Autism: Getting To The Root Cause With Functional Medicine

A lot of their behaviors become the focus, but those behaviors are really in response to the neuroinflammation that the child is experiencing.

Welcome to the Doctor's Pharmacy. I'm Dr. Mark Hyman, that's Pharmacy with an F, F-A-R-M-A-C-Y, a place for conversations that matter. And today we're going to have a very difficult conversation about autism, which is a diagnosis that is increasing at dramatic rates from one in 1,500 or more to, you know, up to one in 35 boys. I mean, it's staggering. And the question is why? And today we're gonna talk about autism with none other than our favorite doctor at the Ultra Wellness Center, George Papanicolaou. He's an extraordinary doc, one of my favorites, and he's just such a good man. And I've come to really respect him. and honor him and learn more about him every day. Not only is he a great doctor, but he's a good human being and I'm just happy to be able to work with him. So welcome, George.

Thank you, Mark.

Now this is a tough topic. Autism has been increasing, it's a topic of great controversy. There are all sorts of debates about what causes it, vaccinations, not vaccinations, we're not gonna get into that today, but it's a hot topic. And there's no arguing with the fact that it is increasing. It is really increasing. And some say, oh, it's just better counting and better assessments, but not at the scale we're seeing it. So why are we seeing such a rapid increase in autism?

Well, that's the controversy. We're not entirely sure why we're seeing it. I mean, there are some thoughts about, one of the things I read is the major way of thinking about it in science today is that it's 80% genetic and 20% environmental. Which really, when I read that statistic, I was really shocked because... Okay. And so there's definitely genetic component to it, but it's clear that the thing that changes, the thing that can improve, the thing that can even lead to a child coming off the spectrum diagnosis is changing those environmental inputs. So science may say it's only 20%, but it's 100% of what works. And that's what counts.

Just to stop you there, because if you look at the data, it's pretty striking. In the 60s and 70s, the rates of autism were about one in 5,000 kids. One in 5,000 kids. Now, it's one in 54. kids and boys at a much higher rate.

1 in 35 and girls 1 in 145.

It's terrifying and I can't keep imagining. Every year it's getting worse and boys are four times more likely to be diagnosed. So, you know, I get going from 1 in 5,000 to 1 in 2,000 or 1 in 1,000, but not 1 in 5,000 to 1 in 35 boys. That doesn't make any sense as a genetic problem.

No.

Because our genes don't change that fast. But you know what's changed? Our environment. So what are the real drivers and causes of autism?

Number one on my list.

It's not a random event.

No, it's not random at all. And I think that as you just brought out, there's just something more going on. I think it's pretty clear we're suffering the effects of very modern society. And one of the things we have in our society that is really dangerous is the food that we feed ourselves. So it really starts with food that in many ways is toxic. From the glyphosate that's in it and the GMO seeds that are used, our food supply damages us. It's information, as you've said so many times. And not only does it have direct impact on our gut microbiome, but it has information actually changes and can impact our genes. And so from one generation to the next, you can actually turn genes on that will impact the next generation and the generation after that. So, food has a direct impact on our gut microbiome, has an inflammatory autoimmune impact, and it has a genetic impact. So, I would start with food followed by toxins, heavy metals.

