Flatten the curve of autism

Paulette Britton

Special to Valley News

April is Autism Awareness Month, and according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the prevalence of autism has risen again to one in 54. It is four times more prevalent in boys than girls. Even more startling, about one in six or 17% children ages 3-17 years were diagnosed with a developmental disability from 2009-2017.

Autism spectrum disorder is a neurodevelopmental condition that affects communication, behavior and the ability to interact with others. It's rare to meet someone who doesn't know of or have a person in their family diagnosed with autism.

Families are struggling and school districts are heavily impacted with the need for proper funding and training for those who serve the disability population. The financial impact to society is in the billions of dollars.

According to researcher Dr. Robert Naviaux, professor of medicine, pediatrics and pathology at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, said. "In 2017, after nearly 75 years of trying, there are no effective pharmacologic treatments for the core symptoms of autism. I believe this is because a unifying theory for the cause of autism does not exist. Our research is aimed at finding a unifying cause for autism and an explanation for why it, and nearly 20 other chronic diseases have been increasing over the past 30 years."

Naviaux is a mitochondrial research expert. He looks deeply into the body's function at a cellular level. He theorizes that "it is possible that an abnormality in cell signaling called the cell danger response may underlie the cause of autism, and for many children the symptoms of autism are not permanent and can be improved dramatically with the right treatment."

His lab completed the first clinical trials to test this theory using a 100-year-old drug that had a known mechanism for impacting this cell signal. While the study was small, the children receiving the treatment all improved within six weeks. Two children ages 6 and 14 who were nonverbal, spoke their first sentences one week after one treatment. This kind of improvement is unheard of.

As mentioned, there are 20-plus chronic illnesses, dysfunctions and diseases, including autism, that have increased dramatically over the last 30 years. The medical community doesn't have any solutions for them – including Alzheimer's disease, post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury, chronic fatigue, Parkinson's disease and others. How might all of these be tied together and is there hope?

Naviaux's lab said that for the last eight years they have been studying 10 of these medical issues and have discovered that vast individual silos of information exist, showing what differentiates one from the other – what makes Alzheimer's disease different from Parkinson's disease and post-traumatic stress disorder different from traumatic brain injury?

But no one has ever looked at their similarities... until now. What do they all have in common? And is the reason the medical community hasn't found anything because they've been looking in the wrong place?

The second round of clinical trials for the autism study is scheduled for the end of this summer. With the world at a standstill due to the coronavirus pandemic, that date may be delayed. Nonetheless, this research may offer hope to flatten the curve of autism more than ever before.

Paulette Britton is the director of the nonprofit project Autism Legacy Fund, a Fallbrook resident and mother of an adult child with autism. ALF is not affiliated nor a representative of UCSD or the Naviaux Lab. The fund exists to find and support the therapies and research showing the most promise in remediating the core deficits of autism. For more information, visit https://www.Autismlegacyfund.org.