Latest / Biohacking Autism with Nadia Elkhatib. / What’s Driving Inflammation in Autism? | Essentials with Dr. Horowitz

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What’s Driving Inflammation in Autism? | Essentials with Dr. Horowitz · Biohacking Autism with Nadia Elkhatib.

0:35
Welcome back to Biohacking Autism,
0:37
the show about real solutions for people with autism and the ones who love them.
0:41
I'm Nadia Elkhatib, and here is the question I've been thinking about going into
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this conversation. Alzheimer's is neurodegenerative disease.
0:50
Autism is a neurodevelopmental condition.
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One shows up at the end of life and one at the beginning.
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So, why does the biology underneath them look so similar?
1:02
Does it or does it not? Let's
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Take a look at that. So I've felt for a long time that there's a connection there.
1:09
And I think the reason we don't see it is just the label.
1:12
The moment we say the word autism,
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we stop looking at the body. But if you take that label off and look at the biology,
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what do you find? You find inflammation,
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immune dysregulation, mitochondria that's not keeping up a gut that isn't holding
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its barrier, you find the same thing in.
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Chronic illness
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Just before we start this conversation,
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my disclaimer: this conversation is educational.
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We're going to talk about mechanisms.
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evidence and tests and treatments Richard actually uses because that's what this
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show is for. Now nothing here is medical advice for you or your child
1:49
and nothing replaces your own clinical team.
1:52
Richard, welcome to Biohacking Autism.
1:55
Thank you, Nadia. Great to be with you today.
1:57
I've seen over 13,000 chronically ill patients during the last 42 years
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~ looking for answers. And what I discovered is there was this 16-point model
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I call it MSIDS. MSIDS stands for multiple systemic infectious disease syndrome.
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And in this model, which we'll discuss today in detail regarding autism,
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~ I found that there are infections,
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environmental toxins, microbiome issues.
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Intestinal hyperpermeability with leaky gut,
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which affects your blood-brain barrier,
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with or without mast cell activation,
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vitamin mineral deficiencies, and sleep disorders.
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And I call these the six rivers of inflammation that have 10 downstream effects:
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inflammation inflammation, mitochondrial dysfunction,
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hormonal dysregulation, immune issues,
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autoimmunity, POTS dysautonomia,
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where your autonomic nervous system is dysregulated.
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They people have liver problems,
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neuro and psychiatric issues.
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Pain syndromes and finally deconditioning.
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So these are the 16 points. And it's it's like going into a doctor with
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16 nails in your foot, complaining of foot pain,
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and the doctor finds two nails,
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pulls them out, and says, Come back in a month and tell me how you're feeling.
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It's all the same thing. It's inflammation.
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So you're right. I 100% agree with you.
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Stop naming the disease and trying to throw drugs at it.
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Every chronic illness has chronic inflammation underlying it.
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You've got to figure out where these 16 factors are.
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driving inflammation are coming from,
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and that's the really, I believe,
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important conversation we have to have today.
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we're all, yes, chasing these labels.
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So, you've described three threads that run through ADHD,
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autism, and Alzheimer's.
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microglial activation, cytokine dysregulation,
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and blood-brain barrier disruption,
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but also a genetic piece which is the mTOR pathway.
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So in plain-ish language, can you tell me what each of those specific points are,
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what they're doing in the brain,
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and also what's mTOR and autophagy,
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and why a pathway that's dysregulated in Alzheimer's also shows up in autism
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and why and where it's linked to brain overgrowth and hyperconnectivity.
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there are these small cells in the brain called microglial cells.
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And you get microglial activation with inflammatory cytokines and chemokines,
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these very inflammatory molecules come out.
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~ and without getting too technical,
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there are these switches that turn on inside the nucleus of your cells.
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One of them is called NF kappa B.
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And when this particular switch gets turned on,
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you get these very inflammatory molecules.
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It's like pouring gasoline on a fire with TNF alpha,
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interleukin 1 beta, IL6, IL8, IL10.