Absolutely, heavy metals, pesticides, chemicals. You know, Dr. Phil Andriau, who's an incredible scientist, has really documented how the increase in toxic load in our society has really affected these kids. And, they're like the yellow canary in the coal mine. You know, the canary was put in the coal mine with the coal miners. So when the canary drops dead, you know the air was bad and you had to get out of there. Well, these kids are genetically susceptible. And we always say the genes load the gun, the environment pulls the trigger. Yes. And what's changed dramatically is our food supply. Not only have we added all these agrochemicals, pesticides, herbicides, glyphosate is a microbiome destroyer. And now it's on 70% of all crops. and it not only destroys the microbiome of the soil, but it destroys our own human microbiome, which is critical for our health. And 95% of autistic kids have gut issues, have real gut issues. Not only that, we've changed the kind of food we're eating. For example, the gluten that we're eating now is not the wheat that we ate that our ancestors ate. It's a hybridized form of wheat that has much higher levels of gliadin proteins, much more likely to cause issues with kids. We are born by C-sections, we give antibiotics, we're not breastfed, all these things tend to get these kids immune systems deregulated. And one of the things we know about autism is that it's an immune disorder. If you do an autopsy on these kids' brains, they're just riddled with inflammation. Riddled with inflammation. They actually done brain scans and they see these brains are bigger. Why? Because they're swollen. And why are they swollen? It's all the same things we think about in functional medicine that cause inflammation. It's food, it's food sensitivities, it's toxins, it's leaky gut, it's all these factors, allergens, microbes, infections, all these things are driving it. And we don't approach autism in that way in this country. We don't treat it as a systemic disorder. I always say that, you know, is it a brain disorder or is it a disorder that affects the brain? Is it a systemic disorder that affects the brain? It is not a brain disorder. And in the Manifestations are in the brain, right? But the actual causes are things we can do something about. So when parents, I mean, I see this all the time, George, it just makes me so heartbroken. When these parents get a child with autism, it gets diagnosed. And essentially what they're told is, your child has autism. There's really not much treatment. You can use what we call ABA, behavioral therapy. and get ready for a difficult life, get ready to put your kid in an institution someday, and we're sorry. That just is unconscionable in my mind, given the amount of science we now have about autism, about the inflammation, about how to treat these things. And it's just devastating to these families, and yet they're not given any pathway to help these kids improve the quality of their health of their life.

They're given a pathway, but it's a limited pathway. Yeah, I mean, it's a pathway that you just mentioned. using applied behavioral analytic therapy. And that's just to change the behavior, right? Which is just a symptom of the neuroinflammation that the child is experiencing. A lot of their behaviors become the focus, but those behaviors are really in response to the neuroinflammation that the child is experiencing. And so one of the latest ways of trying to treat children with autism is actually diagnose them sooner because data has shown that children with autism will do better socially socially if you treat them more intensively early on with these therapies, speech therapy, occupational therapy, physical therapy, and then applied behavioral analytics. Therapeutic model by itself doesn't work. That's why I think- It helps them.

Adjust a little bit. It's been so crude.

When I say it doesn't work, it doesn't give the mother that child that she knows that her child can be, a child that can interact, a child that can feel, a child that can fulfill all their neurologic capability, that those behavioral changes aren't enough. And that's why, as I've said to you before, I think every kid with autism should have a functional medicine workup because we do look at the systemic impacts, the systemic causes of this brain disorder. and it's in doing so that we've been able to see as many changes as we do in the children that we treat with autism here at the Ulster Wellness Center.

It's really true. I mean, I hate to say this because it sounds terrible, but I love seeing kids with autism because there's so many things you can do. Absolutely. They almost all have immune dysregulation. They almost all have gut issues. Most of them have toxin loads that are high. Most of them have nutritional deficiencies. many of them have mitochondrial issues which are energy production. And these are all things that we know how to approach with a functional medicine approach.

And they're not that hard to figure out or find in testing.

No, and I'm not saying we can cure autism, although I've had cases of complete reversal, which is dramatic, but we can improve the quality of life, we can improve their functioning, we can improve their speech. I remember I met this one doctor, who was an incredible physician and he told me this incredible story of his son who was autistic. And I'd written this book years ago called the UltraMind Solution, which was about how to fix your broken brain by fixing your body first, by healing your body first. Because it was very clear to me that most brain disorders were systemic issues where there was imbalances in the body that affected the brain. And one of the simple things I, you know, when I talked about some of these cases of autism in the.

Book.

This doctor read the book and saw that I had recommended to get off of gluten and dairy, and we're going to talk about why that's important. And he said he just tried it with his son who was five years old and hadn't said a word his entire life. And he got him off gluten and dairy, and a short while later, The kids started talking, started chatting, and he was learning language. He had receptive language, but he had no expressive language. And he just literally started crying. And when I hear these stories, sometimes it's that simple. Now, it's not always that simple. No, sometimes it's not. But we know a methodology, really a system of evaluating patients using the model of functional medicine, understanding the body as a system, and being able to map out where the imbalances and dysfunctions are and fix those and get these patients to get better.

