Metals and trace elements in the diet and by injection

Metals and trace elements

 

 

 

Thimerosal

 

 

Certain essential metals and metal ions are required for the action of the human body, generally by their action on permitting the activity of enzymes and allowing specific carrier molecules to work adequately (e.g. haemoglobin).   However, some are toxic.

 

There have been specific worries in ASD concerning mercury in that it is not essential and is noted to be associated with mental illness when present in the  body in excess.  The inoculation of thimerosal (also known as thiomersal, and mercurothiolate) as a disinfectant in vaccines has been pointed at as a cause of excess mercury.  However it has been difficult in actually demonstrating reliably this excess, and the levels shown are below that found as causing mental illness in adults.  Attempts to remove it using standard medical procedures have been claimed as producing an improved mental condition in ASD.   Thimerosal breaks down to ethylmercury and the 25micrograms per vaccine dose (largely in the past as most is not now used), is excreted faster than the methyl mercury daily dose of 0.47micrograms/kg/day as being safe.  Hence a 5kg child would have expected to be safe in less than 10 days per vaccine.    Much of the data is published not in scientific journals but as part of WHO, CDC, UK (NHS) and Australian official databases, which should be viewed to get a background to mercury toxicity effects.  However, these documents do not explain the apparent advantages shown by some cases when mercury is removed from the body or the lack of high levels of mercury appearing in the urine when the drugs are used that cause their the mercury excretion.

 

Other metals have been considered as being in excess or in depletion for reasons that may be associated with pica (very young children eating dirt), or as a result of other biochemical effects that might decrease their ability to be absorbed or retained in the body.  One problem with this is that for side effects to be found in experimental animals, experiments often have to have none of these metals at all, and extremely low levels to be present in the body, whereas in the autistic children the levels found, although lower than the normal range found in children of the same age, may not be expected to show signs of inadequacy.   At the moment much of this is under argument and many alternative results have been found as to metal levels in hair and skin despite good control studies e.g. Wecker

 

 

 

Mercury 

 

There has been a disagreement as to whether there is an excess in the body at all.   Tests done on the teeth and hair of children with autism vs controls seemed to disagree on whether the levels were high or not.  Certainly Adams’ group found improvements and has tried to put together clinical studies.  One worry is that the child’s biochemistry actually has other problems (e.g. inadequacy to produce glutathione because of sulphur biochemistry complex problems) and it is this that allows what would be looked on as relatively reasonable levels of mercury to be toxic.

 

Bernard S, Enayati A, Redwood L, Roger H, Binstock T. Autism: a novel form of mercury poisoning. Med Hypotheses. 2001 Apr;56(4):462-71. Review. Bernard et al showing that the symptoms of autism were very similar to those of people suffering from infantile exposure to mercury poisoning.

 

James et al,. Am J Med Genet B Neuropsychiatr Genet. 2006 Dec 5;141(8):947-56. found that children with autism had low levels of glutathione, which is the body’s primary defence against mercury.  Metabolic endophenotype and related genotypes are associated with oxidative stress in children with autism (probably more associated with the paper below…)

 

James SJ, Slikker W 3rd, Melnyk S, New E, Pogribna M, Jernigan S. Thimerosal neurotoxicity is associated with glutathione depletion: protection with glutathione precursors. Neurotoxicology. 2005 Jan;26(1):1-8. (Environmental methyl mercury has been shown to be highly neurotoxic, especially to the developing brain. Because mercury has a high affinity for thiol (sulfhydryl (-SH)) groups, the thiol-containing antioxidant, glutathione (GSH), provides the major intracellular defense against mercury-induced neurotoxicity. Cultured neuroblastoma cells were found to have lower levels of GSH and increased sensitivity to thimerosol toxicity compared to glioblastoma cells that have higher basal levels of intracellular GSH. Thimerosal-induced cytotoxicity was associated with depletion of intracellular GSH in both cell lines. They also found a protective effect of N-acetyl cysteine)

 

Nataf R, Skorupka C, Amet L, Lam A, Springbett A, Lathe R. Porphyrinuria in childhood autistic disorder: implications for environmental toxicity. Toxicol Appl Pharmacol. 2006 Jul 15;214(2):99-108 A large study by Nataf et al. found that over half of children with autism had abnormal levels of a porphyrin in their urine that highly correlates with a high body burden of mercury.