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All these inflammatory molecules come out from these very small cells
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in the brain called microglial cells.
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~ what causes the microglial activation?
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Well, infections can cause it.
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Bacterial infections like Lyme and Bartonella,
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viral infections like herpes infections,
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parasitic infections like toxoplasmosis or babesiosis or fungal infections.
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All the four different types of infections and multiple environmental toxins will
5:00
all cause microglial activation.
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And in one of these pathways called mTOR,
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the mechanistic target of rapamycin,
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what they found out genetically is that both in autism and in Alzheimer's,
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the mTOR pathway was being overstimulated.
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Now
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You need a balanced mTOR pathway because mTOR is needed for your cell metabolism
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to work well. You need it for protein synthesis,
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for metabolism, but also for getting rid of let's call it taking the garbage out.
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So, what is autophagy? Autophagy is when your mitochondria,
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the powerhouses of your cells,
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they have nothing protecting them from all the free radical oxidative stress that
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happens from infections and toxins and microbiome issues
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and vitamin mineral deficiencies,
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all the things driving inflammation.
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affect the mitochondria of our cells.
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And if you don't have healthy mitochondria,
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right, in aut in autism and both in Alzheimer's,
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they know you need healthy mitochondria or the brain cells just
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do not work correctly, right? In fact,
5:55
every organ of your body needs it.
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Well, in the mTOR pathway, they found out one of the genetic links between autism
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and Alzheimer's is an overstimulated mTOR.
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So in autism, you see large brains called macrocephaly.
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Right, with too much connectivity in some areas of the brain,
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not enough connectivity in other areas of the brain.
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And in Alzheimer's, what it does is it causes elevated levels
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of these Alzheimer's biomarkers,
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like phosphorylated tau, p-tau 181,
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P tau 217, ~ lower beta amyloid 4240 ratios,
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neurofilament light, glial fibrillary acidic proteins.
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These are all markers, indirect markers of inflammation in the brain.
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And what's fascinating, and I by the way,
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at the recent MAPS conference in Philadelphia I was the only speaker
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to mention that these same Alzheimer's biomarkers are showing up in the children,
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like serum neurofilament light and glial fibrillary acidic and tau and p tau.
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It's showing up in the children just like it shows up in
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the adults with Alzheimer's, which means we have a way of screening these kids
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theoretically before this ever happens.
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Now, this is
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Absolutely.
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understand? I know, it's mind blowing,
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right? So I know.
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I've never heard it before. I have
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never heard that before, which means I've never even thought about testing
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it before, This is so new. And I hope everybody listening is as mind-blown as me.
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Yes, this is great. These are new biomarkers that we've never looked at for autism.
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and we know in the mother, we know that if if a mom,
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for example, has inflammation,
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if she has maternal inflammation,
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the risk of autism spectrum disorder is 2.75 almost three times higher.
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But it doesn't matter where the inflammation is coming from in the mother,
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whether it's a viral infection,
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a bacterial infection, a chorioamnitis,
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she gets infection of the uterus and the air.
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It doesn't matter where it's coming from,
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the odds are going to be higher because inflammation in the mother obviously drives
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inflammation in the children. They're directly linked up.
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So now we have a way. Think about this.
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You're a mother, you want to have children.
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You can measure your inflammatory biomarkers,
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CRP, C reactive protein, indirect marker of interleukin 6.
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Why is that important? Well, in autism and in Alzheimer's,
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they find elevated interleukin 6 levels in the brains of autism
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and an Alzheimer's disease. Why?
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Because that switch inside the nucleus,
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NF kappa B, gets turned on. That's one of those inflammatory molecules gets pushed
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out. So
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A mom can check for environmental toxins,
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for infections, for microbiome issues.
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The mother theoretically could check all 16 MSIDS factors related to inflammation.
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they do not screen the women for Lyme and associated coinfections.
