"The Best Foods for Fighting Autism and Brain Inflammation"
Harvard neurologist Martha Herbert, in a keynote address
at an autism conference, said we need to conduct research
as if we know this is an emergency.
Already, up to one and a half percent of American children have autism,
and it appears to be on the rise.
Well, what about fever’s dramatic effect, this dramatic relief of autistic behavior
during a fever continues to tantalize parents and practitioners.
From a research standpoint, what could be more revealing
than a common event that virtually ‘normalizes’
autistic behavior for a time?
There's so much going on during fever, though.
Where do you even begin?
Well, once it became understood that one cause of autism
may reside in the synapses, the so-called soul of the brain,
the nerve-to-nerve junctions where information is transmitted,
attention turned to HSPs, heat shock proteins,
released by the brain when you have a fever,
that can improve synaptic transmission, and thus, may be capable of improving
long-range brain connectivity, which is depressed in autism.
ASD stands for autism spectrum disorder.
And, there’s this compound, sulforaphane,
that upregulates those heat shock proteins.
So, you could potentially get the benefits without the fever.
What drug company makes it?
What do I ask for at the pharmacy?
Nope, wrong aisle….
Sulforaphane is not made in a chemical plant; it’s made by a plant.
Sulforaphane is made by broccoli, kale, cabbage, collards, and cauliflower,
in other words, cruciferous vegetables.
So, maybe if we give some broccoli to those with autism,
it will make things better by boosting the heat shock proteins.
But, synaptic dysfunction is not the only contributing cause of autism.
There’s also oxidative stress.
The brain is particularly vulnerable to oxidative stress,
because lots of free radicals are forged in the brain,
which has few antioxidant defense capacities.
And indeed, ”there is a long history of studies showing that [autism]
is associated with oxidative stress and diminished antioxidant capacity.”
Nrf2 levels cut nearly in half,
which is what triggers our body’s antioxidant response.
If only there was a way we could boost Nrf2 with foods….
Boom!
There it is.
Sulforaphane just so happens to be perhaps the most potent
natural inducer of Nrf2 on the planet.
What’s this Nrf2 thing again?
It’s considered to be a master regulator
of our body’s response to environmental stressors.
Under any kind of stress, oxidative stress, inflammatory stress,
Nrf2 triggers our antioxidant response elements,
activating all sorts of cell-protective genes
that balance out and detoxify the free radicals
and facilitate protein and DNA repair.
So, maybe if we give some broccoli to those with autism,
it will also make things better by triggering Nrf2,
which activates those antioxidant response elements.
And then, there’s the mitochondrial dysfunction.
Children with autism are more likely to suffer
from dysfunctional mitochondria, the little power plants within our cells
where metabolism takes place.
If only there was some food that could improve mitochondrial function.
And, there is.
A diet rich in cruciferous vegetables
effectively retunes our metabolism by restoring metabolic balance.
Power plants for our cellular powerplants.
Not only can sulforaphane boost the gene expression
of heat shock proteins as much as 6-fold within six hours,
it can double the mass of mitochondria in human cells
growing in a petri dish.
So, maybe if we give some broccoli to those with autism,
it will also make things better by relieving
some of that mitochondrial dysfunction
that is creating even more free radicals.
Okay so, can we try giving some kids some broccoli already?
First, one final factor: neuroinflammation, brain inflammation,
another causal factor in autism.
If, at autopsy, you look at brain tissue of those with autism,
you can see inflammation throughout the white matter.
And, if you do a spinal tap, up to 200 times the levels
of inflammatory mediators, like interferon, bathing their brains.
What’s causing all that inflammation?
Well, the master regulator of the inflammatory cascade
is a protein called NF-kappa-beta which induces inflammation
and, if over-expressed, like in autism,
can lead to chronic or excessive inflammation.
If only there was a food.
Wait, broccoli does that too?
In fact, it’s the major anti-inflammatory mechanism for sulforaphane,
inhibiting NF-kappa-beta.
Well, then that completes the picture.
Give someone with autism broccoli, heat shock proteins are released
to boost synaptic transmission,
Nrf2 is activated to wipe out the free radicals,
mitochondrial function is restored, and we suppress the inflammation
triggered by NF-kappa-beta.
One food to rule them all.
One food to counter all four purported causal factors.
That’s one of the differences between foods and drugs.
