Dietary Supplements for Autism: Up-to-Date Research
A 2017 review article by Yong-Jiang Li and colleagues in the journal Frontiers in Psychiatry describes the current research on dietary supplements that may help improve symptoms of autism spectrum disorder.
Some of the most promising research was on vitamin D, folinic acid, and sulforaphane. Methyl B12 and digestive enzyme therapy had some positive effects, while gluten- and casein-free diets and omega-3 fatty acids did not seem to help improve autism symptoms.
Vitamin D
Li and colleagues described a randomized, controlled trial of vitamin D in 109 children with autism aged 3 to 10 years. The experimental group received doses of 300 IU/kg of body weight/day, not exceeding 5000 IU/day. By the end of the four-month study, vitamin D levels had significantly increased in the experimental group compared to the control group. Those who received vitamin D also showed significant improvement on all ratings of autism symptoms, which included general scales of autism symptoms and more specialized checklists that capture aberrant behavior and social responsiveness.
Folinic Acid
The review article also described a randomized double-blind placebo-controlled trial of folinic acid in 48 children with autism spectrum disorder and language impairment. Participants received high-dose folinic acid (2 mg/kg/day) or placebo for 12 weeks. Those who received folinic acid, a form of folic acid that can readily be used by the body, showed significant improvements in verbal communication and core autism symptoms compared to those who received placebo. Participants who tested positive for folate receptor alpha autoantibodies (FRAA), which disrupt the transportation of folate across the blood-brain barrier and are common in autism, showed greater improvements from taking folinic acid than those without this abnormality.
Sulforaphane
Sulforaphane is a phytochemical derived from cruciferous vegetables. It can create metabolic effects that resemble those of a fever, which can improve behavioral symptoms of autism. Sulforaphane also fights oxidative stress, inflammation, and DNA damage, which may play roles in autism. Li and colleagues described the first double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of sulforaphane treatment in 29 boys aged 13 to 17 years. The boys who received sulforaphane showed significant improvement in autism-related behavior, especially social interaction and communication, after 18 weeks compared to those who received placebo. Sulforaphane has low toxicity and is well tolerated. Read more
Preventing Metformin Side Effects
Depression is a risk factor for type 2 diabetes, and the drug metformin is a common treatment for diabetes. In a 2016 article in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, researcher Chittaranjan Andrade suggests ways of minimizing side effects from metformin.
Gastrointestinal side effects such as nausea, vomiting, abdominal discomfort, flatulence, and diarrhea are common on metformin. In the article, Andrade writes, “These are less likely to occur with gradual dose uptitration, administration of the drug with meals, and use of a time-release formulation.”
Lactic acidosis, a buildup of lactate in the body that can result in muscle pain, burning, and other symptoms, is a rare side effect of metformin. Avoiding prescribing metformin to people with impaired kidney, liver, or cardiac functioning and other risk factors can prevent lactic acidosis.
Vitamin B12 absorption can also be affected by long-term metformin use. Andrade suggests that rather than waiting for a vitamin deficiency to be identified, a proactive approach should be taken. Long-term metformin users could be given an annual intramuscular shot of vitamin B12.
Only Fluoxetine is More Effective Than Placebo for Children and Adolescents with Depression
In a meta-analysis published in 2016, researchers Andrea Cipriani, Xinyu Zhou, and colleagues reported that many antidepressants are not effective in children and adolescents. Fluoxetine alone was more effective than placebo. Other antidepressants also caused high study drop-out rates compared to placebo.
In an article published in the journal The Lancet, Cipriani, Zhou, and colleagues analyzed 34 randomized, controlled clinical trials of antidepressants in children and adolescents. These trials included a total of 5,260 participants and 14 different antidepressants.
The researchers determined that much of the evidence was of a low quality. Only fluoxetine was statistically significantly more effective than placebo. Fluoxetine was also more tolerable to patients than duloxetine or imipramine. Patients who received imipramine, venlafaxine, or duloxetine were more likely to drop out of studies due to adverse events compared to patients who received placebo.
