Welcome back to another week IN THE RAW with me, the Raw Egg Nationalist. Here’s an essay I wrote over the weekend about a fascinating new study. The study is a case report about two girls with severe autism whose symptoms were totally reversed when their parents put them on a high-quality diet and minimised their exposure to environmental stressors.
This is a really interesting topic, so if you have any thoughts, or if you have personal experience with issues discussed here, please let me know in the comments section.
It’s hard to look at the stunning rise in cases of autism over the last few decades and not think something very strange is going on.
Here are the figures. In 2023, one in 36 eight-year-old children in the US received an autism diagnosis: that’s 2.8%, or 4% of boys (1 in 25) and 1% of girls (1 in 100). Just twenty years earlier, the figure was 1 in 150; in the 1990s, it was estimated as 1 in 1,000; and in the 1970s, 1 in 10,000.
To call these figures a stunning rise is, if anything, an understatement.
Professionals and so-called experts will blithely tell you it’s just better detection methods and screening programs. What they’re saying is, “There were always this many autistic kids: we just didn’t know it until now.” This also implies, very heavily, that the causes of autism are largely genetic, and that environment is a far less important, even a neglible, factor.
But that explanation doesn’t wash, especially when you dig into the literature and find case studies on the transformative effects of simple targeted interventions. Giving autistic children common antifungals has been shown, for example, to reverse symptoms totally in some cases, probably because those children’s guts have been colonised by opportunistic microbes like Aspergillus fungus, which interfere with the complex role our guts and their inhabitants play in governing mood and cognition.
Large-scale studies, including a recent study of over 16,000 children from Sweden, suggest a clear role for gut dysbiosis—disturbance of the vital community of microorganisms that inhabit our gut—in the development of autism and related conditions like ADHD. The researchers behind that Swedish study identified a number of risk factors for autism, including antibiotic treatment during a child’s first year—which wreaks havoc on the developing gut—and reduced levels of anti-inflammatory fats and increased levels of endocrine disruptors (harmful chemicals that alter our hormone levels) in the child’s cord blood at birth.
Just a few weeks ago, I wrote for Infowars about a new study which posits a clear link between glyphosate exposure and autism, one of many chemicals linked to gut dysbiosis as well as a whole range of other negative health effects. Since 1974, it’s estimated that at least 1.6 billion kg of glyphosate has been used in the US, or roughly 20% of the total global usage of the chemical. Over 80% of Americans over the age of six have detectable levels of glyphosate in their urine.
What we’re looking at with the rise of autism, as far as I’m concerned, is not the discovery of something that was there all along, waiting to be discovered, but the growth of a condition that is largely, if not entirely, caused by the sheer toxicity of the modern world we live in. And that toxicity is growing. It’s in the food, the water, the air—wherever we look.
If that’s the case, it means autism can be treated, right—so long as we can reduce our exposure and especially our children’s exposure to those toxins? Yes, it does. That’s precisely what a new case report suggests.
The report, published in the Journal of Personalized Medicine, shows that simple lifestyle changes, including dietary changes, can make a significant difference to the severity of autism symptoms in children. In this case, the subjects were twin girls suffering from Level 3 autism spectrum disorder, a diagnosis “requiring very substantial support.”
The girls’ parents were told to make changes that addressed their daughters’ “total allostatic load,” which basically means reducing bodily and environmental stressors that have been shown by a wealth of studies to increase the risk of chronic disease. These stressors can be physical, mental or environmental, and they lead to the persistent release, within the body, of inflammatory cells and substances like cytokines and cortisol. Exposure to these cells and substances, in the long term, damages tissues and causes a wide variety of negative physical and mental changes.
The twin girls were given specialist behavioural analysis and speech therapy like many children suffering from autism, but they were also given a diet that was about as far as possible from the typical child’s diet today. Out went processed, store-bought food, and in came natural, organic foods—the kind of foods our ancestors ate in abundance until about the middle of the last century, when modern processed foods began to flood the supermarket aisles and a new era of “convenience”—and massive ill-health—was born.
Processed-food consumption, in particular, has been linked to pretty much every single one of the prevailing diseases of modernity, from cancer and obesity to heart disease and Alzheimer’s.
A recent study showed that in the US today, toddlers (kids aged between two and five) derive 58% of their daily calories from processed food. In this regard, the US is second only to the UK, where a whopping 66% of toddlers’ daily calories come from processed food.
The twins’ new diet is described in detail in the case report.
“The twins were also put on a strictly gluten-free, casein-free diet that was low in sugar and had no exposure to artificial colors, dyes, or ultra-processed foods. An emphasis was placed on consuming organic, unprocessed, freshly prepared, and home-cooked food from local sources when possible. The family also consulted with a dietician for guidance around these dietary interventions.”
As well as organic, unprocessed foods from local sources, the girls’ diets were enhanced with a select regimen of supplements.
“A number of dietary supplements, including omega-3 fatty acids, a multivitamin, vitamin D, carnitine, 5-methyltetrahydrofolate, and bio-individualized homeopathic remedies, were taken by both girls.”
Genetic profiles of the girls helped to establish their particular needs. This analysis revealed, for example, that the girls had genetic variations that increased their risk of systemic inflammation and that they suffered from impaired serotonin metabolism. One sister also was predisposed to lack vitamin D, and the other had genes that put her at risk of “neuroinflammation, oxidative stress, and compromised detoxification,” so special supplements were chosen to counter these proclivities.
