immunoLink Therapies and Treating ASD Children

6-Months of Therapy and Testing Results

I have previously posted our testing and treatment regime for ASD Children. For some of the children, we are seeing marked improvement after 6 months of our treatment regime using solutions aimed at balance immunity and stem cell vitality.

We find that for the children we treat all have varying dysregulated levels of immune/inflammatory response, oxidative stress and growth factor/neurotrophin biomarkers.  We customize treatment plans based on pre-treatment testing results. We then re-test after 6 months to see the level of moderation in these biomarkers/factors. The re-tests are used to show the parents how well these children are responding to treatment and to further adjust plans.

Here I would like to share the results from our more traditional medical testing. These are representative results from one of the Children we are treating.

Graph: ASD Child Pre-treament and 6 month treatment analyte levels vs healthy sweet spots

If you are interested in learning more, please contact me directly (612-801-1007) or pshuster@neuromics.com. Pete Shuster, CEO and Owner of Neuromics and ImmunoLink^TMTherapies.

Treating Autism-Immune System Balancing and Stem Cell Activating Therapies

Linking the Immune System with Stem Cell Health to Treat ASD Children

We have been testing immune/inflammatory response, oxidative stress and growth factor/neurotrophin biomarkers in the blood sera of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). We did this testing using our Quantibody Arrays.

The purpose of these tests were to establish a baseline for the state of these children's immune system and stem cell health. In this baseline testing, we found that all had high immune/inflammatory response, oxidative stress and low levels of the growth factors/neurotrophins needed for repairing and regenerated damaged cells/tissue (stem cell health).

We then treated these children with customized combinations of immune balancing and stem cell activating agents with the goal of showing that any improvement in ASD related symproms would be confirmed by positive modulations of biomarkers that are dysregulated in this disorder. We re-test at 6 months after initiation of the treatment plans.

The goal of our treatment strategies is to balance the immune system and activate the natural cell/tissue repair and regeneration (stem cell) processes. We call this the immunoLink^TM.

We are seeing improvement in the symptoms of the first 2 children recently retested and a marked improvement in the levels of their biomarkers. Here's data from one of the children. Note that key immune/inflammatory response markers have now moderated to the levels of healthy controls.

Graphs: Comparison of initial testing (red) and 6 month re-test (green) vs healthy controls (blue) for one of our ASD Children

We are developing a website that will have a wealth of information to help parents determine treatment strategies for ASD Children. We are also making our treatment plans and strategies available to interested parents. The website ecosystem will be named immunoLink^TM Therapies.

In the meantime, should you want to investigate if we could help your child, do not hesitate to contact me e-mail: pshuster@neuromics.com or cell: 612-801-1007. Pete Shuster, CEO and Owner.

Immune/Inflammatory Response and Autism

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) Children and Immune/Inflammatory Response Markers

Persistent chronic inflammation/immune response and oxidative stress are hallmarks of ASD. Like autoimmune diseases, an unbalanced immune system leads to unwanted assaults on healthy tissue. In ASD Children, inflammatory/immune response proteins could cross the Blood-Brain Barrier resulting in ongoing neuro-inflammation. This throws out of balance the natural pruning and repair cycle in the brain and could drive the related behaviors and symptoms of ASD Children.

We have been working with ASD children from central Europe residing in areas of heavy industry. All have unhealthy levels of metals in there blood stream and most have persistent viral and/or bacterial infection. This testing is part of our treatment program. Our treatment strategy involves first removing heavy metals and related toxins and the adding stem cell activators (stem cells are key players in modulating the immune system and repairing damage).

