"Fever Benefits for Autism in a Food"
Autism currently affects about 1 of 68 kids in the United States,
yet we don’t even have drugs to treat the core symptoms,
forget the underlying disease itself.
I mean, we can treat some symptoms,
just not the core symptoms of the disorder.
Sure, if you’re aggressive, we can give you antipsychotic drugs,
stimulants like Ritalin for ADHD,
or we can knock you out to help you sleep,
but for social and communication improvements,
the main signs and symptoms of autism, we have little to offer,
and the disease appears to be on the rise.
What can we do about it?
Well, decades ago, a clue was published that offered a ray of hope:
when autistic kids get a fever, they invariably display dramatically
more normal behavior, including a greater desire or ability to communicate.
They can become less withdrawn, more alert,
more talkative, more communicative.
All hospital staff members working with autistic children
noted the marked behavioral improvements,
but as soon as the fever stopped, they went back to their baseline.
So, you think, wow, if we could figure out what’s going on,
maybe we could develop some sort of treatment.
Yeah, but wait a second.
Let’s take a step back
and realize what this could mean.
What makes this so groundbreaking, so earth-shattering,
is that this challenges the whole presumption that autism
is some kind of static irreversible brain disease,
where the brain is just inexorably damaged
in some way with no hope of recovery.
But the fever glimpses suggest no,
it may be more of a dynamic brain disease,
where the normal healthy circuits are in there somewhere,
but being actively suppressed, and the fever somehow lifts
that suppression, relieves the active disease process,
suggesting if we could figure out what’s going on,
we could theoretically relieve it not just for days but for forever.
So, you’d think that would be what’s on every autism researcher’s mind,
but unbelievably, there is practically no mention
of the high fever/improved behavior phenomenon
in the entire autism medical literature, even though nearly everybody
knowledgeable about the disease - both parent and professional alike,-
who deals with it day to day- evidently knows about it.
In fact, the first—and only-- Nobel prize in medicine ever given
to a psychiatrist for brain ailments was the so-called
father of fever therapy, where he would inject malaria into people,
and some got better.. if they didn’t die first from the malaria, that is.
What is it about fever that can improve brain function?
If we could figure that out, maybe there’s a way we can do it
without killing people.
OK, but first, let’s confirm the phenomenon is real.
Yes, the rapid behavioral changes reported during fever in autism
suggest that those neural networks in autism may still be intact,
just dysfunctional, and understanding the reasons for improvement
during fever might provide insight into what’s going on.
But, this whole fever effect in autism
was based on case reports and anecdotes, until…
this study.
Given the potential implications for treatment opportunities,
they undertook a formal study of the reported phenomenon,
and indeed, autistic children got better when they got a fever,
officially documenting the phenomenon as real.
OK, so full-steam ahead; let’s figure it out.
Who cares how it works, though?
I mean, I know you can’t give kids malaria,
but why not just take them to a sauna or hot tub, or something?
Because it doesn't work.
When you sit in a sauna or hot tub, your skin gets hotter,
but your brain pretty much stays the same temperature.
It’s got special cooling mechanisms; so, no matter what temperature it is outside,
your brain stays pretty much the same temperature inside.
That’s a good thing; that way, you can bite into a snow cone
without literally getting brain freeze.
But, when you get a fever, your internal thermostat
gets turned up to fight infection,
and there is actually an increase in brain tissue temperature.
Now, your brain has to be careful not to cook itself to death;
so it releases heat shock proteins.
As your brain turns up the heat to give you a fever,
it releases heat shock proteins to prevent and repair protein damage.
At higher temperatures, proteins can start unraveling,
what’s called protein denaturing.
That’s what happens when you cook egg whites.
The proteins denature.
That’s not what you want happening in your head.
OK, but what does this have to do with autism?
Well, one of the causes of autism may be the dysregulation
of synaptic function, meaning a dysregulation
of the nerve-to-nerve signaling pathways in the brain
may play a key role in the cause of autism spectrum disorders.
Well, guess what those heat shock proteins do?
They protect and sustain synaptic function.
Okay. So, now the question becomes:
is there any way to activate the heat shock response
without having to get some high fever infection?
Well, as you can imagine, there is now strong interest among drug companies
to discover and develop pharmacological agents capable of inducing
the heat shock response, but broccoli beat them to it.
Sulforaphane, the active ingredient in cruciferous vegetables,
cabbage family vegetables like broccoli, kale, and collard greens,
activates the heat shock response: no malaria necessary.
So, in theory, giving those with autism sulforaphane
in the form of broccoli, or broccoli sprouts,
might reap the same kind of fever-related benefits in function.
At this point, you’d expect me to make some crack about Big Broccoli,
and how such a study would never get funded, and you’d be right, until...
NOW!
See, there are family foundations out there, non-profit foundations
that just want to see people with autism get better,
whether or not corporate stock prices get better too.
We’ll find out what happened, next.