Why it's Time We Faced Fats New research establishes a link between nutrition and the management of many behaviour and learning disorders. The Guardian May 5, 2005 At the Dyslexia Clinic at Oxford University's Department of Physiology a series of trials has found that dyslexia, dyspraxia, attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) can all be dramatically improved by simple nutritional supplements. The department's latest work was published earlier this week by Stein's colleague Alexandra Richardson. She studied more than 100 children of normal ability in mainstream schools in County Durham, who were underachieving and suspected of being dyspraxic - that is of having problems with coordination or motor skills. In some cases, the children were also disruptive. Once they had been assessed, they were divided into two groups for a randomised double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. Half of them were given fish oils high in Omega-3 essential fats for three months. The other half were given placebos. Some 40% of the children given supplements made dramatic improvements in reading and spelling, averaging progress of more than nine months in just three months. The control group made just the normal progress of three months. Although none had been diagnosed as suffering from ADHD, a third were found to have sufficient problems to put them in this category. But when given fish oils, half of them made so much progress they no longer counted as having attention disorders - a change on a par with improvements made when children are prescribed stimulant drugs such as Ritalin. (click here for complete study) Antioxidant Levels May be Linked to Autism By Serena Gordon HealthDay Reporter SUNDAY, April 3 (HealthDay News) -- Could oxidative stress, a suspected contributor to many disease processes like heart disease and cancer, also play a role in autism? University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock researchers think it may. In a recent study, autistic children were found to have significantly lower levels of an antioxidant called glutathione and its metabolic precursors. For this study, lead author, S. Jill James and her colleagues compared blood samples of 90 autistic children to those of 45 children without the disorder, and found that the active form of glutathione was reduced by about 80 percent in children with autism. James also said the metabolic precursors of glutathione were reduced. Glutathione is the major antioxidant in cells important for detoxification and elimination of environmental toxins (complete story) Mirror Neurons in Autism University of California, San Diego In autism research released this week, scientists from the University of California, San Diego report that the "mirror" neurons don't function properly in people with autism. Mirror neurons are those that activate when you perform an action and then see someone else perform the same action, or vice versa. These neurons have also been dubbed the "monkey-see, monkey-do" cells. "The findings provide evidence that individuals with autism have a dysfunctional mirror neuron system, which may contribute to their impairments -- especially those that involve comprehending and responding appropriately to others' behavior," one of the study's author, Lindsay Oberman, a doctoral student at UCSD, said in a statement. The research will be published in the journal Cognitive Brain Research. Neural basis of eye gaze processing deficits in autism Brain. 2005 May;128(Pt 5):1038-48. Epub 2005 Mar 9.   Pelphrey KA, Morris JP, McCarthy G. Duke-UNC Brain Imaging and Analysis Center, Duke University, Impairments in using eye gaze to establish joint attention and to comprehend the mental states and intentions of other people are striking features of autism. Here, using event-related functional MRI (fMRI), we show that in autism, brain regions involved in gaze processing, including the superior temporal sulcus (STS) region, are not sensitive to intentions conveyed by observed gaze shifts. On congruent trials, subjects watched as a virtual actor looked towards a checkerboard that appeared in her visual field, confirming the subject's expectation regarding what the actor 'ought to do' in this context. On incongruent trials, she looked towards empty space, violating the subject's expectation. Consistent with a prior report from our laboratory that used this task in neurologically normal subjects, 'errors' (incongruent trials) evoked more activity in the STS and other brain regions linked to social cognition, indicating a strong effect of intention in typically developing subjects (n = 9). The same brain regions were activated during observation of gaze shifts in subjects with autism (n = 10), but did not differentiate congruent and incongruent trials, indicating that activity in these regions was not modulated by the context of the perceived gaze shift. These results demonstrate a difference in the response of brain regions underlying eye gaze processing in autism. We conclude that lack of modulation of the STS region by gaze shifts that convey different intentions contributes to the eye gaze processing deficits associated with autism. Evoked brain potentials in adolescents in normal conditions and in attention deficit during solution of tasks requiring recognition of short-duration acoustic stimuli. Aleksandrov AA, Polyakova NV, Stankevich LN. Department of Higher Nervous Activity and Psychophysiology, St. Petersburg State University, Russia. Neurosci Behav Physiol. 2005 Feb;35(2):153-7. This study compares the effectiveness of the frequency-based recognition of short acoustic stimuli in groups of adolescents with attention deficit and normal measures of attention in conditions of the standard "oddball" paradigm. Stimuli of duration 50 msec yielded insignificant intergroup differences, though adolescents with attention deficit discriminated signal of duration 11 msec significantly worse. These showed significant differences in evoked brain potentials even with standard stimuli, with a significantly greater amplitude for N2b waves and a decreased P3b component. Evoked potentials obtained in response to the deviant stimulus were characterized by a P3b wave of reduced amplitude in the group with attention deficit. These data provide evidence that adolescents with attention deficit show defined abnormalities in the processing of acoustic sensory information at the cortical level.

