research review

(Pst! If you like seeing the latest autism-relevant research, visit my Twitter, which has links and brief comments on studies that were interesting, but didn\’t get a whole Reading the Research article about them.)

Today\’s article mostly makes me shake my head, but it does have some merit.  Just not the merit they\’re crossing their fingers and praying it has. 

A perennial concern in some autism circles is trying to make autism into a medical diagnosis.  To that end, millions of dollars have been poured into trying to find biomarkers, or biologically testable differences.  The kind of things that blood tests would pick up, so you could just give the person a blood test and then rubber stamp the person autistic or not based on the results. 

…Naturally it isn\’t even slightly that simple.  Autism is not really in your biology, it is your neurology: your brain, not your body.  In addition, there are a lot of factors that go into whether someone is autistic or not.  The increase in the autistic population is not a question of heavy metals or flame retardants getting into our bodies, so much as it is the culmination of those plus air pollution, degenerating systemic nutrition and diets, a better understanding of neurology and what autism can look like, and even genetics. 

Genetics.  As it turns out, autistic traits have been in the human genome for a long time.  Autism itself may have been a survival mechanism, gifting humanity with specialists in valuable skills (such as reading the stars in order to navigate by boat).

The article stresses the \”over 50%\” success rate in detecting autistic people.  You know what else has about that success rate?  Flipping a coin.  This is not a good test of whether someone is autistic or not.  Such is their desperation to find a medical test to diagnose a neurological difference, that 53% becomes something to be boasted about.  Yikes. 

Coin flip aside, this isn\’t a completely merit-less study.  You see, autistic people come with a variety of biologically unusual features.  It varies on the person, with under- and over-sensitivity to sights, sounds, smells, and even touch.  Some autistic people do poorly unless they\’re on gluten-free, dairy-free diets.  Some of us have unusual food allergies, or other amped up allergies (like my allergy to the algae that grows in my back pond…). 

If the researchers here have come up with categories of biomarkers, those categories could be used to figure out what diets, allergies, and sensory issues might go along with those categories.  Basically, blood tests could be used to improve autistic lives without years of painstaking arguments with doctors, subjective reports, disbelieving specialists, etc. 

What we need now in autism research is not more diagnostic tools, but ways to improve existing autistic lives.  Maybe someday researchers will actually listen to us on that point… 

(Pst! If you like seeing the latest autism-relevant research, visit my Twitter, which has links and brief comments on studies that were interesting, but didn\’t get a whole Reading the Research article about them.)

Today\’s article had scientists wondering about the relationship between eating disorders and autistic traits.  It seems eating disorders are common in autistic people, so things like anorexia, bulimia, pica, and probably the most common-to-autism one, avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder (an example being the \”white foods diet\” of milk, cheese, macaroni, bread, etc).  I have an answer as to why, albeit not one that would be acceptable to publish in a research paper without, y\’know, actual data to support it.

To be autistic is to live in a world unsuited to you.  In most cases, that world rejects you, whether you try hard to fit in or not.  The rules of this world are typically not made clear to you, but you\’re expected to understand them and follow them.  Anything less than perfect compliance is followed by closed doors, weakened relationships, and even outright punishments.

Being put under that kind of stress is painful and stressful for any human, naturally.  Add in the garbage food that\’s endemic to the US diet, things loaded with pesticides, herbicides, food coloring, and nutrition-less white flour and sugar, and your experience gets worse and worse.  Your senses malfunction.  You have a harder time focusing, and thus succeeding in school.  It all becomes this maelstrom of exhaustion, stress, anxiety, and eventually, depression.  You have no control over yourself or your life.

No human thrives without some control over themselves and their lives… and eating disorders can provide exactly that.  You can\’t control the people at school, or the expectations put on you at home, but you can generally control what you put in your mouth.  So that\’s what some people do.

This study seems to have addressed the question of whether autistic traits precede eating disorder traits (not surprisingly: yes).  This would follow with the understanding of autism as an innate, from birth, condition.  Eating disorders, on the other hand, tend to develop later, in childhood at earliest.

The other notable thing about this study, to me, was its note that the interventions typically used for eating disorders don\’t help autistic sufferers nearly as much as they do everyone else.  There are biological factors and processes that likely figure into this, such as the fact that some people don\’t digest dairy and gluten properly.  Instead of turning it into energy, their bodies turn it into an opioid, which… naturally, does not go well.

