Health

Saliva Test for Autism in the Works

by CJaye | January 8, 2009 at 12:56 pm

233 views | 42 Recommendations | 3 comments

If this study shows to be true how wonderful it will be for parents of Autistic children. My grandson is Autistic and we didn't find out until he was six years old. He had some signs but I guess it wasn't until we couldn't ignore them anymore we had to get treatment for them. Being a nurse I should have caught it sooner. I even worked with Autistic and Down Syndrome children for years. When it comes to your own you tend to look to other way so to speak. Caleb is so smart and focused on everything he does. Almost to the extreme, I've had to literally peel his fingers off the mouse because he has been a my computer too long, like 4 hours straight. NO break. No matter what I did he didn't want to do anything else. We'd go the movies have to leave he could set long enough there? Chuck E Cheese come on, he got board. Put that child in front of a computer and he will be there until you make him get off. He tells me how to fix things after he messes them up. Always apologizes for his mistakes maw maw with a great explanation of how it got that way. Back to the point, if this works it will really help millions of parents to prepare for what ahead of them treatment wise. Starting to learn about the disorder and all. alternative treatment or conventional treatment. I've stated before about International Nutrition in Maryland. The owner started this company for treatment of Down Syndrome children and adults. Then he become a parent of a Down Syndrome baby. They now has alternative treatment for ADD,ADHD, Hand Eye coordination (Efalex Focus) ,Down Syndrome, Autism and many more. I've never believed that conventional medicine is the only way and I've seen the wonderful things that these other treatments have done for the Down Syndrome Patients.

Certain Saliva Compounds Are Different in Some Autistic Children, Italian Scientists Report By Miranda Hitti
WebMD Health News Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD
Jan. 8, 2009-Certain compounds in saliva are different in some children with
autism spectrum disorders, a new study shows.

Italian researchers analyzed saliva samples from 27 children with autism spectrum disorders and 23 healthy children of the same age.

The scientists, who included Professor Massimo Castagnola of Rome's Universita Cattolica, focused on small proteins and peptides, which are building blocks of protein, in the saliva samples.

Two-thirds of the children in the autism spectrum disorders group had at least one salivary peptide that differed from children without autism.

It's not clear if autism was the reason for those differences or why those differences weren't seen in all of the autistic children.

Still, analyzing those peptides might help to identify "a considerable subgroup" of people with autism spectrum disorders, and the peptide differences might trace back to the central nervous system, write Castagnola and colleagues.