Previously I reported results from our testing for neuro growth/repair and oxidative stress markers using our custom ASD array. Here, I report on results from our measuring well known immune/inflammatory markers in 6 of these ASD children. The markers studied were: (IL-2, IL-6 and TNF-alpha). All of the markers were elevated when compared to healthy children. Here're the results:

Graphs: ASD vs Healthy Controls (*Healthy Control Data from Kim et al. Journal of Translational Medicine. 2011: 9:113)

Here's more on these markers:

•  IL-2 is involved in immune regulation. It is one of the key factors in transplant regulation. It is also elevated in many children suffering from ASD. This elevation could be caused by toxins, chronic infection or genetic abnormalities. It should be also noted that IL-2 can cross the blood brain barrier making it a culprit in the symptoms of ASD. 
• IL-6 is a potent pro-inflammatory agent that plays a crucial role in the pathogenesis of systemic inflammatory diseases like ASD.
• TNF-a has been implicated as main effector of the functional consequences of neuroinflammation on neurodegeneration.

We are seeing improvements in symptoms and behaviors in the ASD Children undergoing treatment. We are early in the our Stem Cell Activating treatment phase. Our plans call for a cycles of testing and treating. If the tests yields movement of these markers to healthy levels, this will confirm how well our these treatments are working. Our plans our to openly share data.

If you would like to learn more about our testing and treatment regimes, I can be reached @ pshuster@neuromics.com or 612-801-1007.

Autism, Inflammation and Stem Cell Enhancers

Proving the Therapeutic Value

We have been running Quantibody® Antibody Arrays on blood serum of children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). All reside in areas of heavy industry in Central Europe. All have elevated levels of one or several heavy metals.

These assays are being run as part of our strategy of treating these children with natural stem cell enhancing supplements. Here are the average serum levels of 2 cytokines (IL-6 and TNF-alpha) and 1 related chemokine (CCL3). All of the children had elevated levels vs healthy controls:

Figure: Serum ASD levels vs Healthy Controls (pg/ml)

TNF-alpha and IL-6 promotes the immune/inflammatory response. These two cytokines are guided to sites (including the CNS) of infection or tissue damage by the chemokine CCL-3 and others. In the normal process, the site(s) of immune response are cleaned (the response) of infection and/or damaged tissue and then repaired. The key with autoimmune diseases and disorders, is that that this process becomes a continuous loop; hence, these cytokines and chemokines are elevated. If the loop is broken or down modulated, the the levels of these should decrease.

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are immunomodulating and anti-inflammatory. We plan on testing candidate substances (all our currently available as natural supplements) on kinetic assays using our umbilical cord blood human mesenchymal stem cells. These will enable us to quantify  cell growth and expansion. We also plan on testing the best candidates on our human neurons to see the effects on cell behavior.

We will then determine safe dosing working with experts in the U.S. and Europe. During treatment, we will again be testing serum to see if the levels of these and other key Cytokines, Chemokines and Growth Factors. This will give proof as to to whether or not the treatments are working. If so, we should see the serum levels of these move toward to those of healthy controls.

I plan on making more data as it becomes available.

Autism, Heavy Metals, BDNF and HSP-70

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) Testing using Custom Quantibody® Array

We recently completed testing blood serum from ASD children. These children were all from Central Europe and lived in cities with heavy industries. All had elevated levels of heavy metals like Aluminum and Copper. We believe that these levels may be contributing to the pathogenesis of the ASD symptoms.

Though the sample was small, the results were striking. The elevated levels of Heat Shock Protein 70 (HSP 70) is consistent with high heavy metal toxicity. Studies have reported both elevated and decreased levels of Brian Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF) vs healthy controls, but is always reduced in subjects with high heavy metal blood serum levels. Could these elevated heavy metals be a root factor ASD Children?

Based on these findings, we have proposed a 2 pronged treatment strategy:

1. Bring heavy metal serum levels into acceptable balance.
2. Treat ASD children with natural stem cell enhancing substances

Stem Cells are immune/inflammation supressive and capable of repairing tissue damage. Our theory is that this could result in improvement in ASD related symptoms. Testing serum levels of BDNF, HSP-70 and other select bio-markers would confirm therapeutic efficacy.

I will be posting results updates here so stay tuned.