There has been lots of speculation on the prohealth board over the years that the difference between CFS and ASD could be the stage of development of the brain of the person who gets it.
The Autism-CFS connection on the face of it is a strange one. How can one relate often severely socially and terribly cognitively impaired autism patients to ME/CFS patients? Apparently by looking at study results; Dr. Mikovits reported that both groups share "immune dysregulation, increased oxidative stress, increased expression of proinflammatory cytokines and chemokines, mitochondrial dysfunction and chronic active microbial infections". One wonders if different but somewhat similar immune dysfunctions can, by targeting different areas, have quite different results.
Shining A Light on the Autism ME/CFS Connection - in an email to a researcher, a couple of months ago, Dr. Mikovits agreed that it probably would have better for her not to mention unpublished results about finding XMRV in autism patients. It sounds like a paper is in sight now, though, as the document states that she will "show evidence of XMRV infection in ASD and discuss the implications of XMRV infection in the pathogenesis of neuroimmune disease including ASD". If some researchers are worried about the status of XMRV Dr. Mikovits is clearly not and she's moving boldly forward into one of the most contentious research areas of all. The autism crowd is organized and active and they want answers. Could XMRV be one of them? The Conference is May 29th.
Yes, it's unofficial. But the prospect of more published findings is a great one. More comments on those parallels between ASD and ME/CFS?
[FONT="]immune dysregulation, increased oxidative stress, increased expression of proinflammatory cytokines and chemokines, mitochondrial dysfunction and chronic active microbial infections[/FONT]
I knew a lot about autism when I got sick at 17 due to a friend having two autistic sibs and me having a cousin on the ADS, and that was one of the first things that got me. I realized it was like I had acquired autism. It was very scary.
I knew a lot about autism when I got sick at 17 due to a friend having two autistic sibs and me having a cousin on the ADS, and that was one of the first things that got me. I realized it was like I had acquired autism. It was very scary.