This is a pretty good paper, with free full text. Two things jumped out at me that I hadn't seen before; The first is that children on the spectrum are quite low in whole blood lithium, which suggests an easy experiment: Supplement with low dose lithium orotate. Another thing that I wanted to bring up was the unusually high level of uridine in autistic children, probably due to poor methylation. There's been a lot of interest in uridine around here of late, but this suggests that it would be a bad idea for people with Aspergers. Also of note was a low level of iodine in a significant subset of the autism group. Go
here for a quick look at the figures from the paper, and
here for full text.
Nutr Metab (Lond). 2011 Jun 8;8(1):34.
Nutritional and metabolic status of children with autism vs. neurotypical children, and the association with autism severity.
Adams JB, Audhya T, McDonough-Means S, Rubin RA, Quig D, Geis E, Gehn E, Loresto M, Mitchell J, Atwood S, Barnhouse S, Lee W.
Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA. jim.adams@asu.edu.
BACKGROUND:
The relationship between relative metabolic disturbances and developmental disorders is an emerging research focus. This study compares the nutritional and metabolic status of children with autism with that of neurotypical children and investigates the possible association of autism severity with biomarkers.
METHOD:
Participants were children ages 5-16 years in Arizona with Autistic Spectrum Disorder (n = 55) compared with non-sibling, neurotypical controls (n = 44) of similar age, gender and geographical distribution. Neither group had taken any vitamin/mineral supplements in the two months prior to sample collection. Autism severity was assessed using the Pervasive Development Disorder Behavior Inventory (PDD-BI), Autism Treatment Evaluation Checklist (ATEC), and Severity of Autism Scale (SAS). Study measurements included: vitamins, biomarkers of vitamin status, minerals, plasma amino acids, plasma glutathione, and biomarkers of oxidative stress, methylation, sulfation and energy production.
RESULTS:
Biomarkers of children with autism compared to those of controls using a t-test or Wilcoxon test found the following statistically significant differences (p < 0.001): Low levels of biotin, plasma glutathione, RBC SAM, plasma uridine, plasma ATP, RBC NADH, RBC NADPH, plasma sulfate (free and total), and plasma tryptophan; also high levels of oxidative stress markers and plasma glutamate. Levels of biomarkers for the neurotypical controls were in good agreement with accessed published reference ranges. In the Autism group, mean levels of vitamins, minerals, and most amino acids commonly measured in clinical care were within published reference ranges.A stepwise, multiple linear regression analysis demonstrated significant associations between several groups of biomarkers with all three autism severity scales, including vitamins (adjusted R2 of 0.25-0.57), minerals (adj. R2 of 0.22-0.38), and plasma amino acids (adj. R2 of 0.22-0.39).
CONCLUSION:
The autism group had many statistically significant differences in their nutritional and metabolic status, including biomarkers indicative of vitamin insufficiency, increased oxidative stress, reduced capacity for energy transport, sulfation and detoxification. Several of the biomarker groups were significantly associated with variations in the severity of autism. These nutritional and metabolic differences are generally in agreement with other published results and are likely amenable to nutritional supplementation. Research investigating treatment and its relationship to the co-morbidities and etiology of autism is warranted.
PMID: 21651783 PMCID: PMC3135510 Free PMC Article
From the full text:
Overall, the problems with SAM, glutathione, and oxidative stress suggest that children with autism need increased anti-oxidant support, folinic acid (not folic) and vitamin B12 to support the methionine cycle. (Folic acid is not sufficient in most cases. In the James et al 2004 [8] study 16 of the 20 children with autism were taking a multivitamin and mineral supplement containing 400 ug folic acid and 3 ug vitamin B-12 but still had abnormal methylation; folinic acid, not folic acid, was needed to normalize methylation).
Our results suggest that some children with autism (those with low tryptophan and phenylalanine) would benefit from either increased protein intake, use of digestive enzymes containing proteases, and/or supplements of tryptophan (or 5-HTP) and phenylalanine.
If you're interested in this, I'd recommend a look at the full text; there is more there.