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It's just not standard. They they'll check them for syphilis,
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right? They'll check them for hepatitis,
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they'll check, MMR, they'll check a lot of things,
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but they don't check. Now, just to give you a perspective,
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for Lyme disease right now, BMG Global Health just four years
8:43
ago published that 14.5% of the global population
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One in seven people on the planet has now been exposed to Lyme disease,
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right? That's a lot of people.
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So we know that Lyme can be transmitted to the fetus.
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Bartonella can be transmitted to the fetus.
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just to add a little something there,
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this is what I advocate for. Don't wait for some for a practitioner,
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a doctor, somebody in a white coat to tell you,
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let's test these things. Take this information and take it to your practitioner
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and say, I've done the test, the online test.
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I'm worried about Lyme. I'm planning on getting pregnant,
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or I am the mom of a child with autism.
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Let's test these things in me and my child.
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You
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can do that. You can take charge of your health.
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We cannot wait until the medical system catches up because the solutions are there,
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the tests are there,
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We do medicine thinking it's one cause,
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one disease. That's an outdated model.
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The model that now needs to be adopted for chronic illness,
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no matter what you're calling it,
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as we talked about, it has to be a multifactorial model of where the root causes
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of inflammation are coming from,
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So if people hear brain inflammation in autism,
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~ they picture a swollen brain.
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in your language. What is neuroinflammation and how would a parent ever know
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increase in serum neurofilament light in a child raises the risk of autism by 19%,
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which means you can do a blood test.
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And you can look at things like serum neurofilament light.
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You can look at glial fibrillary acidic protein.
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You look at Tau, not just CRP,
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indirect market of interleukin 6,
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or sed rates or VEGF. In fact,
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in my section in the book where I discuss these inflammatory pathways,
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I discuss 10 different inflammatory markers as a first line that you can do.
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The second level, you can look at free radical oxidative stress in the body.
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By looking at, for example, lipid peroxides,
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how much free radical oxidative stress is damaging your membranes.
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When we were talking about the mTOR pathway,
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right, what they found in this is if the mTOR is overstimulated,
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you don't get autophagy. You can't get rid of these damaged mitochondria.
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These damaged mitochondria just keep causing inflammation in the brain.
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You've got to take out the garbage,
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get rid of these damaged mitochondria.
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And in the studies they did, whether it was suramin,
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this drug for African sleeping sickness,
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or
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Broccoli seed extract, sulforaphane glucosinolate,
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which affects another inflammatory pathway called NRF2.
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They found both in Alzheimer's and in autism,
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the brains woke up. Like the kids' behavior was better,
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their cognition was better. They found a salmon Alzheimer's because what you're
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doing is you're finding ways of manipulating these inflammatory pathways.
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The NRF2 pathways lowers inflammation and increases autophagy.
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let's talk about the framework,
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right? So I'd love to go through all 16 factors,
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each one of them.
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Because I think this is the most useful thing right now for a parent that they
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can take from this conversation.
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But let's first talk about the shape of the framework.
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So it's the 16 MSIDS factors,
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the first six you call the rivers of inflammation:
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infections, environmental toxins,
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the microbiome, leaky gut and mast cells,
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nutrient deficiencies, and sleep.
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And then there's 10 downstream effects,
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mitochondria, immune dysregulation,
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autoimmunity, hormones, liver and neurological,
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autonomic psychological pain,
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and deconditioning. So why rivers can you can you describe this image that
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you have in your head?
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the toxins, the microbiome, they play a huge factor when you look at autism.
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I mean, that's what the literature is showing.
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If you speak, to example, for naturopaths or doctors that are treating,
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they're telling me, and again,
12:29
this is not yet published because the literature online,
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for example, it's a little bit all over the place.
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Some studies show from the IDSA,
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the Infectious Disease Society of America,
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there's no relationship with Lyme and autism.
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If you look at other studies by Dr.
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Bransfield published years ago or others,
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a Richie Shoemaker's group, they will tell you,
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yes, there is a relationship. When you take down inflammation,
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the kids' brain get better. But I just spoke to these people in
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the trenches just two weeks ago in Philadelphia,
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and I asked them, how many of these kids are you finding have,
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for example, Lyme and Bartonella,
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number one in on the MSIDS map,
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infections, bacterial.
