tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-655962722302095847.post6585804284856903193..comments2024-03-27T20:20:54.505+01:00Comments on Epiphany: Amino Acids in AutismPeter Lloyd-Thomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10173383229834614994noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-655962722302095847.post-32665592025771930502017-05-24T21:00:49.280+02:002017-05-24T21:00:49.280+02:00I don't use much daily. Like a quarter teaspoo...I don't use much daily. Like a quarter teaspoon. As far as arginine goes the closest thing I have supplemented to it is agmatine.Tylernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-655962722302095847.post-38184035311515027642017-05-24T19:59:50.147+02:002017-05-24T19:59:50.147+02:00Tyler, this study used both lysine and arginine as...Tyler, this study used both lysine and arginine as an effective treatment for anxiety. If your kid has anxiety, did you see improvement with just lysine?<br />https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16117182Tanyahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01489962611979985947noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-655962722302095847.post-29460320957300994782017-05-21T01:21:35.660+02:002017-05-21T01:21:35.660+02:00Leucine is in ample amounts in just about any type...Leucine is in ample amounts in just about any type of animal protein. Because it is so ubiquitous, it along with sugars is likely why they are the two main nutritional signals for insulin release. Some bcaa formulations will have a leucine, valine, isoleurine ratio of 9:1:1 or higher and that is not what you want. Leucine is also an essential amino acid which means you cannot live without it. Cottage cheese has copious amounts of leucine, but it is high in aromatic amino acids which is why supplementing bcaa's directly makes more sense than simply eating cottage cheese.<br /><br />In general, if you want to limit leucine intake, which I think is a bad idea in general, you will want to simply have a low protein diet which is almost always a terrible idea as well unless your goal is to have them be weak, frail, and sickly all the time, and especially when they get older. Muscle mass is especially important for the immune system since it is where your body gets the amino acids it needs for synthesizing proteins to fight off infections. Lack of muscle means you are more vulnerable to being overcome by disease. During the black death, one of the reasons it killed so many people was that europe's population was on the brink of starvation most of the time as only the nobles ever had enough protein in thein diet to keep their immune system in good enough shape to fight off disease.<br /><br />The most practical and safe way to restrict overconsumption of leucine or any other mtor stimulating food is to fast. Unfortunately there are no studies on fasting for children and the animal research is inconclusive as there is evidence both ways that fasting children is good or bad. Fasting is definit Ely good for adults but what is good for adults is not always good for children.Tylernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-655962722302095847.post-4381351976882587972017-05-20T19:45:55.145+02:002017-05-20T19:45:55.145+02:00Tyler, I am concerned about leucine in BCAAs, I kn...Tyler, I am concerned about leucine in BCAAs, I know that it promotes autophagy, but do you think that in spite of the fact it stimulates mtor is harmless even in the long run? could he be having a bad reaction to leucine in terms of behavior?<br />ValentinaAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-655962722302095847.post-14621376341458834392017-05-20T19:43:27.978+02:002017-05-20T19:43:27.978+02:00I would give it more time to see if histidine help...I would give it more time to see if histidine helps or not. There may be external effects that vary over time, which is very common in allergy. So you could try it for a month, give it break for month, then try again to decide if it helps or not.<br /><br />If you have autism, mast cell issues (allergy, skin rashes etc) and rages, I think it highly likely that Verapamil will help a great deal.<br /><br />You only need a low histamine diet if you are histamine intolerant.Peter Lloyd-Thomashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10173383229834614994noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-655962722302095847.post-59447053389016769092017-05-20T13:54:26.381+02:002017-05-20T13:54:26.381+02:00Hi Peter, I had sought suggestions for my 23 yr ol...Hi Peter, I had sought suggestions for my 23 yr old with very blistery skin, brain fog, rages, and had had a second regression when very little.<br /> We started 2 g of histidine this week (spread across the day) and I do think overall his mood has been better and I even think his skin is starting to be less inflammed.<br />That said, we are not on a low histimine diet.<br /> His rages, though fewer, seem worse and more intense. Could the histidine actually make responses to normal or high histimine foods worse?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-655962722302095847.post-47704953788152258352017-05-19T20:10:07.127+02:002017-05-19T20:10:07.127+02:00Leucine is paradoxical as it is clearly an anaboli...Leucine is paradoxical as it is clearly an anabolic amino acid as it stimulates mtor, but it also promotes autophagy in one study I read, which is unintuitive since mtor up regulation generally suppresses autophagy.Tylernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-655962722302095847.post-12091195229215718802017-05-19T15:45:53.129+02:002017-05-19T15:45:53.129+02:00Thankyou Peter once again for the last 2 posts, I ...Thankyou Peter once again for the last 2 posts, I can give my opinion since I follow this therapy since almost 5 months, BCAAs are extremely helpful for my son,I couldn´t have left risperidone without them.There are still madness episodes from time to time, but are predictible because his behavior starts to change little by little at least 1 hour before the episode, which is like a dopamine storm invading his brain.About L serine, the experience is being better than expected because I discovered that if he takes it before bed time, the quality of sleep improves a lot.<br />ValentinaAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-655962722302095847.post-72745457156504933782017-05-19T09:37:22.208+02:002017-05-19T09:37:22.208+02:00Agnieszka, it looks like another case where respon...Agnieszka, it looks like another case where responsible trial and error may deliver benefits. In the TBI study I posted in a comment below<br /><br />https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5323875/ <br /><br />it is clear that moderate TBI caused a transient change in brain AAs, but a severe TBI caused a long lasting change. There are some parallels between TBI and more severe autism, although there are big differences.