The parents were advised to take other important, but quite simple, measures. Their home was evaluated for air quality, mold and moisture risk—remember what I said about the value of anti-fungals in autism treatment—and improvements were made, including ensuring windows were regularly opened for better ventilation and airflow.
So what happened?
Over a period of two years, both girls’ Stage 3 diagnoses were totally reversed. Six months after that reversal, none of the symptoms had returned. They were, for all intents and purposes, cured of autism.
A miracle—that’s exactly what the parents of the girls say in the postscript to the study.
In the US, the lifelong costs of autism are projected to reach $15 trillion by 2029 if rates of the condition increase along their current trajectory. But the costs extracted from individual families are devastating in a way money, in any amount, simply can’t describe. As far as I can see, no parent has anything to lose by attempting the kind of lifestyle changes detailed in this new case study, with or without the aid of a physician. What these changes amount to is no more than a recognition of, and a rebellion against, a world that is becoming increasingly hostile to life. A world that we created with our own hands.
Hi REN!
I have actually walked this path of recovering my child from PDD-NOS (considered on the autism spectrum)and global motor delays.
As far as I have been able to figure out, his issues resulted from a combination of genetic susceptibility, vaccine injury and regression, and GI issues from both vaccines and from antibiotics and ibuprofen from chronic ear infections. Following the advice of his pediatrician made him very very sick. I questioned his minor reactions to his vaccines all along and was gaslit that all was normal. I questioned giving him antibiotics for the ear infection because I was a stay at home mom and he was nursing and was told an ear infection could lead to meningitis in a baby his age and he could die if I did not treat the ear infection with antibiotics. He eventually got ear tubes.
When I stopped listening to the pediatrician and started working on healing root issues, he finally got better. We started by eliminating dairy which cleared up his eczema and ear infections. Then we eliminated gluten, corn and soy. Then we moved to GAPS diet and tackling the severe gut issues. For many years he could not even digest fruit. We saw an Integrative Pediatrician who helped with gut issues and underlying infections using supplements like an emulsified oregano and monolaurin.
You have to be so careful with Integrative doctors. Many are charlatans and some are dangerous. Many will try and put your kid on dozens of supplements a day. Stick to foundational healing through diet. Minimize supplements to what is necessary to correct deficiencies or address a specific issue. Functional medicine was our biggest waste of money for very little progress. Read books and DIY as much as possible! Diet is foundational. Cleaning up home environment is foundational. Filtering and having clean water is foundational. Time outside playing every day is foundational. A good sleep routine is foundational. I cooked bone broth daily. I fermented veggies and made from scratch coconut milk with probiotic capsules.
Cleaning up the home and diet helped him with GI issues and neurological and behavioral issues and sleep issues but he was still seriously delayed in motor skills from vax regression. Therapies were integral for this; but the conventional OT/PT were a waste of time and money. The biggest winner for him was an out of pocket vestibular therapy called The Sensory Learning Program. This gave him the ability to do cross body motions without falling and restored his muscle tone to the low range of normal. Prior to this, his OT said she had never seen anyone with such low muscle tone and so many motor delays who was not also significantly cognitively delayed. She saw his progress with SLP and was absolutely floored because she was told by her supervisors that is was a scam and yet she watched him graduate from needing OT/PT within 6 months of finishing the program.
By the time my son started Kindergarten, he had graduated off his IEP. He had qualified for Early Intervention Preschool under the autism umbrella and had been retained for an extra year in early intervention due to the low muscle tone. He was too weak to manage sitting in a desk for a full school day. Sensory Learning Program fixed this. Additionally we did Brain Bright therapy to work on retained primitive reflexes and give him better body control to catch up to peers. We put a “Ninja Training Course” in the basement to help him with balance and coordination and strength. He did vision therapy to help his eyes begin tracking together. He did 40 deep dives of HBOT for GI healing and this helped low muscle tone as well. We bought a soft chamber HBOT for home. We enrolled him in a TKD gym and he completed a black belt. We got him into tennis and swimming for low-concussion-risk cross-body coordination sports. We homeschooled to fit in the therapies and so he could learn at his own pace.
He attended traditional school for 11th and 12th grades. He had no IEP and no one even knows about his past as a kid on “the spectrum” other than his girlfriend who knows a little bit about it. He graduated with honors. He rides bikes long range and lifts weights and stays active with many other sports. He has had a girlfriend for over a year and he plans to study engineering in the fall at university. He still avoids gluten, but can basically eat anything else … though too much junk food makes him fart 💨 excessively and dyes and preservatives can still trigger nosebleeds. We maintain healthy paleo eating habits at home but he is a teenager with his own job and money so he does hit up the junk food on occasion and and consequences are his to manage as far as I am concerned.
I found Frog Twitter during covid era while trying to find accurate info. I have always resonated with your account bc you talk about many of the things I had to learn to get my son healthy. You have such a great account and that’s why I am a subscriber. Love your Podcast. Love your Twitter. Appreciate the articles. We truly are living in Toxic Soup and raising healthy kids in this is swimming upstream. Reducing the total allostatic load is beneficial for everyone; not just people with ASD.
Thanks for writing about this!
Great article. Perfect title, perfect closing line. Thanks for identifying problems and then identifying potential solutions as well.