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They said it's it's like two-thirds of the kids we're seeing now have Lyme
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and Bartonella. Now, some of this may be transmitted from mother to child.
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The case that I describe in ending chronic illness,
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because I've got case studies in the book,
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right? The case that I had was a 12-year-old boy who was diagnosed with autism
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spectrum disorder, ~ had all the behavioral issues with repetitive movements,
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etc. The mother didn't realize she had chronic Lyme.
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She was a physician, by the way.
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And when I gave the child dapsone combination therapy to treat the Lyme
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and the Bart.
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But ultimately, when he stopped the protocol one month later,
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the mother called me up and went,
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Unbelievable, my child. I've never seen him like this.
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His his brain woke up. He's speaking in full sentences.
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He's doing great in school. His sports,
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he can like walk on ropes with balance.
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She said, I can't believe what happened.
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So when I talk about these six rivers of inflammation,
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you you have to realize that even though there are 16 potential factors,
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and mitochondrial dysfunction,
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by the way, links them all up.
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Because in the earlier studies,
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if you have six rivers of inflammation,
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all of these factors affect the mitochondria,
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which affect the brain and the way your neurons work.
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So when people talk about doing mitochondrial regeneration and giving CoQ10
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and acetyl-L-carnitine and
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glycosylated phospholipids and NADH,
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all the things you do for mitochondria.
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If your mitochondria are what in called the cell danger response,
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they're stuck. They've got this ongoing inflammation
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So the reason we're discussing this framework is it's not a typical framework that
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most doctors use to look at autism,
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to look at Alzheimer's, but it's a framework that is supported
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by really hard peer-review science.
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~ and similarly, ~ mass cell leaky gut.
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If you're getting lipopolysaccharide,
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these inflammatory molecules across the gut,
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in what it does to the brain is it causes a leaky blood-brain barrier.
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Early on, we talked about microglial activation.
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Leaky blood brain barriers, inflammatory cytokines,
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these are all happening in ADHD,
14:58
autism, and Alzheimer's. So where is the leaky gut coming from affecting
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the leaky blood brain barrier?
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Part of it is the gut brain axis.
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So those two, the number three and four,
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the microbiome, leaky gut, very important.
15:11
so I'm trying to understand now your framework.
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is it a checklist or a differential diagnosis?
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Is it a sequence, this and that?
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And so if a new family sits down in front of you,
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what do you investigate first in this particular child?
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it is first of all a checklist.
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I mean, I'm I want to idiot
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Checklist.
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proof this for people. You see complex chronically ill children or adults.
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And honestly, in my world, when the adults would come in,
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if this checklist I'm referring to that's on my website,
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cangetbetter.com, they would come in with 30 out of 38 symptoms.
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So the question is well, if they have fatigue and they have joint pain
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and muscle pain, neuropathy and sleep,
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you have to know the chief complaints.
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You have to know like what are the big complaints.
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Is it fatigue? Is it pain? Is it memory?
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So it is definitely going to be a little bit more challenging in
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a child that's nonverbal, no doubt about it.
15:57
But let's say the child has GI symptoms,
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they're constipated, they have diarrhea,
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they're clearly in pain. Well,
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you automatically know in that child,
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you got to look at numbers three and four,
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you got to look at the microbiome,
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and you're gonna have to look at leaky gut intestinal hyperbility and mast cell.
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Because we know the studies are very clear,
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even the randomized studies, that if you change the microbiome,
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Heal the leaky gut, these kids are going to get better.
16:20
So that's an easy one.
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60 to 80 percent of autistic kids don't sleep.
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And and in my world, the adults,
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every patient with Lyme disease,
16:29
99% have sleep disorders. Same thing with Bart,
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right? So you've really got to look for that,
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apart from the fact that in my chapter in my book,
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An Ending Chronic Illness, when I look at sleep under L is for lifestyle,
16:40
every one of the 16 factors also affects sleep.