And I think it's important to know that it's now been changed to the terminology, autism spectrum disorder, because it's not autism, it's autisms. It's a spectrum. Every child is different. We have no protocol, but we know where to look. And every child is gonna have a puzzle a complex puzzle pieces of puzzles that we're gonna have to put together that might be, it is different for every kid. One of the things that I do first when a family comes to me is I let them talk and I let them tell me their story and I listen because they haven't been listened to for a long time. Most of the families that come to me have not been heard and they've been given tools that don't work. and they come discouraged and disappointed. And I can see the apprehension on their face of whether or not they're going to be heard. And so the one of the most important things I do is I make that connection with moms and dads and help them understand that they've come to a place that they're going to be heard and that they're going to be helped. And the things that seem to be Two of the really hot buttons for parents are sleep and behavior and gut issues, diarrhea, constipation, and then the behavior and the lack of sleep.

What I want to sort of underscore is that in traditional medicine, when you get a diagnosis of autism, it's a brain disease. Yeah. And you need to use psychological tools to fix it.

Yep.

You use psychiatric drugs to suppress the symptoms, which they give them antipsychotics and all kinds of stuff.

-Antiseizure meds, antidepressants, antipsychotics.

-Yeah, terrible. And when these kids come in, if you take a good history, you find so many other physical problems with these kids. Like you said, gut issues. 95% have gut issues. They have congestion in their nose, they've had earaches and ear infections and taken lots of antibiotics. They've had eczema, they've had dry spots all over their skin, their hair and scalp, they might have dandruff. They have all these immune and gut issues. And it's so well described in the science, this is not stuff we're just hypothesizing, this is really there. They're documented. And then the question is, why are they ignored? Why do we ignore all these things which are clues? They're like breadcrumbs that tell you what's going on. Right? Or if the kids...

It's shocking.

It's shocking to me.

It is shocking.

And like you, I want to just underscore what you said, which is so important, George, is that when you see someone with a disease like autism, they're all treated uniformly. Okay, you have these descriptive behaviors. You have no expressive language, you're socially disconnected, you have sort of repetitive behaviors. There's like, if you look at the DSM-5 criteria, which is a psychiatric manual, these are the criteria that you have to meet to meet the definition of autism. But there are 100 ways to get to those symptoms, and there are 100 different ways to treat these patients. And if you've seen one kid with autism, you've seen one kid with autism. It doesn't mean you can, I mean, yes, there are common themes and there are things that you will do, But in each kid, it's different. Some kid it's a mitochondrial issue, some kid it's a heavy metal issue, some kid it's a gut issue. It's so different. Some kids have severe methylation issues and B vitamin issues. Some kids have other issues that really are related to infections that are untreated. Toxins.

Yeah, toxins.

So there's really an environmental level.

Mitochondrial issues.

Yeah, I mean we had a professor from, was trained at Harvard and Oxford, a pediatric neurologist who came to Cleveland Clinic, they did ground round, Suzanne Goh, who has done some incredibly nuanced research published in JAMA and major medical journals on mitochondrial dysfunction in these kids. Their brain can't produce energy and they give them mitochondrial support, which is basically.

Supplements that we use to support the energy production.

And guess what happens?

They get better. You start to see immediate improvements.

Hey everybody, it's Dr. Hyman. Thanks for tuning into the Doctor's Pharmacy. I hope you're loving this podcast. It's one of my favorite things to do and introducing you all the experts that I know and I love and that I've learned so much from. And I want to tell you about something else I'm doing, which is called Mark's Picks. It's my weekly newsletter. And in it, I share my favorite stuff from foods to supplements to gadgets to tools to enhance your health. It's all the cool stuff that I use and that my team uses to optimize and enhance our health. And I'd love you to sign up for the weekly newsletter. I'll only send it to you once a week on Fridays. Nothing else, I promise. And all you have to do is go to DrHyman.com/pics to sign up. That's DrHyman.com/pics, P-I-C-K-S, and sign up for the newsletter and I'll share with you my favorite stuff that I use to enhance my health and get healthier and better and live younger longer. Now back to this week's episode. So George, let's go kind of deep in. So, you know, if you have a kid comes in with autism, What's the initial approach to evaluating these kids? How do you start to think about what's going on? You do a deep history, right? What are you looking for in the history?

So in the history, I'm looking for any familial history of autism just to make any neurodevelopment disorders. Then I'm looking specifically at mom. What was her nutrition like when she went into pregnancy? What was her stress levels going into pregnancy? Getting a really good understanding of how she was in pregnancy, because that has a big impact on the child.

Did she have fillings? Did she get vaccines with mercury in them?

