How fever might negate autism behaviors

Yesterday's news, but worth reposting anyway. I've experienced this with my kids. I thought it was pretty freaky when it happened. I remember the last time they were both fairly ill, vomiting, fever, etc. We pulled them off their supplements for the week, but instead of tanking, they were pretty well-behaved and "normal" in their speech and actions. Very odd. Now, it makes sense. Read on....

Newsday.com

Study: Fever lessens autism symptoms
BY DELTHIA RICKS
December 4, 2007

Key behavior ranging from better concentration to improved word use tends to occur when a child with autism has a fever, scientists report in an unusual investigation published yesterday.

Exactly how a fever changes the brain remains a matter of speculation. But scientists at the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore have found that even though the effects are temporary, the discovery opens a new window to understanding autism.

Dr. Andrew Zimmerman, director of medical research at the institute's autism and related disorders center, said the study was inspired by anecdotal reports from parents and clinicians who found that when a child with autism developed a fever, many classic signs of the condition seem to subside. The effect, however, is fleeting.

Zimmerman and collaborator Laura Curran studied 30 children with autism between the ages of 2 and 18 during and after an episode of fever to determine if there was any truth to the rumors about behavioral changes. The team defined a fever as 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit and asked parents to document their child's behavior throughout the episode.

"The patients we took measurements on all returned to baseline after a week," Zimmerman said, referring to a reversal to previous behavior.Despite the reversal, Zimmerman said the change was eye-opening because children not only spoke more and made better eye contact, some experienced better overall relationships with parents and peers.

Zimmerman, who reports the transformation in the journal Pediatrics, told Newsday the discovery provides a better understanding of the brain. The organ has tremendous plasticity, he said of its ability to adapt to stress, which in this case was a fever. He also said the new data sheds more light on why autism occurs. Fever causes a change in how the brain sends messages between cells.

During a fever, the body produces a flood of infinitesimal proteins called cytokines that may facilitate messages between brain cells. When the fever subsides, this enhanced activity diminishes as well.

"In the science of autism a lot of people are looking at the synapse as the area where the problems are," Zimmerman said. A synapse is the tiny gap between the ends of nerve fibers across which messages are fired.

Edward Carr, a professor of psychology at Stony Brook University, said that though the research is interesting, children with autism experience improvements without fevers. "His point shows there's a certain plasticity, but I don't think improvement depends on a fever.

Dr. Eric Gould, a pediatrician in Great Neck, said he believes the study was published prematurely and provides nothing useful for parents and their children. "Revealing this information at this juncture is purposeless," he said.

Gould added that "observational studies are not worth anything. They're so patently absurd on the surface. You can't compare apples to apples because each of those kids was different. It's not like each of them had strep throat."

Oh, a programming note here ... Don Imus is back on the radio at WABC, New York. That's 770 on the AM dial in the New York area. Or, listen online -- click here. I'm certainly not suggesting anyone excuse his on-air remarks that got him in so much trouble, but I will point out that he and his wife have been tremendous advocates of the autism community. Imus was talking about the ins and outs of autism issues, including vaccines and thimerosal, before it hit the mainstream media. Like I said - just pointing his return out.

GFCF Gingersnap Bites

This may be a cheesy follow to my GFCF Gingerbread People recipe, but it's been very popular at my house the last couple of days with my kids and a few of their friends. So, I thought I'd post it too.

I'll just call this Gingersnap Bites. GFCF of course. Oh, and egg-free, soy-free, rice-free, corn-free and bean-free. Whew!

Make 1 recipe for Gingerbread People dough.

Instead of rolling out, divide dough into two chunks.

Take one chunk and using floured hands, roll it out into a long log on a floured surface to about 1/2" thickness.

Now, using a floured knife, cut the log into many small bite-sized cookies.

Place on an ungreased cookie sheet.

Repeat with the 2nd chunk of dough. You should be able to fit both on one cookie sheet.

BAKE 10 minutes, not 14.

GFCF Gingerbread People

This was a hit this week in my house. I thought I'd try this cookie recipe out before Christmas arrived to see if it worked. It does, and it's versatile. With a few changes, I made this rice free too. The source is the Special Diets for Special Kids cookbook, by Lisa Lewis. This was a contribution by Karen Seroussi. I made some changes to the original recipe and I'll note those along the way.

Ingredients:
2/3 cup brown rice flour (I used sorghum)
1/3 cup sweet rice flour (I used tapioca here)
1/3 cup tapioca starch (I also kept this 1/3 cup tapioca)
1 TBL cinnamon
1 tsp ginger (use more for a cookie with a real ginger bite)
2 tsp xanthan gum
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup oil
1/4 cup molasses (I used Steens Cane Syrup)
2 TBL water

Recipe
Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl. So, my flour mixture was 2/3 cup sorghum and 2/3 cup tapioca. Then, add the liquids.

Mix well. Add tapioca if necessary to get a dough that you can knead.

Roll the dough out on a floured board or surface, using the tapioca, to about a quarter-inch thickness. Cut out gingerbread person shapes, flouring the cutter with tapioca.