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So, you might be surprised like there are young women who are thin
16:46
who have obstructive sleep apnea.
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Or who have dopamine deficiencies with restless legs,
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or there's hormonal dysregulation,
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they're on autonomic overload,
16:54
right? It's not just, give melatonin and CBD and knock them out.
16:58
That's not what this is about.
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It's about getting to the root cause.
17:01
But we know in autism, when they looked at those inflammatory cytokines
17:05
in the brain, IL6, interleukin 6 was one of the major ones they would find
17:09
on autopsy studies. Well, guess what happens when you don't sleep?
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That is the most major cytokine that gets increased in the brain with lack
17:15
of sleep is IL6.
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And one of the and when you stimulate that switch inside the nucleus,
17:20
NF kappa B, that is one of those inflammatory cytokine that comes out from Lyme from
17:24
Bart from mold. And it's, by the way,
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and it's across the board on chronic fatigue syndrome,
17:29
autism, ADHD, Alzheimer's, that same switch NF kappa B is turned on,
17:33
driving inflammation in all of these different illnesses.
17:36
the mitochondria are your powerhouses.
17:38
And every organ in your body, your brain,
17:41
your heart, your liver, your intestine,
17:44
there isn't one organ that doesn't need healthy mitochondria.
17:46
So in primary mitochondrial disorders,
17:49
right, when it's actually passed on,
17:50
it's the maternal DNA and a lot of these that are passed on.
17:53
You're looking at, if you look at the organs that are affected,
17:56
it's the eyes with blindness, it's seizure disorders,
18:00
right, with problems with it, it's the heart.
18:03
it's the kidneys with Fanconi syndrome,
18:05
it's the intestinal. These are always the organs where you need
18:08
a high mitochondrial functioning,
18:10
right, for it to work properly.
18:11
But secondary mitochondrial dysfunction is simply because you've
18:14
got free radical oxidative stress.
18:16
your DNA is protected in your body by something called histones.
18:19
So you've got it protecting the DNA.
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So if you get all this inflammation and free radical stress,
18:24
you're not going to damage the DNA as much.
18:26
But the mitochondria have nothing protecting them whatsoever.
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And that's why we find mitochondrial dysfunction in pretty much every chronic
18:33
illness you look at, it's going to be a major player in all of them,
18:37
including Alzheimer's, where they're now looking at like low-dose methylene blue
18:40
and mitochondrial supplements.
18:42
But again, where's the mitochondrial dysfunction coming from?
18:45
Well, those first six rivers of inflammation.
18:48
So again, if you use them, I'll give you an example.
18:50
You use a mitochondrial peptide like MOTS-c.
18:53
If you still have the rivers of inflammation,
18:56
keeping your mitochondria in the cell danger response.
19:01
It it's not going to work. And in fact,
19:02
it may even make it worse because you're still going to get the mitochondria
19:06
in the cell danger response. It's not going to come out of it until
19:09
the infections and the toxins have been dealt with,
19:11
That's true because a lot of people are chasing this magical mitochondrial kind
19:16
of regeneration, but the root causes are still there.
19:19
The fire is still there. You have to deal with the fire.
19:22
I have three levels of inflammatory biomarkers.
19:25
The first are ones that are really easy,
19:27
like sedimentation rates and CRP and VEGF and MMP9,
19:31
matrix metalloprotonase. I go through these in detail.
19:34
The second level, lipid peroxide,
19:36
how much free radical oxidative stress is affecting your membranes.
19:39
Eight hydroxy de guanine, how much free radical oxidative stress
19:42
is damaging your DNA. Protein carbonyls,
19:45
how much free radical oxidative stress is damaging your proteins.
19:48
That's level two inflammatory biomarker.
