115 | The Causes of Autism

Welcome back to another episode of the Real Health Podcast. We are all about brain health in the month of April. We're talking about everything from kids to adults. We're just gonna talk about neurodegenerative conditions in adults, Alzheimer's and dementia. We're gonna talk about autoimmune disorders in adults and kids, and we're gonna talk about autism.

Today, the focus is autism. We're gonna talk talk about really the rates of it and the causes of it, and then we'll get into solutions on a different time. Hey, just a couple things that are coming down the pipe this month for April. The last Tuesday of every month, we do a Zoom based learning masterclass. It is gonna be on the brain this month.

So make sure you go to our Instagram link tree and you sign up for our Zoom masterclass, our brain masterclass through Zoom. The last one was incredible. It's all about the immune system. This month's all about the brain. So we're gonna be super excited about getting that out to you guys.

And then, hey, if you are not if your kids are not currently under chiropractic care for the month of April, we are doing a new patient appointment special for $40. You can have your kids go through their new patient experience here at the Real Health Co at either our South or West Knoxville location and get them started under care. Chiropractic is one of the biggest, pillars for us in terms of helping children reach optimal health. So just wanted to let you know what we're doing for the month of April. Let's dive in.

Let's talk about the current rates of autism. Right now it's about one in thirty six as of 2020. We see that back in '2 thousand, it's one in one hundred fifty, and even back when we talk about 1960s and 70s is one in a couple thousand, ten thousand, Which is wild to think that one in thirty six children in The United States are identified with Autistic Spectrum Disorder. When we look at genetic disparities, it is more prevalent in boys than girls, and there's some reasons behind that we'll talk about. And in 2017, there was a study done that showed two point two percent of The US population, or roughly five and a half million individuals are currently diagnosed with an Autistic Spectrum Disorder.

Those pretty staggering statistics. Autism is on the rise. So we're gonna talk about the causes of autism. So why do we have them? So the first is what environmental factors are related to the increase of autism?

And one, let's talk about prenatal exposure. So prenatal exposure, obviously mom's pregnant. What we find is that there are major air pollution in heavy metals that are linked to higher autistic rates. Actually, the closer you live to an interstate, the higher the rates of autism. There are specific chemicals and heavy metals like lead and mercury that when consumed during pregnancy are linked to higher autism.

There are endocrine disruptors like pesticides and BPA and flame retardants that are even in your mattresses and couches that interfere with fetal brain development. Medications, SSRIs have actually been shown to slightly increase the risk of autistic spectrum disorders. So SSRIs are antidepressants, antianxiety medication. Acetaminophen or Tylenol, when you take that during pregnancy has also been suggested as a risk factor in several studies. When we look at the dad, so if a dad is over the age of 50, it increases autistic rates.

If a mom is overweight obese, it increases the risk of autism twofold. If a mom is diabetic and obese, it's a fourfold increase in autistic rates in that child. The reality of paternal and maternal health is so important. Actually, father is obese and mother's obese, we have a significant fourfold increase in autistic rates. And what do we see today?

Well, we see metabolic syndrome is epidemic in our culture. I think it's definitely one of the reasons why we are seeing increase in autism rates. It's because we're seeing an increase in obesity. When you look at birth and early life factors. So preterm birth or low birth weight are increased risk factors.

Birth complications and hypoxia or lack of blood flow is a major risk factor. A C section is a risk factor. When we look at these early life factors or risk factors, chiropractic care is probably one of the best things to help moms achieve a long, healthy, successful vaginal birth. That's why every pregnant woman should be under chiropractic care. The relationship between baby position and length of labor and what influences baby position the most is chiropractic care.

Specifically a Webster certified chiropractic physician will help mom and baby get into the best position to achieve the best possible birth outcome. When you look at postnatal and early childhood factors, there's research says gut microbiome imbalance. So dysbiosis in kids is a massive risk factor for brain function. Antibiotic overuse will interfere with neurodevelopment. Toxic exposures like lead, even pesticides and household chemicals alter neurodevelopment.

These first few years of life are so important when we look at what our children are being exposed to, and there's other emerging factors. EMFs, electromagnetic frequencies are being studied and how they affect neurodevelopment. So just think about how much your kid is being exposed to a tablet, a wifi, a computer, or electronics in general. And then even there's other risk factors where maternal stress and trauma, emotional stress will affect neurodevelopment because that high cortisol level. And then dependent upon genetic susceptibility, how that baby can process, how that mom can process stress cortisol levels is really important in neurodevelopment.

The big takeaways here are you during even like preconception should be mindful of birth weight, toxic exposures, nutritional deficiencies, because all of those are linked to increasing risk of autism in children. And then when that baby's in this world, how are you caring for them? Are you being holistic in their care? Or are you being reactive in their care? Are they on multiple antibiotics?

Or are you supporting the child's immune system pre infection? These all are massively important, and helping decrease the risk of autism in your children, in the children of our society. And one of the biggest things I wanna camp out for a second is a term we call methylation. Methylation is simply this process in the body where a methyl group is added to DNA. DNA is methylated, is what we call it.

It's a carbon three hydrogens and this methyl group is added to a DNA and that DNA then allows it to express itself. So, methylation regulates gene expression, so it turns genes on and off, the expression of genes. It supports detoxification. It affects neurotransmitter production, So this is important for dopamine and serotonin, even stress hormones, and it helps actually produce glutathione, the most powerful antioxidant in the brain. There is research that validates methylation dysfunction is linked to autism, that we see a lot of autistic children have underlying methylation disorders or impaired methylation pathways.