 

Bradstreet J., Geier DA, Kartzinel JJ, Adams JB, Geier MR, A Case-Control Study of Mercury Burden in Children with Autistic Spectrum Disorders, J. Am. Phys. Surg 8(3) 2003 76-79.   The study found that children with autism excreted 3-6x as much mercury as did typical children when both were given DMSA.

 

Holmes AS, Blaxill MF, Haley BE. Reduced levels of mercury in first baby haircuts of autistic children. Int J Toxicol. 2003 Jul-Aug;22(4):277-85. Found that children with autism had unusually low levels of mercury in their baby hair (1/8 normal), suggesting a decreased ability to excrete mercury or to put it into hair?)

 

Adams JB, Romdalvik J, Ramanujam VM, Legator MS. Mercury, lead, and zinc in baby teeth of children with autism versus controls. J Toxicol Environ Health A. 2007 Jun;70(12):1046-51. A small pilot study found that children with autism had 2x more mercury in their baby teeth than did typical children, suggesting that they had a higher body burden of mercury during their infancy when the teeth formed. That study also found that children with autism had a much higher usage of oral antibiotics during their infancy, similar to their baby hair study.

 

Windham GC, Zhang L, Gunier R, Croen LA, Grether JK. Autism spectrum disorders in relation to distribution of hazardous air pollutants in the San Francisco bay area. Environ Health Perspect. 2006 Sep;114(9):1438-44.  Shows a potential association between amounts of airborn heavy metal and perhaps solvent pollutants.

 

Palmer RF, Blanchard S, Stein Z, Mandell D, Miller C Environmental mercury release, special education rates, and autism disorder: an ecological study of Texas. Health Place. Health Place. 2006 Jun;12(2):203-9.

 

Palmer RF, Blanchard S, Wood R. Proximity to point sources of environmental mercury release as a predictor of autism prevalence. Health Place. 2008 Feb 12.

 

Soden SE, Lowry J, Garrison CB, Wasserman G.  24-hr provoked urine excretion test for heavy metals in children with autism and typically developing controls, a pilot study.  Clinical Toxicology 2007;45;476-81.  15 autistics were treated for heavy metal toxicity using DMSA and none was found (As, Cd, Pb, Hg).  It should be noted that when the urine of the children that were being detoxified was tested for mercury, it was simply not found to any great degree in a way different from controls.

 

Singh VK, Rivas WH. Detection of antinuclear and antilaminin antibodies in autistic children who received thimerosal-containing vaccines. J Biomed Sci. 2004 Sep-Oct;11(5):607-10.  In fact his decision was that the finding in autistic and non-autistic children (both of whom had been vaccinated) of the antibodies was identical. He could find no association with the thimerosal and says it again in another paper: Singh VK, Hanson J. Assessment of metallothionein and antibodies to metallothionein in normal and autistic children having exposure to vaccine-derived thimerosal. Pediatr Allergy Immunol. 2006 Jun;17(4):291-6. (the idea is that as metallothionein interacts with mercury, then antibodies to it may be found.  None were found)  Singh VK. Thimerosal is unrelated to autoimmune autism.  Pediatr Allergy Immunol. 2007 Feb;18(1):89. (Singh is determined)

 

Walker SJ, Segal J, Aschner M. Cultured lymphocytes from autistic children and non-autistic siblings up-regulate heat shock protein RNA in response to thimerosal challenge. Neurotoxicology. 2006 Sep;27(5):685-92. (no difference with siblings i.e. normal levels. I.e. they produced more metallotheionine just as well as they should do in order to get rid of the ethyl mercury from the thimerosal, so if there was a problem with the children’s biochemistry then it was not something that appeared in vitro to a single cell group)

 

Cohly HH, Panja A. Immunological findings in autism. Int Rev Neurobiol. 2005;71:317-41. Review.  Discusses the effect of mercury on astrocytes.  This may not be significant.