Bake at 350 degrees on an ungreased cookie sheet for about 14 minutes. Remove from pan and cool on a rack. This gave me a nice, crunchy cookie. Bake for less time to make more chewy and less crunchy.

If you want, add eyes and buttons with icing.

Meat rice easy dish

Here's a nice slap-it-together GFCF meal. Everyone in my family likes this one. And it's free of gluten, casein, soy, egg, beans.

- 1 recipe pizza sauce

- ground meat (beef, chicken, turkey)

- brown rice, cooked OR pasta noodles OR kidney beans OR quinoa OR potatoes

Now, make the pizza sauce in a sauce pan. Cook the brown rice or pasta. Brown the ground meat.

When done, drain grease from the meat. Add some pizza sauce to the meat and stir in -- as much or little as you like. Add a cup or more of the rice or pasta. Stir. Sprinkle with some sea salt and/or favorite spices.

Serve.

Yummy gluten-free sausage

I don't mind, every so often, promoting a product that I come across. I found a pretty good brand of sausage that not only offers gluten-free varieties, but also states that it's gluten-free ON THE FRONT of the package. And, because they did so, I bought a pack of their sausage. This is Aidells sausage. I bought the chicken-apple flavor. It is gluten-free, no MSG and made with chicken not injected with hormones. Perfect! The kids liked it but I had to explain why there were small pieces of apple in the sausage. I told them it was potato, which they would prefer over apple. Anyway, great product.

Check Aidells out at its Web site. They also have this to say about gluten: "Gluten is an ingredient in soy sauce which we use in some of our sausages. These are Thai, Lamb with Rosemary and Lemon Chicken. As for dairy products, our Pesto Sausage contains Romano cheese. Our spice blends are our trade secrets. However, if you are allergic to any particular spice, please contact us. We will happily tell you if it is in any of our products."

How cell phones and Wi-Fi might cause autism

I don't know about you, but this study makes a heck of a lot of sense to me.

Link Between Wireless Technology and Autism Unveiled in New Scientific Report

Washington, DC (PressReleaseHelp) November 15, 2007 -- A groundbreaking scientific study published this week in the peer-reviewed Australasian Journal of Clinical Environmental Medicine warns that wireless communication technology may be responsible for accelerating the rise in autism among the world’s children. (J.Aust.Coll.Nutr.& Env.Med, 2007; Vol.26, No.2 pages 3 – 7; report attached.)

Autism is a disabling neuro-developmental disorder whose cause is not completely understood, but is known to involve heavy metal toxicity. American advocacy groups call autism "the fastest-growing developmental disability in the United States." Twenty years ago, only 1 in 10,000 children were diagnosed with some form of autism; U.S. government data show the rate in 2002 to be 1 in 150; clinicians who treat the disease estimate the occurrence today to be closer to 1 in 100.

Although some of the increase in autism can be ascribed to more efficient diagnosis by the medical community The children studied were seen by Tamara Mariea², a certified clinical nutritionist based in Nashville, Tennessee, specializing in treating autism. She is the primary author of the paper, along with Dr. George Carlo¹, an expert on the dangers of electromagnetic radiation (EMR), who headed the world’s largest research program on mobile phone health hazards in the 1990s. Their work revealed the autism-wireless technology connection following a series of tests on autistic children monitored during 2005 and 2006.

The autistic children followed specific detoxification protocols in an environment that was mitigated with regard to sources of EMR including mobile phones and WiFi³. Heavy metal excretions were monitored from hair, urine and feces over periods ranging from several weeks to several months. The researchers found that with protocols administered in the mitigated environment, heavy metals were cleared from the children’s bodies in a pattern dependent on time and molecular weight. The heaviest metals, such as mercury and uranium, cleared last. In many of the children, the decrease in metals was concomitant with symptom amelioration.Tamara Mariea, said: “These findings give us very important clues to solving some of the enigmas we see in the autism literature regarding the efficacy of detoxification. And, we are extremely pleased with the results we are now seeing in these children. Our protocols are working.”

Dr. Carlo said, “These findings tie in with other studies showing adverse cell-membrane responses and disruptions of normal cell physiology. The EMR apparently causes the metals to be trapped in cells, slowing clearance and accelerating the onset of symptoms.”

The authors point out that the rise in cases of autism is paralleled by the huge growth in mobile phone and WiFi usage since the late 1990’s – with worldwide wireless usage now having reached nearly 4 billion persons.

“Although some of the increase in autism can be ascribed to more efficient diagnosis by the medical community,” Dr. Carlo said, “A rise of this magnitude must have a major environmental cause. Our data offer a reasonable mechanistic explanation for a connection between autism and wireless technology.”

Notes to Editors:1. In the 1990s, Dr George Carlo headed the $28.5 million Wireless Technology Research program, funded by the mobile phone industry and overseen by the federal government, studying health hazards from mobile phone technology. He is currently head of the non-profit Science and Public Policy Institute, based in Washington, D.C. 2. Tamara Mariea is Director of Internal Balance, Inc. in Nashville, Tennessee. Since 2000, she has helped over 500 autistic children.

3. WiFi refers to technologies that use wireless communication to connect computers to the Internet.