We see poor DNA methylation, we see reduced detoxification and greater oxidative stress. So in essence, methylation helps genes express themselves normally and it helps detox and it helps support normal neurotransmitter pathways, and it helps increase your antioxidants so that when the baby is exposed to harmful chemicals, they can detox properly. But when we don't have those supportive methyl pathways, which one out of four don't, one out of four don't properly have a healthy methylation pathway, what happens? Well, we get greater oxidative stress from toxins, chemicals. It affects neurotransmitter production, and it alters genetic expression.

And over time, these genetic factors can significantly increase the risk of autism in kids. What are the genetic autism What genes should you look for? And the big one that we hear a lot about is MTHFR, Methyl Tetra Hydrofolate Reductase Enzyme. MTHFR is something you can easily check to see if you have it, therefore you will express the deficiency of that pathway in your body and in your children's body. You can test it, your husband can test it, you can see, hey, do we have this particular mutation?

There two main MTHFR genes that we look at. There's one that's the C677T and the A1298C mutation. Those two mutations are what we look at the most because they can reduce methylation efficiency the most. And this is what leads to lower glutathione levels, lower genetic expression, and increase environmental susceptibility to toxins. So look at genetic factors.

You can also look at labs. Some of the big labs you look at is homocysteine. Mom, dad, if you have high homocysteine levels, you are not methylating well. I check homocysteine on every patient I lab test. Homocysteine is that important.

High homocysteine markers at like even eight, nine, 10, 11 into the teens, I've seen them up over 20 is a significant impairment in methylation. Not only does this increase your risk of cardiovascular disease, neurological disorders, but this is the best way, one of the best ways to test for methylation status. You can check your B12 and folate levels because methylfolate and methyl B12 are one of the best ways to methylate those B vitamins. Environmental and nutrition factors. You can look for heavy metals.

Heavy metals like mercury and lead are probably the biggest two neurotoxins that we see affecting kids today. And when we look at support for autism, when we get into solutions at another podcast, podcast number two, solutions for autism, we're going to talk a lot about methylation. We're going to spin and camp out a lot of time and talk through how to restore methylation, not just for the adult, but also for the child. One of the big questions I get, hey Doctor. Barrett, how are vaccines linked?

And if you typed in vaccines in autism, you're gonna get a lot of big pharma ads that say there's no connection, no relationship. But I challenge you to do this. Go to Google, go to chat GPT and type in this, vaccines and neuroinflammation. Type that in. Because in essence, autism is just neuroinflammation.

It's driven through what's called a primed brain, but it's chronic neuroinflammatory response. And when you look at, if you look at the whole story of autism, then it's easy to put the pieces of the puzzle together. Like imagine doing a puzzle, but not having a framework of what the puzzle even looks like. It's really hard to put a puzzle together if you don't know what the picture is in the end. When you start with the big picture of autism and you ask the proper questions, hey mom, how healthy were you?

Hey dad, how healthy were you? Okay, tell me about pregnancy. When did you conceive? What seasonal life was that? Were you sick during pregnancy?

How was your nutritional status? Were you overweight? What week was the baby birth? Was it a C section? Was it a vaginal birth?

Did you use antibiotics or during labor and delivery? Were you on IV antibiotics? Okay, now breastfed, was the child breastfed or formula fed? What were their probiotics? How many times were they on antibiotics?

Were they vaccinated? How many vaccines? Were they ever ill? How many illnesses did they have? And when you build the story out, you see it.

I think a lot of people wanna blame one thing, but it's never one thing. It's multiple factors that lead to chronic neuroinflammatory response that is then driven into a final diagnosis. And so you gotta work backwards. So are vaccines related? Yes, they're absolutely related.

Vaccines induce a immune inflammatory response. That's what they're designed to do. But here's the problem. When the baby is already in this pre inflammatory state, the brain is inflamed. The blood brain barrier has been broken down.

There's been multiple antibiotics used. There's been multiple herbicides and pesticides. The mom's been unhealthy. There's poor methylation. They live close to it.

It toxic toxic water, toxic food. They're not they're not consuming reverse osmosis water. When you look at the whole story, then you see, hey. Well, here's why. And then and then all of a sudden, MMR or the DTaP vaccine just blows them up.

It's final straw in the camel's back. It the MMR and the DTaP wasn't the final. What wasn't wasn't everything. It wasn't 99% of it. It was just another trigger to an already pre existed inflamed brain.

And unfortunately, it's sometimes the final straw that then puts the brain in a state that can never be reversed. It can never be reversed. A primed brain can never be reversed. It can be improved, it can be significantly helped, but it can never be reversed. Don't let your child's brain, or your friend's child's brain, or your family's child's brain get to that point.

Vaccines in the immune system. It plays a role. How? Neuroinflammation occurs when the immune cells in the brain, the microglial of the brain become over activated. Go back to my podcast where I talked about a primed brain, a primed brain.

And when you look at a primed brain, and you understand the microglia of primed brain, then you'll understand what I'm talking about here. When the brain is primed, vaccines trigger neuroinflammation. But there's genetic predisposition, there's preexisting inflammation from infections, autoimmunity of mom, C section birth, methylation is low, blood brain barrier is permeable, and then yes, aluminum has the final straw. Thimerosal has the final straw. And then sooner or later, you've got an autistic child.

So, those are the causes. Look at the story. Don't blame one thing. Understand what's happening. The goal of the podcast is to help people understand what's happening in the body, and not to just blame something.

We're not blaming one thing. We're trying to help educate the public on why autism. Why is a child's brain inflamed? And next week, we're gonna talk about how to reverse it. Thanks for listening to another episode of the Real Health Podcast.

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