 

Geier DA, Geier MR. A case series of children with apparent mercury toxic encephalopathies manifesting with clinical symptoms of regressive autistic disorders. J Toxicol Environ Health A. 2007 May 15;70(10):837-51.

 

Geier DA, Geier MR. A two-phased population epidemiological study of the safety of thimerosal-containing vaccines: a follow-up analysis. Med Sci Monit. 2005 Apr;11(4):CR160-70. Epub 2005 Mar 24.  (basically showing that the authors found an association between the vaccines and the autism and it is this publication that the claimants of lack of toxicity will have to explain).

 

Geier DA, Geier MR. A comparative evaluation of the effects of MMR immunization and mercury doses from thimerosal-containing childhood vaccines on the population prevalence of autism. Med Sci Monit. 2004 Mar;10(3):PI33-9.  (showing that the vaccine seemed to be associated with autism but could not be shown to be the cause)   There have been nine epidemiological studies of the link between thimerosal in vaccines and autism. Four published studies by the Geiers have consistently found that children who received thimerosal in their vaccines had a 2-6x higher chance of developing autism than those who received thimerosal-free vaccines. Four published studies by groups affiliated with vaccine manufacturers have failed to find a link, and one was inconclusive. Three of the studies were conducted in other countries where the usage of thimerosal is much less and the incidence of autism is much lower, so those results have limited relevance to the US.   It is, however, not all that surprising to find a relatively low effect in that the dose of thimerosal given is not enormous.  If you put into PubMed ‘geier-d geier-m’ you will see just how much literature they have produced.

 

Kern JK, Grannemann BD, Trivedi MH, Adams JB. Sulfhydryl-reactive metals in autism.  J Toxicol Environ Health A. 2007 Apr 15;70(8):715-21. difference between sulfhydryl-reactive metals (mercury, lead, arsenic, and cadmium) in the hair of 45 children with autism (1-6 yr of age) as compared to 45 gender-, age-, and race-matched typical children. Hair samples were measured with inductively coupled mass spectrometry. Some studies, such as Holmes et al. (2003), suggested that children with autism may be poor detoxifiers relative to normally developing children. Metals that are not eliminated sequester in the brain. Their study found that arsenic, cadmium, and lead were significantly lower in the hair of children with autism than in matched controls. Mercury was in the same direction (lower in autism) following the same pattern, but did not achieve statistical significance.

 

Geier DA, Sykes LK, Geier MR. A review of Thimerosal (Merthiolate) and its ethylmercury breakdown product: specific historical considerations regarding safety and effectiveness. J Toxicol Environ Health B Crit Rev. 2007 Dec;10(8):575-96. Review  (Thimerosal (Merthiolate) is an ethylmercury-containing pharmaceutical compound that is 49.55% mercury and that was developed in 1927.  He simply explains the history of its use and how it grew in usage in vaccines over a very long period)

 

Hviid A, Stellfeld M, Wohlfahrt J, Melbye M. Association between thimerosal-containing vaccine and autism. JAMA. 2003 Oct 1;290(13):1763-6. (They found no association between the vaccinations – this included all the ones involved – and autism.  However there was argument in the journal after this)

 

Havarinasab S, Hultman P. Organic mercury compounds and autoimmunity. Autoimmun Rev. 2005 Jun;4(5):270-5. Epub 2005 Jan 5 Recent studies have confirmed that organic mercurials such as methyl mercury (MeHg) and ethyl mercury (EtHg) are much more potent immunosuppressors than inorganic mercury (Hg).  They tried to demonstrate this with further compounds.  Havarinasab has done further work on immunosuppression and organic mercury.  His work should be looked up on PubMed.

 

Clarkson TW, Magos L. The toxicology of mercury and its chemical compounds. Crit Rev Toxicol. 2006 Sep;36(8):609-62. (a major review article)

 

 

Association with Amalgam used in dental fillings:  All very difficult in that it would need to be done as research not just as calculations or measurements but also with prevalence and distribution of disease.  For instance the increase in autism has been has been associated with a decrease in fillings in the UK. 

