they were not concocted with a material interest in mind, simply because selling different "treatments" is quite lucrative. If this is the case, then the health of the children who are being exposed to them is the last thing anybody is going to care about. As for the parents, well, many of them are already desperate, anguished, or just worn out from having to take care of a severely disabled child; it is all too easy to take advantage of these feelings and convince them that their only hope lies in the suggested "treatment".
Given that this is alternative medicine, there is no real way to prevent such a scenario from taking place. I am very much afraid that it ALREADY IS taking place, and, frankly, thinking about it gives me a feeling of some primal terror. It is hair-raising, literally, and I cannot help wondering how many other people feel this.
(this, regarding chelation, HBOT balloons, vinegar/garlic infusions and the rest of it)
As for this man, I agree, good luck to him. I just hope he is not using something other than olive or rapeseed oil which could actually be damaging (many plants are far from harmless).
Yeah, conventional medicine is so dangerous that societies where it's widely available are the ones with the longest life expectancy of any societies in history - despite obesity rates, etc. Some doctors don't know what they're doing and some are dishonest, but that's true of every profession - not least alternative medicine practitioners. But some people appear to think that if a conventional treatment is not absolutely infallible nor absolutely, infinitely safe (in the real world, nothing is, but these people don't live in the real world) then they'd rather go for an alternative treatment whose safety and efficacy have not been scientifically tested, because it's more 'natural' or something (so is bubonic plague which, incidentally is now easily cured with antibiotics and once wiped out a third of Europe's population, despite the abundance of folk remedies that were invented at the time).
By the way, there are parents in parts of the world who would swear by the efficacy of withchcraft, so if all your evidence for something is what the parents, who cannot be expected to be objective, are saying, then I'd rather go with more reliable evidence.
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I'm male by the way (yes, I know my avatar is misleading).
And come back to a situation akin to the Dark Ages where scores of people will die from easily preventable diseases such as measles. Then every family might well revert to having 8-10 children because most would not survive until adulthood.
Sure. The number of people dying from pneumonia after a banal flu infection will go through the roof, but so what.
You know, it is lucky that it happened to be olive oil. What if it were jimsonweed?
KristaMeth
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I want to know how many of us on here feel we have weak immune systems. I've always thought my immune system was sub par. Interesting theory, and I'm definitely happy to see any kind of natural remedies being tested for any illness. Natural is the way to go. This is pretty cool. Best of luck to this guy and his kid.
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My immune system is just fine. I got sick an average amount I think growing up (had strep about once a year it seems like though), and now get sick maybe once a year.
I do have an autoimmune thing though, and have quite a few allergies (my mother, father, and brother all have/had allergies and autoimmune things too).
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Always had Asthma as a lad, now it seems to coming back. Had lots of sinus infections, and most always got the influenza.
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KRistameth, we've had polls here in the past about "do you get sick a lot"? And it seems that we are either just as healthy or more healthy than the average NT.
It's interesting when an autistic has a some digestive problem or autoimmune issue, some people will tie it in with autism. When NTs have the same issues or other health problems it's just "getting sick".
KristaMeth
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It's interesting when an autistic has a some digestive problem or autoimmune issue, some people will tie it in with autism. When NTs have the same issues or other health problems it's just "getting sick".
Yeah, even us aspies tend to want to make links where there aren't any when it comes to autism. It was just something for me to ponder about, 'cause I've always had a hard time getting over illness, or healing from wounds and abrasions, and overall I've always been somewhat unhealthy (scoliosis, hypothyroidism, lactose intolerance, etc.).
Yep. Just a thought though.
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Push the envelope, watch it bend.
It's interesting when an autistic has a some digestive problem or autoimmune issue, some people will tie it in with autism. When NTs have the same issues or other health problems it's just "getting sick".
Should I believe the anecdotal reports on this site or the scientific research?
Several autoimmune issues are found in autism. 58% of autistic children studied had autoantibodies against myelin basic protein. These antibodies aren't just found in autism. They are found in a few other neurological diseases such as multiple sclerosis and encephalopathy. IgG antibodies from mothers of autistics have been shown to cause autism symptoms in monkeys exposed to them. IgG antibodies from mothers of NT children did not cause these symptoms.
I'm not sure this site represents most people with ASDs. Researchers have already looked into it. Here's their findings:
Types of Immune Deficiency that occur in Autism
Myeloperoxidase Deficiency - reduces ability to fight yeast
Severe Combined Immunodeficiency Disease (SCID)
Selective IgA Deficiency - 100 -200 times higher than in the normal population
IgG Subclass Deficiency - 20% of autistics
Complement Deficiency
CD4 T- cell deficiency (HHV-6a is a known cause of CD4 T-cell deficiency)
Autoimmunity (58% with ASDs. 90% with ASDs who are positive for measles virus, 84% with ASDs who are positive for HHV-6 virus)
From http://www.centerforautism.com/Biological/immune/
"Two main immune dysfunctions in autism are immune regulation involving pro-inflammatory cytokines and autoimmunity. Mercury and an infectious agent like the measles virus are currently two main candidate environmental triggers for immune dysfunction in autism...The cell-mediated immunity is impaired as evidenced by low numbers of CD4 cells and a concomitant T-cell polarity with an imbalance of Th1/Th2 subsets toward Th2. Impaired humoral immunity on the other hand is evidenced by decreased IgA causing poor gut protection. Studies showing elevated brain specific antibodies in autism support an autoimmune mechanism...Increase in Th2 may explain the increased autoimmunity, such as the findings of antibodies to MBP and neuronal axonal filaments in the brain."
From http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entre ... h=16512356
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