Exactly. Did she get antibiotics prenatally or antenatally, which can impact the child's microbiome? Because a lot of these kids, just as a quick aside, they come out of the womb with gut issues. They have diarrhea from day one. Then I want to know about what were the child's early days like? Did they have feeding issues? Did they have hypotonia, meaning that they were, they didn't have the muscle tone that a baby should have. Did they meet developmental milestones?

Did they have colic? Did they have ear infections in any bodies? Anybody have c-section births?

Did they get immunizations early in life? Hepatitis B vaccine can have some yeast proteins in it and that can maybe possibly sensitize a child to yeast and create some inflammatory processes early on.

I want to be clear about vaccines. I don't think vaccines cause autism. No, I do think that There's a whole field of vaccinomics. Mayo Clinic and others have departments of vaccinomics, which looks at the variability in responses. And we know that, you know, certain kids who are sick when often they get vaccines can have adverse immune responses. And we know that autism is an inflammatory disorder. So there is something going on. But it is not that vaccines cause autism.

There are many things that can trigger an immune response.

So I just think I want to be clear about that. I think that we do have to look at these bigger issues of what is driving the inflammation. And so you take that history and then we want to dive into the testing.

Right. One of the first tests that we do is we look at the gut microbiome. And so we're going to do a complete diagnostic stool evaluation and we're going to be looking for the things that you've mentioned. Candida, which is a mold, is one of the major things that we typically will find in the gut, but we're also looking for an imbalance of good and bad bacteria that can be caused by the nutrition that they had, nutrition that their mom had, and the antibiotic use, we're going to be looking for parasites. Kids can develop these parasites that can be autoimmune triggers and that will need to be eradicated. So, the gut is the first place.

And then we look at the immune markers. I've seen kids who have really high markers of inflammation.

We're really low.

Like you would see in someone with colitis. Yeah. But, you know, it was sticky, smelly, mucusy, weird stools that are pasty and weird.

Yeah, we see these.

Awful.

Yeah.

And, and that's telling you that something's rotten down there and you have to deal with it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And that causes leaky gut, right?

And leaky gut. And so, yeah, we, we're, you know, we, leaky gut is just basically a part of almost every conversation when we're talking about, you know, people in the functional medicine world are coming over any any immune disorder or immune dysfunction. So that's the first place I look because that's one of the most commonly one of the most concerning areas for parents is they have stinky smelly poops and I'm changing the diaper every day all day. And can we do something about that? I know that that has to be part of the problem. And they're right, it is.

And 60% of the immune system is in the gut and the gut and the brain are connected. and if you have a lot of toxic bugs in there, those toxic bugs produce metabolites that are toxic to the brain and can interfere with brain function.

Yeah, and so we're, you know, so the next, you know, the next place that I'll look will be at might, you know, at the nutrient, you know, looking at nutritional evaluation, finding out specifically, are they getting all the nutrients they need for the mitochondria to function as well as they should? Yeah, because mitochondrial dysfunction has a huge role to play in how our brains are gonna function. And so we look there. It's an energy deficit.

These kids can't make enough energy in their brains to work. And you can do testing like organic acids, but you look at the mitochondrial function and you can look at the way you process energy.

And this is not a test you normally see at your regular doctor's office. And then we do heavy metal testing. Again, because a lot of these children may have difficulties with their toxification genes. They may not be able to detox as well. So the normal toxins that we're all exposed to, they can't process.

That's right.

So looking at their physiology of detoxification and also at their single nucleotide polymorphisms as variations in genes that impact how well an enzyme is going to function, we look at those because if we can identify some of those genes that aren't working well, that clues us in to what specific nutritional plan and targeted nutrients that they need.

Yeah, and these kids often have genetic variations in also the B vitamin genes that affect B12, folate and B6 and they might need really high doses of certain nutrients. They might need special forms of these nutrients. And so, these are things you really can understand by looking at their unique genetics.

Absolutely.

The other thing obviously we look at is food sensitivities and food reactions. And, there's a couple in autism that are so- Gluten dairy. So, right off the- Gluten dairy.

Right off the bat, it's gluten and dairy. And the reason why we focus so much on gluten and dairy, because they can, when they are broken down, you know, certain people will break them down into peptides called caseinomorphins and glutamorphins. And peptides are just small proteins. They're usually 50 amino acids or shorter and that these, these can actually cross the blood-brain barrier and they can have a deleterious effect on how the brain will function. They can actually impair cognition, they can impair neurotransmitter communication.