Mutter J, Naumann J, Guethlin C. Comments on the article "the toxicology of mercury and its chemical compounds" by Clarkson and Magos (2006). Crit Rev Toxicol. 2007;37(6):537-49; discussion 551-2.  (quite a determined article indicating the large amount of data that we have concerning mercury amalgam and potential toxicity overall.  He also show that: Dental amalgam is the main source of human total mercury body burden, because individuals with amalgam have 2-12 times more mercury in their body tissues compared to individuals without amalgam;  there is not necessarily a correlation between mercury levels in blood, urine, or hair and in body tissues, and none of the parameters correlate with severity of symptoms.)

 

Magos L, Clarkson TW.  Overview of the clinical toxicity of mercury. Ann Clin Biochem. 2006 Jul;43(Pt 4):257-68  This goes into the problems very clearly and the references concerning amalgam up to 2005.

 

Mutter J, Naumann J, Walach H, Daschner F. Amalgam risk assessment with coverage of references up to 2005] Gesundheitswesen. 2005 Mar;67(3):204-16.  (Mutter makes it quite clear that in his opinion.  Mercury accumulates in some organs, particularly in the brain, where it can bind to protein more tightly than other heavy metals (e. g. lead, cadmium). Therefore, the elimination half time is assumed to be up to 1 - 18 years in the brain and bones. Mercury is assumed to be one of the most toxic non-radioactive elements. No message concerning autism)

 

Clifton JC 2nd. Mercury exposure and public health. Pediatr Clin North Am. 2007 Apr;54(2):237-69, viii.  (takes the association between vaccination and autism as being disproved)

 

Martin MD, Woods JS.The safety of dental amalgam in children. Expert Opin Drug Saf. 2006 Nov;5(6):773-81 (admits that there is worry concerning amalgam and its usage in being associated with autism.  He states that there has only been 2 controlled trials to show whether amalgam is safer or more dangerous than other methods and goes into the possibility of autistic factors being involved.  No autistic involvement could be demonstrated adequately using these methods).

 

DeRouen TA, Martin MD, Leroux BG, Townes BD, Woods JS, Leitão J, Castro-Caldas A, Luis H, Bernardo M, Rosenbaum G, Martins IP. Neurobehavioral effects of dental amalgam in children: a randomized clinical trial. JAMA. 2006 Apr 19;295(15):1784-92.  (this was an 8 year period in which children with neurological problems of various kinds were either treated with dental restorative amalgam or not.  During this period the amount of mercury excreted in urine was measured (it was the same),  and neurological effects were attempted to compare the groups. In this study, children who received dental restorative treatment with amalgam did not, on average, have statistically significant differences in neurobehavioral assessments or in nerve conduction velocity when compared with children who received resin composite materials without amalgam. These findings, combined with the trend of higher treatment need later among those receiving composite, suggest that amalgam should remain a viable dental restorative option for children.  There was large amounts of discussion about the study from other authors afterwards)

 

 

 

Treatment: Mercury.  Unfortunately much of this has been carried out by individuals and poorly studied using psychological techniques.   Adams’ group has tried hard in this direction and his publications on the internet are probably worth investigating currently.   Chelators of heavy metals: see mercury.  This can use rapid chelators which will excrete the metals in the urine (e.g. DMSA and SMPS) and much slower ones (lipeoic acid and chlorella). 

Aremu DA, Madejczyk MS Ballatori N.  N-acetyl cysteine as a potential antidote and biomonitoring agent of methylmercury exposure.  Environmental Health Perspectives 2008;116:26-31

 

Miller AL. Dimercaptosuccinic acid (DMSA), a non-toxic, water-soluble treatment for heavy metal toxicity. Altern Med Rev. 1998 Jun;3(3):199-207. (Meso-2,3-dimercaptosuccinic acid (DMSA) is a sulfhydryl-containing, water-soluble, non-toxic, orally-administered metal chelator which has been in use as an antidote to heavy metal toxicity since the 1950s. More recent clinical use and research substantiates this compound’s efficacy and safety, and establishes it as the premier metal chelation compound, based on oral dosing, urinary excretion, and its safety characteristics compared to other chelating substances.)