The authors suggest that prescribing antidepressants to children or adolescents may not necessarily be beneficial, and that fluoxetine is probably the best option to consider.
Editor’s Note: It may be best to use caution when prescribing antidepressants to children or adolescents. First, these data that suggest that many antidepressants are ineffective in young people. In addition, depression in children and adolescents may be a sign of bipolar disorder, and antidepressant use may cause activation or switching into mania in vulnerable patients.
While there is a warning about using antidepressants in young people because of the risk of increased suicidal ideation, the actual suicide rate in young populations decreases when these patients take antidepressants and cognitive behavioral therapy. Psychotherapy should be a high priority. Other safe adjunctive approaches might include omega-3 fatty acids, N-acetylcysteine, vitamin D3, and folic acid. Evidence for the efficacy of rTMS in young people is also positive and growing.
Certain ‘Nutraceuticals’ Aid Depression Treatment
A systematic review of research on the value of pharmaceutical-grade nutritional supplements, or ‘nutraceuticals,’ in depression treatment has found that several do indeed improve depression symptoms.
The 2016 review by Jerome Sarris and colleagues in the American Journal of Psychiatry found that the following nutraceuticals primarily produced positive results compared to placebo: omega-3 fatty acids (primarily EPA or ethyl-EPA); vitamin D; l-methylfolate (a more potent form of folic acid); and S-adenosyl methionine or SAMe, a beneficial compound created from toxic homocysteine with the help of folate.
Editor’s Note: Most of these compounds can also be useful in bipolar depression. Omega-3 fatty acids and vitamin D are helpful to many patients. L-methylfolate is particularly helpful to the 30% of the population with a MTHFR deficiency that interferes with the ability of folate to break down homocysteine. SAMe is an exception—while it is effective in unipolar depression, it may cause switching into mania in patients with bipolar disorder.
The researchers identified a few additional nutraceuticals that each had one study supporting their use—creatine, sometimes used by weightlifters to provide extra energy to muscles; folinic acid, which can protect bone marrow and other cells during chemotherapy; and a combination of amino acids.
Results from studies that compared other compounds to placebo were mixed. Those included studies of zinc, folic acid, vitamin C, and the amino acid tryptophan. A study of inositol, a compound found in plants that is not normally digestible, had nonsignificant results.
No serious side effects were observed in any of the studies of nutraceuticals, though some caused minor digestive disturbances.
Editor’s Note: Another beneficial nutraceutical that did not appear in the review article is N-acetylcysteine. In 6- to 8-week studies, NAC improved depression and anxiety compared to placebo. It also improved bipolar depression and reduced many habits and additions in non-bipolar patients. These include cocaine and gambling addition, alcohol and nicotine use, trichotillomania (compulsive hair-pulling) and obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD).
Treating Bipolar Disorder in Children and Adolescents
Bipolar disorder in childhood or adolescence can destroy academic, family, and peer relationships and increase vulnerability to drug use, unsafe sexual encounters, disability, and suicide. Treatment is critical to avoid cognitive decline. Given the potential tragic outcomes of undertreating bipolar illness, it is concerning that 40–60% of children and adolescents with bipolar disorder are not in treatment.
In a talk at the 2015 meeting of the International Society for Bipolar Disorder, researcher Cristian Zeni reviewed the existing research on the treatment of bipolar disorder in children and adolescents. A 2012 study by Geller reported response rates of 68% for the atypical antipsychotic risperidone, 35% for lithium and 24% for valproate. Risperidone was linked to weight gain and increases in prolactin, a protein secreted by the pituitary gland, while lithium was linked to more discontinuations and valproate to sedation.