So, these- These are like little molecules of heroin running around your brain and they make you spaced out. And one of these kids are- They can't focus, can't connect.

They have an opiate-like effect. I've had mothers say to me, I can't take him off gluten because it makes everything worse.

Yeah, it does.

You just have to really batten down the hatches.

Block the cabinets. Lock the fridge. It's true. It's really true. And the gluten also causes a leaky gut, too. So you get more inflammation, more reactions. And the dairy has an interesting effect as well. In a subset of these autistic kids, there is these folate receptor blocking antibodies that are caused by dairy. So when you eat dairy. Your body creates an antibody against the dairy, but it binds to the folate receptor. Now, folate is one of the most important nutrients to create neurotransmitters and make your brain work. And when you can't get folate working, your entire cycle of what we call methylation, which is this B vitamin cycle, is blocked and your entire cycle of detoxification is blocked because they're like, cogwheels that will together.

They will work together and they don't work.

And that's why these kids can't detoxify.

They can't make neurotransmitters, they can't function. And it has a huge impact on.

Energy production in mitochondria as well. Yeah, and getting these people off dairy and then boosting up this special form of folate called methylfolate, these kids can really pop up and come alert. And so, you know, there's not like one treatment for autism, right? This kid might do well with no dairy and a high dose of methylfolate. Another kid might need to fix their gut. Another kid might be a gluten issue. Another kid might be a mitochondrial problem. And so you have to sort of dig into this. And this is the beauty of functional medicine is we don't treat all patients the same. We look at them as individuals. We look at real personalized medicine, personalized nutrition, and we do very sophisticated diagnostics which allow us to really map out what's going on with these kids. So you go, wait a minute, if there's actually lab tests that help us identify and map out what's disordered in these kids' biology. Like, why aren't pediatric neurologists doing this? Why aren't pediatric psychiatrists doing this? It's like, it makes me crazy. I am sorry. It makes me crazy. Because after treating literally hundreds of these kids with everything from dyslexia to ADD to autism, to behavioral issues, it's all the same stuff at different, you know, different things are going on in different kids, but it's all the same approach. It creates a really deep dive to help these kids.

Right. So it is a deep dive and it's a comprehensive approach. And so once we've looked at the gut, once we looked at basic nutrition, once we've looked at some of the more intricacies, intricate nutrition and deficiencies that might impact the mitochondria, we look at toxins, we look at genes, we look specifically at genes of detoxification, inflammation, and there's very important methylation genes that are responsible for so much, including detoxification, energy production in the mitochondria. Once we've looked at all of that, then we start, and then we look at immune markers. We do look at markers for immune function that will help us understand if a patient's immune system is hypervigilant or whether it's so tired, it's depressed. So, as we said before, We do the stool testing and one of those markers in the gut that we look to get a sense of what the immune system is doing is Secretary IGA or SIgA. And it's not uncommon for- that's an antibody.

It's an antibody that's made as a first line of defense in our guts against infection, right?

And yeah, but sometimes by the time I see these kids, their immune systems have been working so hard for so long that they're not able to produce this antibody. and that is an indicator that they have a significant amount of immune dysfunction and that becomes a focal point for how we're going to treat them.

That's right. And I think we also look at nutrient levels because there's a lot of nutrient levels that are really low in these kids, omega-3 fats and zinc and magnesium. Vitamin A. Vitamin A and vitamin D and omega-3 fats and B12 and B6 and B6. And so often some really simple interventions you can make profound profound differences in these kids. We also treat the gut aggressively with lots of probiotics and things that really help the gut and enzymes. So it's a lot of work and it's a lot of work for the parents. It's often costly. Unfortunately, insurance doesn't cover this yet, although hopefully it will. I mean, you think of the cost up front of doing a few thousand dollars worth of diagnostics versus an entire lifetime of support services and institutionalized care. I mean, it is really a bargain.

It's a no-brainer.

It's a bargain and no-brainer, but it is a real cost and often families can't afford it, which just breaks my heart. But, you know, there's a lot of stuff you can do on your own and I think a lot of these things we're talking about are lifestyle nutrition. And I think, you know, want to share, maybe share a case or so and I'll share some of my cases.