 

Adams et al. found that DMSA (chelation) resulted in a great improvement or normalization of RBC (red blood cell) levels of glutathione after just 1 round (3 days) of DMSA treatment, with benefits lasting at least 1-2 months.

 

Adams et al, Preliminary results of DMSA treatment study, presentation at Fall DAN! Conference 2006.  Also: higher usage of oral antibiotics than did typical children, which is important because usage of oral antibiotics almost completely stops the body’s ability to excrete mercury.

 

Return to home page.  Return to top of page

 

Lead: 

Not significant

 

Apparent temporal association autism onset and lead exposure (Clinical Pediatrics 27: 1; 41-44 1988)

 

Cohen DJ, Johnson WT, Caparulo BK. Pica and elevated blood lead level in autistic and atypical children. Am J Dis Child. 1976 Jan;130(1):47-8. (it was the pica that made the increase and not just being autistic)

 

Shearer TR, Larson K, Neuschwander J, Gedney B. Minerals in the hair and nutrient intake of autistic children. J Autism Dev Disord. 1982 Mar;12(1):25-34.  (no lead change found, 62% decrease compared to controls in cadmium)

 

Return to home page.  Return to top of page

 

 

Copper and Zinc

little data suggesting association

 

Mahanand et al.  Serum copper and zinc in autistic patients and controls. In Coleman M.  Ed.  New York Elsevier 1978 73-76. (modified levels found)

 

Jackson MJ, Garrod PJ. Plasma zinc, copper, and amino acid levels in the blood of autistic children. J Autism Child Schizophr. 1978 Jun;8(2):203-8. (no abnormal levels were found)

 

Adams JB, Romdalvik J, Ramanujam VM, Legator MS. Mercury, lead, and zinc in baby teeth of children with autism versus controls. J Toxicol Environ Health A. 2007 Jun;70(12):1046-51. Higher mercury but normal lead and zinc

 

Özgür Yorbik , Cemal Akay , Ahmet Sayal , Adnan Cansever , Teoman Söhmen , Ayhan O. Çavdar. Zinc status in autistic children.  The Journal of Trace Elements in Experimental Medicine  2004;17:101 – 107. Plasma and erythrocyte zinc levels in the autistic children were found to be significantly lower than normal (P < 0.05). The mean hair zinc level of the patients was also low when compared with that obtained from normal Turkish children.

 

Sullivan et al., “Metallothionein Expression Is Increased in Monocytes and Erythrocytes of Young Men during Zinc Supplementation”, J. Nutr. 128:7077-713 (1998). (probably of no significance unless tested in autistics)

 

Higher Copper/Zinc ratios in autistic children. (J. Applied Nutrition 48: 110-118, 1997) (I could not find this article)

 

Return to home page.  Return to top of page

 

Lithium. 

Claims of low levels of lithium in the child and mothers’ hair has not been agreed and the variations seen in lithium levels in people with other mental conditions suggested that treatment using lithium may be of value.  However this has not been shown to be successful currently.

 

Wecker L, Miller SB, Cochran SR, Dugger DL, Johnson WD. Trace element concentrations in hair from autistic children. J Ment Defic Res. (1985 Mar;29 ( Pt 1):15-22 (The concentrations of 14 elements were determined in scalp hair samples from control, autistic and autistic-like children. Significant differences were noted between normal males and females for calcium, magnesium and mercury. The autistic population had significantly lower levels of calcium, magnesium, copper, manganese and chromium and higher levels of lithium as compared to sex- and age-matched controls. Children with autistic features (autistic-like), classified as having childhood-onset pervasive disorder, had lower levels of magnesium, cadmium, cobalt and manganese as compared to controls. Discriminant function analysis using the 14 trace elements correctly classified 90.5% of the normal and 100% of the autistic population.)

 

Adams JB, Holloway CE, George F, Quig D.  Analyses of toxic metals and essential minerals in the hair of Arizona children with autism and associated conditions, and their mothers. Biol Trace Elem Res. 2006 Jun;110(3):193-209. (The mothers of young children with autism had especially low levels of lithium (56% lower, p=0.005), and the young children (ages 3-6 yr) with autism also had low lithium (-30%, p=0.04).  This was done using mass spectrometry of the child’s hair or in the blood or hair of the adult.

