The Dr. Hyman Show - Autism: Getting To The Root Cause With Functional Medicine with Dr. George Papanicolaou

Episode Date: February 22, 2021

Autism: Getting To The Root Cause With Functional Medicine | This episode is sponsored by Athletic Greens and Betterhelp Rates of autism have skyrocketed over the years, from an estimated 1 child in 5,000 in the 1960s and 1970s to just 1 in 54 kids today. The diagnosis of autism can be shocking and difficult for parents and families which may leave them feeling isolated, alone, helpless, and hopeless, but it doesn’t have to be that way. While we don’t have all the answers, and more research is needed to identify and validate the causes and treatment of autism, there are new signs of hope. And there is no such thing as “autism.” Rather there are “autisms”—different patterns of biological dysfunction unique to each child that result in multiple insults to the brain that all manifest with symptoms we call autism. Like every condition or illness, the key is to dig into the layers and peel the onion to discover what is really happening. It is not usually one thing but a collection of insults, toxins, and deficiencies piled on susceptible genetics that leads to autism. In this episode, Dr. Hyman sits down with Dr. George Papaicolaou to discuss the Functional Medicine approach to treating children with autism. They also share specific patient stories that they have treated. George Papanicolaou is a graduate of the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine and is Board Certified in Family Medicine from Abington Memorial Hospital. He is also an Institute for Functional Medicine Practitioner. Upon graduation from his residency he joined the Indian Health Service. He worked on the Navajo reservation for 4 years at the Chinle Comprehensive Medical Facility where he served as the Outpatient Department Coordinator. In 2000, he founded Cornerstone Family Practice in Rowley, MA. He practiced with a philosophy centered on personal relationships and treating the whole person, not just not the disease. He called that philosophy “Whole Life Wellness”. Over time as the healthcare system made it harder for patients to receive this kind of personal care Dr. Papanicolaou decided a change was needed. He began training in Functional Medicine through the Institute of Functional Medicine. In 2015, he established Cornerstone Personal Health – a practice dedicated entirely to Functional Medicine. Dr. Papanicolaou to join The UltraWellness Center in 2017. This episode is sponsored by Athletic Greens and Betterhelp. Athletic Greens is offering Doctor’s Farmacy listeners a full year supply of their Vitamin D3/K2 Liquid Formula free with your first purchase, plus 5 free travel packs. Just go to athleticgreens.com/hyman to take advantage of this great offer. Betterhelp lets you get affordable counseling anytime, from anywhere. They’ll match you with a licensed, professional therapist based on your unique needs. As a Doctor’s Farmacy listener you can get 10% off right now by going to betterhelp.com/drhyman. In this conversation, Dr. Hyman and Dr. Papanicolaou discuss: The significant rise in autism cases   Recent changes to environmental factors, including food and toxins The role of inflammation in autism Conventional vs functional medicine treatment of autism Sleep and behavioral issues in children with autism Autism, gut health, and mitochondrial dysfunction  Eliminating gluten and dairy Additional Resources: New Science-Based Approaches to Treating Autism with Dr. Theresa Lyons https://drhyman.com/blog/2019/05/09/bb-ep54/ A Functional Medicine Approach to Autism https://www.ultrawellnesscenter.com/2017/09/08/a-functional-medicine-approach-to-autism/ Improving Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD): Does a Gluten and Dairy Free Diet Really Make a Difference? https://www.ultrawellnesscenter.com/2017/08/21/improving-autism-spectrum-disorders-asd-does-a-gluten-and-dairy-free-diet-really-make-a-difference/ Dr. Elizabeth Boham on The Doctor’s Farmacy: How to Find the Real Cause of Your Disease and How to Fix It https://www.ultrawellnesscenter.com/2019/11/04/dr-boham-on-the-doctors-farmacy-how-to-find-the-real-cause-of-your-disease-and-how-to-fix-it/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Coming up on this episode of The Doctor's Pharmacy. A lot of the behaviors become the focus, but those behaviors are really in response to the neuroinflammation that the child's experiencing. Hey everyone, it's Dr. Mark. My main goal with diet is to use food as medicine, but even when we eat super well, most of us are missing out on certain essential nutrients. Our soils have become depleted and our digestive tracts just aren't working so great. They're compromised by stress and toxins and they just can't absorb nutrients as efficiently as they should. And that's why I always use, and I recommend to my patients, a multivitamin mineral as nutritional insurance. It covers the basics for all our day to day body functions, all the things that we need that our food might be