Sure. I have, you know, so there's a boy that came to me, four and a half, his name was Johnny. Mom and dad brought him in to see me. He was actually a delightful little boy, but he had all the hallmarks of autism and he had very little progress working with his pediatrician. And mom had somehow come across functional medicine, saw a video and they had not done too much to this point. And so it was really exciting. I remember reviewing the chart thinking, I am so excited to be working with them because just by reading the chart, There seems to be a lot that we can do. So the main things that they brought him in with was that he had a lot of gut issues, a lot of bloating, a lot of distension, a lot of diarrhea. He also had eczema and he had all the behavioral characteristics of autism and he had difficulty with sleep. Those were the main characteristics. He was not socializing well at four and a half. He was not at reading level. A lot of difficulty with language, social cueing, he was socially isolated, withdrawing from kids oftentimes. And when he was around kids, oftentimes he would misread cues, lose his temper, hit and bite. And so it was very difficult for the family to really engage socially with other families and go places.

So.

Of course, you know, sitting with them the first time, there's a lot of tears. and there's a lot of listening. And so I was so happy at the end of the visit when mom just said thank you. She said thank you for listening because I really for the first time think we're gonna get help. Now he's like four and a half years old and they've been going to their docs for a long time. So that was a really, really good start to give them hope. So after that first visit, the things that we really have done is we've given them, they're gonna get all that testing done. But knowing that he had gut issues, one of the first things I did was said we're going to put him on a gluten-free, dairy-free diet. We're going to take out some of the other potential inflammatory products like eggs and soy and yeast. And we want no sugars, no processed carbs. That is a lot. Just starting there with an autistic child is giving a family a huge task. And so, I don't want to do too much. Particularly these children have a lot of sensory issues, so they will have texture issues, they may have swallowing issues, so giving them a huge number of supplements is not something that we can do. But at the first visit, they get a nutritional plan as I've outlined there. And generally, depending on what's going on, I'll start a probiotic. and I usually will start with a high potency probiotic and potentially a digestive enzyme to really start to help get that gut functioning in a way that will be helpful. So nutrition and gut issues, and I also put them on a multiple vitamin because generally these kids have very limited diets so their nutrients and their vitamin intake is going to be limited. So we put them on a a robust multiple vitamin, and some additional mitochondrial support. And that's how we start.

Well, how did he do?

So in eight weeks he came back and they had a hard time with the nutrition plan. But they were able to take out, you know, most of his gluten and dairy. And they noticed immediately that a lot of his bloating started to go away after meals. and his diarrhea started to decrease. They were very happy and his eczema began to clear up.

Yeah.

So, you know, just there they were thrilled. So then when we went over all of his testing, he did have genes that indicated that he had a folate receptor antibody that was positive. So he's making folate receptor antibodies and he had genes that made it difficult for him to use folate in the first place. So we added methylfolate to his plan. And we also added, he was also very low in vitamin D. So we added in vitamin D and vitamin A. And three months later, it wasn't even three months, was it three months? Yeah, three months later, mom indicated that his eczema was gone. They were able to really expand, he was almost totally dairy free. and gluten free. He was taking the vitamin D, the vitamin A, he was taking the additional methylated folate, and his eczema was gone, his bloating had stopped. With the high dose probiotics, they noticed that his diarrhea had almost completely resolved. He was having more formed movements, but multiple in the day. And, his speech therapist indicated that he had made strides in his language acquisition. Yeah. Pretty amazing.

And I just reminds me.

And that was, that was like, at six months Mark.