19:51
But the third is when we started the conversation today about checking those
19:55
Alzheimer's biomarkers with tau,
19:57
P Tau, serofilament light. A young child,
20:01
by the way, is not going to get beta amyloid,
20:02
but what they will see is ~ amyloid precursor proteins,
20:06
APP, that does show up actually in some of these kids with autism
20:10
or before getting sick. So you can check,
20:12
that's level three biomarkers,
20:14
We talked about these inflammatory pathways that you could have infections
20:17
and toxins and microbiome issues and vitamin,
20:20
mineral sleep affecting these biochemical pathways that drive inflammation.
20:25
But the problem is in just checking these,
20:27
and you can check them in the blood.
20:28
They found that they weren't specific for autism.
20:31
They would find them in ADHD, they would find them in schizophrenia.
20:34
Well, here's my question for you as a parent.
20:36
If you had a healthy two and a half-year-old child and you found these inflammatory
20:40
biomarkers,
20:41
I personally wouldn't care if it meant my child was going to go
20:44
on to become schizophrenic, have ADHD or autism.
20:46
It would say to me, my God, there's a fire going on in my child's
20:46
Yes. What do we do?
20:51
body. Where is the fire coming from?
20:54
Right? So you can't use the biomarkers specifically,
20:58
these chemokines, cytokines to tell you where the fire is,
21:01
but it still tells you there's a fire.
21:04
Some of the invisible ~ downstream factors that I think parents miss
21:08
the most because they look they look like autonomic dysfunction,
21:12
POTS, chronic pain, you talked about hyper hypermobility,
21:15
deconditioning, but also something that's a huge issue with parents
21:21
of kids and adults with the autism,
21:23
OCD, extreme anxiety and mood.
21:27
So in your model, how much of the anxiety and OCD is a nervous system
21:32
in a chronic threat state rather than a separate diagnosis?
21:36
you need a vagus nerve that is balanced.
21:38
If your vagus nerve is twitchy,
21:40
And hyperactivated, you're gonna have inflammation.
21:42
You need a balanced vagus nerve.
21:43
And if your vagus nerve is not working and you're orthosympathetic,
21:47
like you're throwing out epinephrine and norepinephrine,
21:50
that's a fight or flight response.
21:51
So if you ever see a child who is constantly like light-sensitive,
21:55
sound sensitive, reacting to everything,
21:57
anxious, you gotta worry that they have an overstimulated autonomic nervous system.
22:01
Again, why do they have it? You gotta get back to the root cause.
22:05
We've seen it with Lyme, we've seen it with Bart,
22:07
we've seen it with long COVID.
22:09
Right? We've seen it with mold toxicity.
22:11
All of these things can cause POTS disautonomia,
22:13
including genetics with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome,
22:16
you have to feel better to show up better.
22:18
You have to take care of your health to be able to take care of your child because
22:23
it's a marathon. So if I turn
22:26
The
22:26
map around and pointed to parents.
22:28
You put ADHD, autism, and Alzheimer's on one continuum.
22:32
So I've been in some degree, huge degree of hypervigilance for 20 years.
22:38
So have most of the people listening.
22:40
So the for the parents in their 50s,
22:42
exhausted, same inflammatory biology running in them.
22:47
When a child has these infections,
22:49
inflammatory factors.
22:51
What do you actually check also in the mother and and the father too?
22:55
So you've got to start checking yourself as a parent,
22:57
as an adult who has to take care of your child.
23:00
You need to be on top of it.
23:02
So I do high-intensity interval training seven days a week.
23:05
I get eight hours of sleep. I stay away from carbs.
23:08
I keep my weight down. Now my whole family died of cancer.
23:11
I don't have one person left. Right.
23:13
So I have a section of my book on cancer,
23:15
right? Show under the C, C is for cancer,
23:17
cardiovascular disease, chronic fatigue.
23:19
I wrote that for my family who's all died of different forms of cancer,
23:23
showing the same 16 factors underlying cancer,
23:26
infections, and toxins, and it's the same thing.
23:29
So
23:30
As a parent, as an adult who wants to stay healthy and needs to stay healthy,
23:34
do the MSIDS model, just go through it,
23:36
but look at the specific symptoms because it's always going to
23:39
be the chief complaint. And again,
23:41
in my book, I mean, I could show you this early on.