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There's no need to suffer through hard times alone and don't be afraid to ask for help. Now let's get back to this week's episode of The Doctor's Pharmacy. 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 1 in 1,500 or more to up to 1 in 35 boys. I mean, it's staggering. And the question is, why? And today we're going to talk about autism with none other than our favorite doctor at

the Ultra Wellness Center, George Papanikolaou. 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 going to 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've read is the major way of thinking about it in science today is that it's 80% genetic and 20% environmental,

which, which really, really, when I read that statistic, I was really shocked because, but I, but, um, and so there's definitely a genetic component to it, but I, it's clear that, um, 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 1 in 5,000 kids.

1 in 5,000 kids. Now, it's 1 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 up because 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 what are the real drivers and causes of autism number one of my it's not a random event no it's not random at all and i think that as you just brought out and there's just something more going on i i think 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 a direct impact on our gut microbiome, but it has information that 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 Landrigan, 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. 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. 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 were born by C-sections. We give antibiotics. We're not breastfed. All these things tend to get these kids' immune systems dysregulated. 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 the manifestations are in the brain, right?

But the actual causes are things we can do something about. Yes. 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 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 or their life. Well, they're given a pathway, but it's a limited pathway. Yeah, I mean... And it's a pathway that you just mentioned.

It's 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 the behaviors become the focus, but those behaviors are really in response to the neuroinflammation that the child's 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 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 so crude. Well, 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. Those behavioral changes aren't enough. And that's why, you know, 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 Ultra 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. They almost all have immune dysregulation. They almost all have gut issues. Most of them have toxin lows 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 Ultra Mind 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'd 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, just started chatting. And he was learning a 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, stop. 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 the terminology autism spectrum disorder because it's not autism it's autisms it's it's a spectrum every child is different we have no protocol but we know we know where to look and every child's going to have it is going to have a puzzle a complex puzzle pieces of puzzles that we're going to have to put together that might be

it is different for every kid one of the things 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 with moms and dads and 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, antianxiolytics. Yeah, it's 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 have 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 the other thing 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 know, you're, you have no expressive language. You're,

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 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 right but there are a hundred ways to get to those symptoms and there are a hundred different ways to treat these patients yeah 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 there are common themes and there are things 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 you know have have uh other issues that

really are are related to infections that are untreated. And toxins. Yeah, toxins. So there's really an investment in nutritional level. Yeah, I mean, we had a professor from, you know, he was trained at Harvard and Oxford, a pediatric neurologist, who came to Cleveland Clinic to do ground rounds, 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 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. Yeah. So George, let's go kind of deep in. So if you have a kid comes in with autism, what's the initial approach to evaluating these kids? Like, 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, you know, any familial history of autism, just to make that 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. Yeah, does she have fillings? Did she get vaccines with mercury in them?

Like a flu vaccine? 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 didn't have the muscle tone that a baby should have?

Did they meet developmental milestones? Did they have colic? Right. Did they have ear infections in any body? Any biotic. Did they have C-section in birth? 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. Yeah. I want to be clear about vaccines. I don't think vaccines cause autism. 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 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. Right. 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 uh candida which is a mold is one of the major things that we we typically will find in the gut but we're also looking for you know uh an imbalance of good and bad bacteria that can be caused by the nutrition that they had nutrition that their mom had any antibiotic use we're going to be looking for parasites you know kids can develop these parasites that can you know 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 really low like like you would see in someone with colitis yeah but you know yeah you know, and these kids have sticky, smelly, mucusy, weird stools that are pasty and weird. Yeah, we see these really. Awful. 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, leaky gut is just basically a part of almost every conversation when we're talking about people in the functional medicine world that are coming off of 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, you know, they have stinky, smelly poops that I'm changing their diaper every day, all day, you know. And can we do something about that? I know that that has to be part of the problem. Yeah. And they're right. It is. And 60% of the immune system is in the gut, and the gut and the brain are connected.

Right. And if you have a lot of toxic bugs in there, those toxic bugs produce metabolites that are toxic to the brain right 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 mighty you know at the new tree 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 going to 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. That's right. 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 a 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 and 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 prominent. Gluten and dairy.

