I know everyone gets tired of me blaming all health evils on carbohydrates, but it is the largest ingested toxin in our world by a magnitude of 100x to the next largest offender. In roughly 2008 or so a good friend of mine, a pediatrician, a great one by the way who will remain nameless at this point, called me and said, you know I am seeing a huge increase in autism and wonder if you know anyone [maternal fetal medicine or otherwise] who understands inflammation in pregnancy and could we meet to discuss. Of course I rounded up an MFM and we discussed this most distressing problem. Not being an expert in Autism, I did some basic research for our meeting and found that it appeared that the brain dysfunction in autism resulted from an intense inflammatory response and the concern then was childhood immunizations and the inflammation surrounded those events. What I found was that the incidence of the autism began to rise exponentially in about 1980. The incidence of obesity increased by the same percentage and with the same exponential curve in 1980 corresponding to the introduction of the food pyramid and the dramatic shift in macronutrient mix with carbohydrates increasing from roughtly 40% of calories to 80% or so. This doubling of carbs, a nutritional toxin, resulted in a rapid and dramatic increase in obesity, heart disease, diabetes, cholesterol elevation and liver disease. This happened nearly overnight. In children, we saw dramatic increases in the same diseases but autism was added to the list. Along with the carbohydrate elevation was the direct recommendation against fat, especially animal fat. As the brain (a large ball of fat) was developing in children suddenly fat was witheld in the diet and carbs were increased dramatically causing intense total body inflammation. When the vaccination comes, an intense inflammatory reaction follows confering long term immunity to the particular organism targeted by the vaccine. In these children, the brain is so dysfunctional and succeptible, the inflammation causes neuronal damage that results in autism.
The fat in the brain surrounds the neuronal dendrites, the “wires” connecting brain cells. The fat cells act as insulators similar to the plastic coating of the power lines in our cities such that wires can run together without interference. The dendrites interlace with each other carrying specific signals all over the brain protected against crosstalk (short circuiting) by the fat cell coatings. If the insulators (fat cells) are dysfunctional and subjected to an intense inflammatory reaction, problems are certain to occur. This is what I believe is going on with autism. You won’t hear this anywhere else but if you superimpose the incidence curve of obesity and autism, you will find that they are exactly the same. While this is definitely not strong science, it is very suggestive. There is no other discussion of this. Scientists are simply scrathing their heads and chasing tangents such as described in this article. Instead of realizing that “processed food” really is defined as carbohydrate supplemented food, they have focused on a relatively obscure aspect of processed food – PPA or proprionic acid. What about the doubling of carbohydrates added to processed foods beginning in 1980 with the government’s blessing. The food companies were excited due to the dramatic increase in profits with carbhohydrates over fat and protein which are much more expensive ingredients in foods. This may be simple deduction but there are no other solid explanations for the dramatic increase in autism that was a rare disorder in 1970 when I was in grade school. You can make your own conclusions. I have had several employees through the years who have put their autistic child/ children on a ketogenic diet and have seen dramatic improvements (not resolution) in their situation. PPA may be associated, but my bets are on carbohydrates!!
Michael D. Fox, MD
Jacksonville Center Reproductive Medicine