Yeah. And you keep working through the layers. It's like layers. You start with the simple stuff and the diet and the nutritional sport, but there's always layers. And I, you know, it reminds me of a kid I saw, but he was 20, 20, maybe was, you know, two and a half years old. Right. And he was diagnosed 22 months with autism. It was regressive autism. He spying, and then he got sick. And his mother was told, you know, nothing we can do, just use behavioral therapy. And his mother was not willing to take that at face value and came to see me. And I'm like, look, this is her early on. And I said, look, look, I can't promise you that I can do anything to help your son, but we do know that this is a systemic disorder. We do know that it's inflammation in the brain. We do know there's issues around gut and toxins. we know there's issues around mitochondria, and nutritional factors, let's just take a look. And we looked under the hood and we saw an array of problems that were so easy to treat really. I mean, he had the worst gut issues, stinky smelly sticky poops, he had severe, we call dysbiosis, which is imbalances in the bacteria in his gut, he had 28 food sensitivities, gluten and dairy antibodies were really high, so he had severe leaky gut, and he also had lots of nutritional deficiencies, right? He had magnesium, zinc, manganese, vitamin A, vitamin B12, vitamin D, omega-3 fats, all were very low. We just tested them, and these are all essential for brain function, for immune function, for so many things, and he was loaded with toxins. We did levels of toxins in his blood, which had a high aluminum, and lead, his hair had antimony and arsenic, and he had low levels of the most important detoxifying compound in his body, glutathione. And he also had other things we talked about, the mitochondrial issues, he had everything, and he had methylation problems. So, these kids often don't have one thing, it's just a biochemical train wreck. And using functional medicine, you begin to tease it apart, and you order the therapies to start with the simplest stuff. You change the diet, you fix the gut, you get the nutrient levels up, you start to deal with mitochondrial function, you start to deal with the toxic load, you boost up the methylation, and we did all those things. We helped, you know, we need, you know, we found just, for example, B12 shots, which kind of overrode some of these biochemical pathways allowed him to start detoxifying. He was starting to have eye contact, started connecting, started not being in his world. I mean, when I first met him, he was just in the room like, staring into space, looked like he was on a heroin trip, on a psychedelic adventure, completely in his own world, wordless, no speech.

And.

Over time, we worked through all these issues, like peeling the onion. And this doesn't happen with every kid, but we were really diligent. And it took a lot of work. The parents were really diligent about doing the things that they needed to do. We took away the gluten and the food allergens. we got rid of the dysbiosis and the bad bugs and the fungus in his gut. We actually helped replenish his gut with probiotics and enzymes. We gave him all the minerals and nutrients he needed, the omega-3 fats, we got his mitochondria working, we started detoxifying him. And over a number of years, he went from being completely locked in to a normal kid. Now, I'm not saying using this approach we can take care and cure all cases of autism. But this was a miracle case. But honestly, over many decades of doing this, we can help. Whether it's a 50% improvement, a 25% improvement, a 75% improvement, complete resolution, we see all of it.

Yeah, and I would say I have not seen a child with autism that I was not able to help in some way.

And people are listening, you know, and this is, we're in a crisis. of our children's brains. I mean, one in six children today have some type of neurodevelopmental disorder. One in six, that's a lot of kids. And it's dyslexia, it's ADD, it's learning difficulties, it's autism spectrum issues. I mean, it's a lot of kids. And we just are so in the dark ages in traditional medicine about this. And we have really advanced this field in functional medicine and see miracles all the time. and it's just heartbreaking for me that parents don't have access to this. They don't know how to find their way to practitioners who can help. And that's really why we're here at the Ultra Wellness Center, why I established this 15 years ago and why it's so satisfying practicing this medicine, because we do see real change.

We do.

You know, we're in this moment where everything's changing, you know, where we're, you know, we're seeing, we're seeing, you know, the the opening up of the mind around autism to understand that it really is a biological disorder, it's not a mental disorder.

If we can't look at these numbers, if we can't look at going from, in 1970 it was estimated one in 10,000 kids would have autism to one in 54. If we can't look from 1970 to 2020 and we can't say there is something significantly wrong with our environment today, just based on looking at this number and the brain is the canary in the coal mine. Because we're talking about autism, but the adult brain is under siege too, because we know that Alzheimer's is not epidemic level. And so, I'm just saying, these numbers and looking at autism is a really, it's a wake-up call for all of us to understand, we really need to pay attention to the toxicity of our environment and our food.

Yeah, absolutely. And, I think what you're saying is so important. These kids are the canary in the coal mine. They're a warning sign for all of us to pay attention that our food supply, our environment, and our way of life has got to change. And, I'm just so grateful, George, for you being here at the Ulchewana Center. If you've been listening to this podcast and you know someone with autism or on the spectrum, Are you struggling in your family with this? Or you have friends? Please share this podcast with them because it'll help them understand that there is a way. And we're here at the UlcHibas Center. We've got a great team of practitioners who've been doing this for a very long time and we just love seeing these kids. So please share this podcast with them and know that there is hope. And of course, leave a comment how you helped your kids with using these approaches. which is what has worked, what hasn't worked. And of course, subscribe wherever you get your podcast so you can listen to the Doctor's Pharmacy. And we'll see you next week on the Doctor's Pharmacy.