Legislation Would Bar Industry-Connected Scientists From Reviewing Drugs 5/24/2005 Healthy News Service CSPI Supports Hinchey Effort to Reform FDA Scientists with financial ties to drug makers or other medical companies would be prohibited from serving on federal advisory committees charged with reviewing the safety of drugs, if reform legislation offered by Representative Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) becomes law. The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), which monitors scientists' ties to the drug, food, chemical, and other industries, announced its support for the legislation, which would also separate the drug-safety function of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) from the new-drug-approval function. The FDA Improvement Act would also make the agency less reliant on fees from drug companies to fund its work. Research conducted by CSPI's Integrity in Science Project revealed that 10 of 32 scientists on a February advisory panel looking into the safety of the arthritis pain killers known as Cox-2 inhibitors had financial ties to the several manufacturers of those drugs. If the votes of those scientists had been eliminated, the panel would have voted to recommend removing 2 of 3 Cox-2s from the market. In another recent case, one physician who was paid to appear in a promotional video for a brand of silicone-gel breast implants sat on a panel charged with reviewing their safety. According to CSPI, the FDA begins virtually every advisory panel reviewing a new product with a statement waiving the prohibition on conflicts of interest for some of the scientists on the panel. Hinchey's bill would prohibit those waivers. (complete story) Missouri Senate Votes to Limit Mercury In Childhood Vaccine By James Goodwin News-Leaderspringfield Jefferson City - Immunizations for pregnant women and children ages 2 and younger could contain only trace amounts of mercury under a bill headed to Gov. Matt Blunt's desk. The Senate voted, 29-2, Wednesday to give final approval. The House adopted the measure Tuesday. The ban would take effect in April 2007. Many proponents of a ban believe mercury, a preservative in vaccines, triggers autism in children. Scientists disagree on any connection, but states nonetheless have begun limiting exposure. "My attitude is what can it hurt to get (mercury) out?" said Sen.Norma Champion, R-Springfield, the bill's sponsor. Originally, her legislation called for a ban on thimerosal and other mercury-based vaccines for children 6 and younger. (complete story) Bill Targets Dental Mercury April 14, 2005 By Doug Fletcher,Staff Writer When it comes to a mouthful of mercury, Pam Anderson doesn't mince words. "End this toxic assault on humanity," she urged legislators during a recent legislative hearing on two bills that would ban the use of mercury in dental fillings, phased in over three years. "Implanting the same elemental mercury that we have banned in fever thermometers," Anderson continued, "in the mouths of children, pregnant women, the poor and willing Maine citizens must be made a criminal act." The goal of L.D.s 1327 and 1338, sponsors say, is to reduce the mercury that gets into Maine's environment. An independent group, the Association of Metropolitan Sewerage Agencies, has performed studies indicating 80 percent of the mercury flowing into metropolitan sewers from households comes from human waste, from individuals with mercury amalgam fillings. The AMA acknowledges that chewing can cause minute amounts of mercury to vaporize, while Hinck says body chemistry results in leaching the element from fillings and into the body. In addition, the group said that Maine's five crematoriums released an estimated 20 pounds of mercury in 2002, and that with an aging population, the number of cremations done each year is expected to continue growing. Once in the environment, mercury, a heavy metal, accumulates in the food chain, leading to advisories against eating fish in Maine and elsewhere. Mercury in humans can adversely affect childhood development and lead to other health problems. Pam, the wife of dentist Thomas Anderson, whose practice has been mercury-free since 1983, said, "There are alternatives" available that work as well, are similarly priced and offer similar durability. (complete story) New Bill Reflects a New Attitude Towards Holistic Practices 5/18/2005 Healthy News Service Columbus, OH – May 19, 2005 – The Ohio Consumer Health Freedom Bill, House Bill 117 and Senate Bill 98, is currently in Committee in the Ohio Statehouse. Testimony for the bill ran April 5, 2005 to a packed hearing room in front of the Commerce & Labor Committee. Eighteen people testified how alternative medicine had helped them heal after Western medicine had failed them. This bill promises to create a new legal environment for alternative health practitioners who do not hold a state license. This bill gives them legal recognition and puts parameters and limitations on what they can and cannot do. “This bill is long overdue,” said Daryl Kulak, President of the Health Freedom Coalition of Ohio, the group in favor of this bill. “These practitioners have been helping hundreds of thousands of Ohioans every year, and yet they must operate under a cloak of fear, because the medical boards could shut them down any minute. It’s necessary to give all Ohioans a choice in their healthcare and keep government out of the business of restricting healthcare choices.” (complete story) CDC Vaccine Data Leads Scientists to Shocking Discovery February 9, 2005 CHILDREN 27-TIMES MORE LIKELY TO DEVELOP AUTISM WITH EXPOSURE TO MERCURY- CONTAINING VACCINES, FINDINGS REVIEWED AT IOM MEETING IN DC WASHINGTON, Feb. 9 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, the Institute of Medicine will hold a one-day meeting to review important new research on the link between thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative in vaccines, and neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism. One of the larger studies under review comes from the CDC's own Vaccine Safety Datalink. Under independent investigation, CDC's data concludes children are 27-times more likely to develop autism after exposure to three thimerosal-containing vaccines (TCVs), than those who receive thimerosal-free versions. The findings suggest autism via TCVs has a higher relative risk than that between lung cancer and smoking. (complete story)

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