So right off the bat, it's gluten and dairy. And the reason why we focus so much on gluten and dairy, because when they are broken down, certain people will break them down into peptides called caseomorphinsins and gluteal morphins 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- Like little molecules of like heroin running around your brain, and they make you spaced out.

And a lot of these kids are distracted, can't focus, can't connect. They have an opiate-like effect. I have had mothers say to me, I can't take them off gluten because it makes everything worse. Yeah, it will. And you just have to really- Batten down the hatches, lock the cabinets, lock the fridge. We'll get you through. We'll get you through.

It's true. It's really true. And the gluten also causes a leaky gut too. Oh, yeah. So you get on top of the... 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 wheel 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 and 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 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, it 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're like, 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, you know, 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 in the mitochondria once we've looked at all of that then we start you know and then we look at immune markers we 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 secretory IgA or SIGA. And it's not uncommon for- That's an antibody. It's an antibody. It's made as a first line of defense in our guts against infection, right? 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 you know we also look at 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 and b12 and B6. And so with often some really simple interventions, you can make profound differences in these kids. We also treat the gut aggressively with these kids with lots of probiotics and things to 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's 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. Yeah. But 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 and nutrition. And I think I want to share, maybe share a case or so, and I'll share some of my cases.

I have, you know, so there's a boy that came to me. He's like four and a half his name was johnny mom and dad brought him in to see me um he was actually delightful little boy but he had all the hallmarks of you know autism um and he had little very little progress working with his pediatrician and the mom had somehow come across functional medicine saw 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 him 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 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 uh he was not socializing well at four and a half um his re he was not at reading level a lot of difficulty with language social cueing um did not he was he was socially isolated withdrawing from kids oftentimes and when he was around kids oftentimes he he would misread cues lose his temper hit hit and bite and so it was very difficult for the family to really engage socially with other families and go places uh so

of course you know sitting with them the first time there's a lot of tears and just and there's a lot of listening uh 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 first time, think we're going to 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 going to get all that testing done.

But knowing that he had gut issues, one of the first things I did was that we're going to put him on that testing done but knowing that he had gut issues one of the first things i did was that we're going to put them on a gluten-free dairy-free diet we're going to take out some of the other potential you know uh inflammatory products like eggs and soy um and you know and yeast uh and we want no sugars no processed carbs that That is a lot. Just starting there with an autistic child is giving a family like 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 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 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. So 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 form movements, but multiple in the day. And his speech therapist indicated that he had made strides in his language acquisition. Yeah, pretty amazing. And that was like at six months, Mark. Yeah. And we weren't even done. And you keep working through the layers. It's like layers.

You start with the simple stuff and the diet and the nutritional support. But there's some of those layers. And it reminds me of a kid I saw when he was 20, maybe he was two and a half years old. And he was diagnosed at 22 months with autism. It was regressive autism. He was fine. 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 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 of the brain. We do know there's issues around gut and toxins. We know there's issues around mitochondria. Let's end 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 it 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 him. 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 on the testing, and he had methylation problems. So these kids often don't have one thing, it's just like 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 then to deal with the toxic load. You boost up the methylation. And we did all of those things. We found just, for example, B12 shots, which kind of overrode some of these biochemical pathways, allowed him to start detoxifying. He started 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 need 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 and 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. People are listening. 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 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 and that's really why we're here at the ultra wellness center why i established this 15 years ago and what why 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 we're 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 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 you know 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 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 with autism or on the spectrum, are you struggling in your family with this, or your friends, please share this podcast with them, because it'll help them understand that there is a way. And we're here at the El Chabono 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 have you helped your kids with using these approaches? What has worked?

What hasn't worked? And of course, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts so you can listen to The Doctor's Pharmacy. And we'll see you next week on The Doctor's Pharmacy. 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

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I hope you enjoyed this week's episode. Just a reminder that this podcast is for educational purposes only. This podcast is not educational purposes only. This podcast is not a substitute for professional care by a doctor or other qualified medical professional. This podcast is provided on the understanding that it does not constitute medical or other professional advice or services. If you're looking for help in your journey, seek out a qualified medical practitioner. If you're looking for a functional medicine practitioner, you can visit ifm.org and search their Find a Practitioner database. It's important that you have someone in your corner who's trained, who's a licensed healthcare practitioner, and can help you make changes, especially when it comes to your health.