23:44
It's like if you find one symptom,
23:46
it'll tell you what is the differential diagnosis.
23:50
Like, let's say it's neuropathy.
23:51
Well, neuropathy could be Lyme,
23:53
could be Bart, could be B12.
23:56
It could be folic acid. It could be heavy metals like arsenic,
23:59
lead, and mercury, it could be mold toxins,
24:01
it could be carpal tunnel. In other words,
24:03
what I'm going to teach you is how to do differential diagnosis.
24:06
How to say, even with one symptom,
24:08
I want to teach you how to do differential diagnosis and figure out,
24:13
going backwards, what is causing that one symptom.
24:16
And then you look at the gestalt of all of the symptoms and you figure
24:19
out that's how you do medicine.
24:20
All that love and compassion you poured into your child,
24:23
do it now for yourself because you need to be healthy for your child
24:26
as time goes on. And you deserve it.
24:27
Yeah, you need to be.
24:28
You need to
24:28
be.
24:28
They're younger than you. So do not wait until you have the huge symptoms.
24:33
Start preventing it. It has to be done at least ten years before the first symptoms.
24:38
So it's essential. It's not selfish.
24:41
It's literally life-saving for your child.
24:44
You have to take care of yourself.
24:46
so, Richard, can you tell our audience ~ where can they find your book?
24:51
When is your book coming out? And where can they find you?
24:54
Can they work with you? tell us everything.
24:58
you can find my book and about the book at my website,
25:01
which is www.cangetbetter.com.
25:04
I do have a medical detective substack that is free to sign up where I
25:07
do a weekly Substack on like updates in medicine of anything
25:10
I think that's important. And I show people how to think out like difficult diseases
25:15
or
25:16
diseases where something may have appeared,
25:18
but it might be due to something else.
25:19
So that's free to sign up.
25:21
Well, now I would love to end the way I end every episode here on biohacking autism.
25:26
Richard, if I'm giving you this magic wand and you're looking at
25:30
all 16 factors ~ in the mother and the child,
25:36
if that became a standard care for autism,
25:40
but also for all the chronic diseases and Alzheimer's,
25:44
and if it was taught.
25:46
in every medical school and sitting now the book is already not just for Christmas,
25:51
it's sitting on every pediatrician's desk and what would the world look like
25:56
for people with autism and the people who care for them?
25:59
these chronic disease epidemics that we talked about earlier,
26:01
where so many people are tired and achy and have pain and neuropathy
26:05
and brain fog and mood disorders,
26:07
we would find a lot healthier planet.
26:09
We would not be dealing with all of the illnesses these chronic fatiguing,
26:12
musculoskeletal, neuropsychiatric illnesses that are
26:15
now overwhelming the population.
26:18
So I do think we would have a much healthier and happier planet because chronic
26:22
inflammation is underlying all this chronic illness.
26:24
And, we're in a very precarious situation right now with all the infections that
26:27
are spreading and all the toxins getting in.
26:29
We need a major paradigm shift in the way we do medicine and getting to these,
26:34
16 root causes, changing the paradigm that it's not one cause,
26:38
one disease. It's not name the disease and throw the drug at it,
26:40
which is driving up healthcare costs.
26:43
I think we're gonna have a lot healthier and happier population
26:46
and people living longer
26:47
I'm sending this vibe to you. I'm hoping that Dr.
26:51
Horowitz's work can be validated and scaled very quickly.
26:55
And that would definitely help us parents of kids with autism so much.
27:00
And Richard, thank you so so much for this conversation.
27:04
And what I take from it again is that diagnosis is just a label and a label
27:09
is not biology.
27:13
Correct. One hundred percent in agreement.
27:14
Thank you, Richard. ~ I'm Nadia Elkhatib and this is Biohacking Autism.
27:18
And if this gave you a better set of questions to take to your next appointment,
27:23
share it with another parent. Somebody out there is at the very beginning
27:28
and have no idea where to start.