I hope to see more research like this in the future.  While there are many comorbid conditions with autism, eating disorders are remarkably common, and make our lives and our parents\’ lives much worse.  With work, we might understand how to treat these so meals never have to be a battle.

(Pst! If you like seeing the latest autism-relevant research, visit my Twitter, which has links and brief comments on studies that were interesting, but didn\’t get a whole Reading the Research article about them.)

Today\’s article discusses the minimal followup to receiving an autism diagnosis.  Did you know genetics testing for conditions Fragile X is recommended?  I didn\’t.  I certainly wasn\’t told to have any done after receiving my diagnosis.  I\’ve had only minimal testing done, much later in life, and only on the suggestion of my LENS doctor/nutritionist.

(Pst! If you like seeing the latest autism-relevant research, visit my Twitter, which has links and brief comments on studies that were interesting, but didn\’t get a whole Reading the Research article about them.)

Most likely, it\’s a combination of these things, plus more I haven\’t named.  The autistic experience is rarely a simple one.  Regardless of what causes it, autistic people suffer higher rates of depression.  I am no exception.  My diagnosis was dysthymia, which is a low grade, but long lasting, depression.  It can last your whole life, and… in my case, mostly has.  I can look back upon at least 20 years of my life and say, \”yeah, I was probably depressed.\”  There were several periods in college where I am fairly certain I dropped into major depression instead of my typical dysthymia.  Between these facts and my degree in psychology, I consider myself a valid source on the subject.

There are a lot of factors to depression, both factors you control and ones you don\’t.  The article talks about a factor you do control: mood regulation via choice of activity.  It\’s Oxford, so their unnecessarily fancy word for it is \”mood homeostasis.\”

In plainspeak, they\’re talking about self-care.  When people feel sad or lonely, the typical response is to do something comforting or pleasant to help counter that mood.  That something might be reading a favorite book, going for a walk in the sunshine, calling a friend or family member, lying in front of a warm fire, or something else entirely.  

Now, I say \”the typical response,\” but self-care is actually only somewhat innate.  It makes logical sense to do something nice for yourself when you\’re feeling down, but not everyone takes these actions.  This is possibly because they never learned how to practice self-care, or were even actively taught that it was a waste of time.  But another explanation might apply, too.  

You see, depression can leech the enjoyment out of things you previously enjoyed.  Major depression does this.  So you might go to read a favorite book and find the experience hollow and unenjoyable.  As a result, you might be disheartened from trying that activity again, even though it might be enjoyable the next time.  With enough repetitions of that phenomenon, across many activities you used to find fun, you might simply stop trying at all.  

And that might explain me. I spent a large portion of my life not really knowing what things were likely to make me happy.  I would sometimes ask, somewhat sarcastically, \”what\’s fun?\”  Even now, I don\’t really have things I wholeheartedly consider fun.  Tasty food is about the only reliable pleasure in my life, which is likely part of why it\’s so hard for me to lose weight.  Reading books, taking hot baths, sitting in front of a fire, spending time with friends, playing video games, listening to music… all of these can be wonderful, but so often aren\’t.  

Self-care skills can be taught, and lists made of activities to try when feeling depressed.  This can help overcome the lack of instinct to engage in self-supportive activities.  But of course, with the coronavirus threatening our safety and wellbeing, options may be limited.  Where I live in the US, there are no options to go to a sit-down restaurant with a friend for lunch.  Most public parks have closed off their parking lots.  Some people may not even feel safe going outside.  

So there are external factors as well as potential internal ones, when it comes to self-care.  

(Pst! If you like seeing the latest autism-relevant research, visit my Twitter, which has links and brief comments on studies that were interesting, but didn\’t get a whole Reading the Research article about them.)

At any rate, ignorant researchers or no, this is a promising step forward.  It\’s the most basic of clinical trials, and they\’ll need to do additional ones that include double-blind and sham treatments.  Hopefully, given these results, funding will come for those additional studies soon. 

(Pst! If you like seeing the latest autism-relevant research, visit my Twitter, which has links and brief comments on studies that were interesting, but didn\’t get a whole Reading the Research article about them.)