Brain Allergies And Autism - Dr. Theo Theoharides

The Coffee Klatch Special Needs Radio

The best discoveries are often found completely by accident. It seems that may be happening again for Autism. Dr Theoharis Theoharides (Dr. Theo) from Tufts University, has come across a breakthrough in Autism. Several years ago when Dr Theoharides was researching a completely different disease called Mastocytosis, he noticed an extremely high co- occurrence of Autism in these people. Through a simple survey it was found that 10% of people with Mastocytosis also had an ASD diagnosis. That raised a big red flag to Dr. Theo since having that big of an increase of having a disease within a certain population ( 1 in 10 for Mastocytosys) compared to the regular population (1 in a 100) points to a direct connection. This compelled Dr. Theo to do testing of autistic children and lead to the discovery that autistic children had activated Mast cells. Activated mast cells cause many of the same symptoms found in autistic children. Listen as we discuss how mast cells can affect behavior, language, stress and neurological symptoms.