Drugs tend to have single effects,
but autism spectrum disorder, ASD, is multi-factorial—
no wonder there’s no drugs that work.
But, strategies using multi-functional phytochemicals like sulforaphane,
or even better, the whole plants themselves, are highly attractive…
in theory.
But, you don’t know, until you put it to the test,
which I promise we'll cover, next.
You may remember my series of videos
about the engine-of-aging enzyme, TOR.
Well, kids with autism tend to have higher TOR activity in their bodies,
and this hyperactive TOR signaling may actually play a role
in causing autism, making TOR a potential target to treat autism,
or even theoretically reverse it, if we could target
downstream TOR signaling, like between TOR and S6K1.
Well, that's actually one of the ways broccoli compounds
kill off prostate cancer cells, by inhibiting
the signal transduction between TOR and S6K1.
Breast cancer, too.
Sulforaphane is a potent inhibitor
of breast cancer cells because it targets downstream elements
of the TOR pathway.
So if we gave broccoli to those with autism, if it blocks TOR,
maybe it would block some of the synaptic dysfunction
that contributes to the features of autism.
And that's in addition to blocking autism pathways four other ways:
oxidative stress and lower antioxidant capacity,
the mitochondrial dysfunction, the brain inflammation.
And not just in a Petri dish:
sulforaphane can cross the blood-brain-barrier.
You eat broccoli and sulforaphane quickly reaches your brain
to exert its protective effects—in theory,
but you don't know until you put it to the test.
But now you can understand why such a study
could attract researchers from leading institutions,
Harvard, Hopkins; get published
in one of our most prestigious journals, PNAS
(the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences).
But what did they find?
Well first, what did they do?
A placebo-controlled, double-blind, randomized trial,
young men (ages 13 through 27) with moderate to severe autism
received sulforaphane from broccoli sprouts
or an indistinguishable sugar pill.
They were dosed according to body weight.
Those under 100 pounds got about a tablespoon
of broccoli sprouts' worth of sulforaphane a day,
which is about a cup's worth of broccoli.
Between 100 and 200 pounds got about 2 cups of broccoli's worth,
or two tablespoons of fresh broccoli sprouts,
and the big boys got three cups worth a day
or a little under a quarter cup of broccoli sprouts.
Why didn't they just use actual broccoli or actual sprouts?
Because then you couldn't have a blinded study;
the patients, doctors, and parents would know
who's getting the special treatment and who's not,
and that could introduce bias just through the placebo effect.
So instead, no one knew until the end who got the sulforaphane
and who just got nothing in a pill.
They chose dietary sulforaphane because of its capacity
to reverse oxidation, dysfunction, inflammation.
Yeah, but when put to the test, did it actually work?
Well, the placebo didn't.
Give people with autism nothing, and nothing much happens.
But effectively, secretly sneak them some broccoli,
and substantial improvements in behavior,
social interaction, and verbal communication.
But it all disappeared once the broccoli stopped.
Let me show you what it looks like.
This is the ABC score, the aberrant behavior checklist,
which includes things like repetitive behaviors.
In the placebo group, no big change,
which is what you'd expect, but the abnormal behaviors
plunged in the sulforaphane group,
the group that got the sulforaphane found
in about 5 cents worth of broccoli sprouts a day.
But the study ended on week 18, and a month later
things were heading back to where they started.
Similar findings for a social responsiveness scale:
significant improvements until the treatment was stopped,
and then caught right back up
to how poorly those in the placebo group continued to function.
And these weren't just scores on a page.
The substantial improvements were conspicuous;
the doctors could see it,
their parents and caregivers could see the improvements.
No drug has ever been shown to have these kinds of effects.
And look, these were young men, starting age, you know, 13.
One could imagine it working as well or even better
for younger children, because their brains are still developing.
And look, what's the downside?
Broccoli sprouts are widely consumed all over the world
without any reports of adverse effects.
Now remember we're talking about whole foods,
not broccoli or sulforaphane supplements.
Remember, I did videos about them.
Broccoli sprouts work;
commercial broccoli sprout supplements—hardly at all.
Broccoli has sulforaphane, florets more than the stems.
Broccoli sprouts have like 10 times more,
but broccoli pills, powders, and supplements have little or none.
So, broccoli and cruciferous vegetables for all kids,
autism or not, and hey, maybe pregnant women as well,
for potential prenatal prevention of autism in the first place.