trichuris suis ova

Readers of my last blog might recall the story of the time the great satirist and math lecturer Tom Lehrer sat in my college living room in Santa Cruz, invited to our party by a housemate, and explained how it was statistically “impossible” to get wet while walking in the rain.  That is the problem with logic and statistics; it is possible to be exquisitely rational yet simply be wrong.   Mark Twain attributes the quote to Disraeli, but researchers say it originally belonged to a journalist named Leonard Courtney: There are three kinds of lies:  lies, damned lies, and statistics. 

Statistics are often used to justify the “miracle cures” that those of us who have been in the autism treatment world for a while have seen flourish, to our dismay and to the dismay of parents whose children have been harmed by them.   From the promises of colored lenses, hyperbaric oxygen chambers, clay baths, dolphin therapy, multivitamin and mineral treatments to secretin infusions, the list goes on and on.  A colleague of mine made a list 10 years ago that included over 150 of these “quack treatments,” and since then there undoubtedly have been 150 more.

It is through these jaundiced and critical eyes that I continue to read reputable journals and follow conference abstracts, and on occasion hesitatingly report some of the more interesting stuff.  Recent studies presented at the very legitimate American College of Neuropsychopharmacology annual meeting and performed at the equally legitimate Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York revealed that children with autism had improved social behavior when bathed every day in a hot tub at 102 degrees F compared to water at 98 degrees F.   And the same researcher found that high functioning adults with autism who were treated for 12 weeks by ingesting whip worm eggs (trichuris suis ova) had less repetitive and ritualistic behaviors than when they ingested a placebo.   The whip worm eggs, in case you were worried, are safe in humans because they don’t multiply in the host, are “cleared” spontaneously and aren’t transmittable by contact.

The theory behind all of this has to do with inflammation.   There are those who believe that one possible cause of autism is a “hyperactive immune system.”  In the case of the hot baths, raising body temperatures mimics the effects of fever, which might trigger the release of anti-inflammatory signals in the body.   In the case of the worm eggs, they have been shown in the past to improve immune inflammatory illnesses by “shifting the ratio of T regulator/T helper cells and their respective cytokines,” thereby altering immune-mediated responses and diminishing inflammation.

I don’t doubt that eating worms is likely to alter one’s immune response.   I would certainly add them to my diet of frog’s legs, chocolate covered ants, salivary glands (chorizo), and sushi if I knew that it would help me in ways I desperately need to be helped.  And who could dispute the beneficial effects of taking a hot bath, or, as we do in California, a dip in the hot tub, after a long day at the office.  Does wonders for my repetitive behaviors, because it puts me right to sleep.

But explaining repetitive and ritualistic behaviors as caused by inflammation seems a bit like blaming mother:  it may not be far-fetched, but it certainly is simplistic.

There were too few patients in these studies to make the results clinically meaningful, so I imagine that it would be unlikely that you will hear much more about them. The thing is, if you or your child is suffering, anything, no matter how bizarre it sounds, will be tempting, and that is how so many of us get taken advantage of.  Our desperation will lead us to believe all sorts of things, especially the logical ones.

While the FDA and other organizations are out there to help us, we live in a caveat emptor world.  It is up to each of us, and that is how it should be.  That’s why you will not likely see me eating worms anytime soon.  Just saying.   Statistically, the probability of me getting wet while walking in the rain might be small, but I do know that the probability of me getting wet if I take a hot bath is 100%.  And if it gives me a little fever and triggers an anti-inflammatory response to boot, I think I will add it to my agenda.