 

Return to home page.  Return to top of page

 

Cadmium:

no specific involvement currently considered.

 

Shearer TR, Larson K, Neuschwander J, Gedney B. Minerals in the hair and nutrient intake of autistic children. J Autism Dev Disord. 1982 Mar;12(1):25-34.  (calcium, magnesium, zinc, copper, lead, as in controls but and cadmium 62% lower) But this was not agreed with by:

 

Wecker L, Miller SB, Cochran SR, Dugger DL, Johnson WD. Trace element concentrations in hair from autistic children. J Ment Defic Res. 1985 Mar;29 ( Pt 1):15-22.  (this found no difference in cadmium but lower levels of calcium, magnesium, copper, manganese and chromium, but higher ones of lithium)

 

Return to home page.  Return to top of page

 

Magnesium (low levels found in the blood etc) and trials with B6 (with and without magnesium). 

The worry being that B6 may require magnesium in adequate amounts to be effective.  As a result treatments with high levels of B6 (or its phosphate called P5P) in the diet and modified methods of magnesium treatment.  Claims for advantage should be repeated and Martineau’s data are statistically significant and open to repeat in ASD cases where B6, B6P and Mg might be involved.

 

Saladino CF Jr, Sankar DV. Studies on erythrocyte magnesium and potassium levels in childhood schizophrenia and growth. PDM. 1973 Jan-Dec;4-5(9-12;1-8):107-10.

 

Gentile PS, Trentalange MJ, Zamichek W, Coleman M. Brief report: trace elements in the hair of autistic and control children.  J Autism Dev Disord. 1983 Jun;13(2):205-6.

Hayek J. Intracellular magnesium in autistic subjects.  Brain Dysfunction 1991. (book)

 

Strambi M, Longini M, Hayek J, Berni S, Macucci F, Scalacci E, Vezzosi P.  Magnesium profile in autism. Biol Trace Elem Res. 2006 Feb;109(2):97-104.  (cellular Mg was equal in control and autism but extracellular Mg was much lower in autism).  This article was well carried out and should be repeated by another team.  As such it may again show a biochemical factor that must be explained in autism.

 

Lelord G, Callaway E, Muh JP. Clinical and biological effects of high doses of vitamin B6 and magnesium on autistic children. Acta Vitaminol Enzymol. 1982;4(1-2):27-44. (In 1973 Rimland reported that some autistic children responded favorably to high doses of vitamin B6. Since this finding, different studies were performed to identify apparently B6 responsive subjects and to critically evaluate clinical and biological B6 responsiveness. In a first open trial 15 out of 44 children exhibited moderate clinical improvement with worsening on termination of the trial. Thirteen responders and 8 non responders were re-tested in a 2-week crossover, double-blind trial and the responses to the open trial were confirmed.

 

Mousain-Bosc M, Roche M, Polge A, Pradal-Prat D, Rapin J, Bali JP.  Improvement of neurobehavioral disorders in children supplemented with magnesium-vitamin B6. II. Pervasive developmental disorder-autism. Magnes Res. 2006 Mar;19(1):53-62  (15/33 children were improved in the first three groups of symptoms. When the Mg-B6 treatment was stopped, PDD symtoms reappeared in few weeks. A statistically significant relationship was found in intraerythrocyte (Erc)-Mg values from children before treatment and their mothers. In conclusion, this study suggests that the behavioral improvement observed with the combination vitamin B6-magnesium in PDD/autism is associated with concomitant modifications of Erc-Mg values.  They discuss multiple studies also)

 

Martineau J, Garreau B, Barthelemy C, Callaway E, Lelord G. Effects of vitamin B6 on averaged evoked potentials in infantile autism.Biol Psychiatry. 1981 Jul;16(7):627-41.  (During treatment of the autistic children with B6, an increase of amplitude of middle-latency evoked potentials and a decrease of urinary homovanillic acid were found.)