<br /><br />I think AAs are just one part of a much wider metabolic disturbance. If they can be used to tune the brain a little , without side effects and avoiding feedback loops, that would be another step forward.<br /><br />In the US you can buy a wide range of AAs as cheap bulk powders, so you can cheaply make your own customized AA mix. The good thing is that doses are of the same magnitude as the RDA.<br />Peter Lloyd-Thomashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10173383229834614994noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-655962722302095847.post-23488190731455301352017-05-19T09:08:56.690+02:002017-05-19T09:08:56.690+02:00Here is another article for those interested in ho...Here is another article for those interested in how changes in brain amino acids (AAs) may affect behavior. This study shows how traumatic brain injury affects AAs.<br /><br />Severity of experimental traumatic brain injury modulates changes in concentrations of cerebral free amino acids<br />https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5323875/Peter Lloyd-Thomashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10173383229834614994noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-655962722302095847.post-12178871983117917612017-05-19T05:25:29.917+02:002017-05-19T05:25:29.917+02:00Some very interesting research concerning the stri...Some very interesting research concerning the striatum (caudate nuclean and putamen) came out today which mirrors one consistent finding in several autism studies I have read recently:<br /><br />Press Release:<br /><br />https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/05/170518104045.htm<br /><br />Paper:<br /><br />http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/emo-emo0000331.pdf<br /><br />What they found is that people who have anxiety over making decisions concerning an uncertain future. An enlarged striatum is one of the most common brain abnormalities in idiopathic autism and many people with autism prefer and do better academically in a "predictable" environment. (Speculating here) It could be that this research directly explains the need for sameness among high-functioning and low-functioning autistics alike not to mention other existing research in OCD and autism showing an enlarged striatum tracks with severity in repetitive behaviors.<br /><br />A hyperactive amygdala could in part be the result of being driven extra hard from a hyperfunctioning striatum which is attuned to reacting to too many hypothetical predictive fears which to a normal person might just seem like irrational phobias. The need for sameness could be explained as the need to reduce potential possible outcomes that the autistic person is alerted to.<br /><br />Therapy wise, it might be that a brute force approach to dampening down the striatum as a whole might help in this regard except that under the assumption of the solution being a drug-based solution, the dosage would need to be perfect for the individual (i.e. some doctor prescribing a dosage straight off of some medical chart would not do).Tylernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-655962722302095847.post-19293384136948703542017-05-19T05:12:03.712+02:002017-05-19T05:12:03.712+02:00I have already supplemented Lysine daily for quite...I have already supplemented Lysine daily for quite a while now, but for different reasons. Supplemental lysine is thought to act as a benzo booster and many people supplement it under the hopes of needing to use less benzos because they think it will make using benzos less addictive. So in a way Lysine could potentially give a boost to GABAA subunit interventions such as low-dose clonazepam. GABAA signaling seems to show up impaired most of the time in studies that look at the subject, so Lysine is supplemented for that reason because it is pretty unclear what causes GABAA dysfunction (a lot of research and many hypotheses and no clear answers yet) so you could say this is part of an "everything and the kitchen sink" approach in this particular domain. Other uses I came across for Lysine were to inhibit various types of retroviruses such as the various herpes viruses since Lysine (if my memory serves correctly) is antagonistic to Arginine which seems to act as a stimulant for retrovirus infection. Also, I don't supplement threonine directly but have been doing Magnesium-Threonate for some time now, even though threonate is better thought of as a metabolite of Vitamin C.Tylernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-655962722302095847.post-17015994593734510022017-05-19T01:13:00.940+02:002017-05-19T01:13:00.940+02:00Thanks Peter for this post, it is very interesting...Thanks Peter for this post, it is very interesting and particularly helpful to me as I’ve been trying to sum up AAs use in autism and explain recent strange behavior of my son possibly linked to a supplement containing some AAs.<br /><br />It is still not entirely clear to me. There is a paper by Prof. Evangeliou about BCAAs as an adjunctive therapy to ketogenic diet, in which they described that the addition of BCAAs reduced seizures in children with intractable epilepsy on KD. They presented several possible explanations including “ketotic action” of BCCAs, but also suggested that “BCAAs decreasing the effects of glutamatergic neurotransmission could facilitate those of GABAergic neurotransmission”. Is a trial and error needed once again to see if BCAAs could be beneficial via these mechanisms or those proposed by Tyler or the effect is just opposite because of mTOR activation? <br /><br />https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19687389<br /><br />As discussed here before, I’ve been trialling exogenous ketones (beta hydroxybutyrate) after trying on myself. One of the supplement available is a protein/BHB bar containing: L-taurine, L-tyrosine, L-leucine and also calcium. I am not sure if I can attribute behavior to this product, but M. had a few days of unusual irritability and sleep issues recently. He didn’t react this way to other forms of BHB and it was on holidays where a number of other things could be involved. But my question is: should I expect a bad reaction to any of these AAs for any reason? Unfortunately the company does not provide the full details about the AAs dose, but the amount of calcium was 50% RDA. I have never given calcium supplement to my son, but he had a clear, negative reaction to vit. D.Agnieszka Wroczyńskahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04738535364585304041noreply@blogger.com