 

Martineau J, Barthelemy C, Garreau B, Lelord G. Vitamin B6, magnesium, and combined B6-Mg: therapeutic effects in childhood autism.  Biol Psychiatry. 1985 May;20(5):467-78. (Goes through the findings to show the changes seen with the treatment.  A review)

 

Nye C, Brice A. Combined vitamin B6-magnesium treatment in autism spectrum disorder. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2002;(4):CD003497. Review of various clinical studies.  Indicates that Mg-B6 treatment cannot be recommended currently with the data available. Particularly following Fielding’s results:

 

Findling RL, Maxwell K, Scotese-Wojtila L, Huang J, Yamashita T, Wiznitzer M. High-dose pyridoxine and magnesium administration in children with autistic disorder: an absence of salutary effects in a double-blind, placebo-controlled study. J Autism Dev Disord. 1997 Aug;27(4):467-78. (found no advantage)

 

Adams JB, George F, Audhya T. Abnormally high plasma levels of vitamin B6 in children with autism not taking supplements compared to controls not taking supplements. J Altern Complement Med. 2006 Jan-Feb;12(1):59-63. (Children with autism had a 75% higher level of total vitamin B6 than the controls (medians of 56 versus 32 ng/mL, respectively, p = 0.00002). Most of the autistic children (77%) had levels that were more than 2 standard deviations above the median value of the controls.  Beware: this does depend on the method used to measure B6 as its activity requires activation and these forms were not measured independently.

 

Kozielec T, Starobrat-Hermelin B. Assessment of magnesium levels in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

Magnes Res. 1997 Jun;10(2):143-8. (Magnesium deficiency was found in 95 per cent of those examined, most frequently in hair (77.6 per cent), in red blood cells (58.6 per cent) and in blood serum (33.6 per cent) of children with ADHD. The conclusion from the investigations is that magnesium deficiency in children with ADHD occurs more frequently than in healthy children. Analysis of the material indicated the correlation between levels of magnesium and the quotient of development to freedom from distractibility.)

 

Bernstein AL. Vitamin B6 in clinical neurology. Ann N Y Acad Sci. 1990;585:250-60. Review Lower serum Magnesium than controls (Mary Coleman, The Autistic Syndromes 197-205, 1976)

 

Barthélémy C, Garreau B, Leddet I, Sauvage D, Muh JP, Lelord G, Callaway E.  [Value of behavior scales and urinary homovanillic acid determinations in monitoring the combined treatment with vitamin B6 and magnesium of children displaying autistic behavior] Neuropsychiatr Enfance Adolesc. 1983 May-Jun;31(5-6):289-301. (one of the important factors to this is that they had tried to look at other biochemical responses and not just psychological effects)

 

Martineau J, Barthelemy C, Lelord G. Long-term effects of combined vitamin B6-magnesium administration in an autistic child.

Biol Psychiatry. 1986 May;21(5-6):511-8. (I could not get a copy)

 

Martineau J, Barthelemy C, Cheliakine C, Lelord G. Brief report: an open middle-term study of combined vitamin B6-magnesium in a subgroup of autistic children selected on their sensitivity to this treatment. J Autism Dev Disord. 1988 Sep;18(3):435-47

 

Jonas C, Etienne T, Barthélemy C, Jouve J, Mariotte N. [Clinical and biochemical value of Magnesium + vitamin B6 combination in the treatment of residual autism in adults]  Therapie. 1984 Nov-Dec;39(6):661-9. [Article in French]

 

Martineau J, Barthelemy C, Roux S, Garreau B, Lelord G. Electrophysiological effects of fenfluramine or combined vitamin B6 and magnesium on children with autistic behaviour.  Dev Med Child Neurol. 1989 Dec;31(6):721-7. (they admit that not all the cases responded to the Mg plus B6 and not all were helped with fenfluramine.  They try to discuss which aspects made the effects predictable in some way and review the findings from earlier periods. )

 

Low activated B6 (P5P) in 42%. Autistic group also higher in serum copper. (Nutr. And Beh 2:9-17, 1984) (I could not find this article)

Rimland B, Calloway E, Dreyfus P. The effect of high doses vitamin B6 on autistic children: a double-blind crossover study. Am J Psychiatry 1978;135:472-475. (an advantage: for further study)

 

Return to home page.  Return to top of page