For children or adolescents with aggression, researcher Robert Kowatch recommends quetiapine, aripiprazole, and risperidone. For those with a family history of bipolar disorder, he recommends lithium or alternatively, valproate plus an atypical antipsychotic.
Reseacher Robert Findling has found that lamotrigine has positive effects in childhood mania, and Duffy et al. found in a study of 21 children with mania that 13 remained stable on monotherapy with quetiapine for 40 weeks without relapse, while 5 others required combination treatment with more than one drug. In studies by Karen Wagner, oxcarbazepine was significantly better than placebo at reducing mania in younger children (ages 7–12), but not older children (13–18).
Studies by Duffy and colleagues in 2007 and 2009 recommend lithium for those with a family history of bipolar disorder, atypical antipsychotics for children with no family history of bipolar disorder, and lamotrigine for those with a family history of anxiety disorders.
In children with bipolar disorder and comorbid attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, there is universal agreement that mood should be stabilized first, and then small amounts of stimulants may be added for residual ADHD symptoms. Too often, the opposite occurs, with stimulants given prior to mood stabilization with lithium, anticonvulsants (valproate, lamotrigine, carbamazepine/oxcarbazepine) and/or an atypical antipsychotic. Read more
A PANS Case Study, Immune Treatment Reduced Psychiatric Symptoms
Pediatric acute neuropsychiatric syndrome (PANS) is a little-known syndrome in which a child has an acute onset of psychiatric symptoms following a bacterial or viral infection, when the antibodies generated to fight the infection instead attack neurons in the brain. The behavioral alterations can be severe and resistant to the usual psychotropic drug treatments. PANS often requires antibiotics and immune-targeted therapies.
The following is a case report of a real child who had a sudden onset of depression and violence after getting sick with the flu, pneumonia, and a strep infection at the age of 4. (Names have been changed for privacy.)
Anne contacted this editor (Robert M. Post) seeking a consultation on her 6-year-old son, Jake. Two years earlier, he had suddenly become difficult—depressed, angry, and even violent. This coincided with the emergence of obsessive compulsive symptoms and urinary incontinence. He went from being able to read short sentences in pre-kindergarten, to being cognitively dull and not even able to recognize letters of the alphabet. He had been diagnosed with a mood disorder, and Anne was told it was probably bipolar disorder. But he didn’t respond to any of the typical medications, and suffered side effects including hallucinations, nightmares, bowel accidents, and worsening depression.
The best results came with the atypical antipsychotic risperidone. While it didn’t reduce all of Jake’s symptoms, Anne described it as “heaven” compared to earlier treatments. But Jake’s levels of prolactin started to increase, and he lost bladder control, so he had to stop taking risperidone. Jake’s doctor tried 18 different medication regimens with 8 different medications in less than a year without finding one that worked well. Jake had a horrible time in school, and Anne fretted about the lack of an effective, stable medication, saying, “He’s actually worse than I’ve ever seen him.”
Dr. Post recommended that they consider using high doses of quetiapine and valproate for Jake’s aggression and behavioral dyscontrol, along with the antioxidant N-acetylcysteine and vitamin D3. However, given that Jake’s symptoms were severe, involved cognitive and neurological abnormalities, and had begun after a flu-like illness, and was unresponsive to conventional treatment, Dr. Post suggested that Anne get Jake checked out for PANS and start charting Jake’s mood on a daily basis.
Jake began taking higher doses of quetiapine and valproate, and improved to the point that Anne said they restrained him only once a day, rather than four times per day. But his behavioral dyscontrol continued. In one memorable incident, after feeling picked on by other children at a baseball game, he lashed out at Anne, kicking her in the face with his cleats and punching her glasses off her face.
Anne told Dr. Post that the family had visited a neurologist, who said that she had never heard of PANS and suggested that Anne would have to travel across several states to see Dr. Post if she wanted to pursue that diagnosis.
Dr. Post encouraged Anne to keep looking for a doctor who would take the PANS idea seriously. He sent her a comprehensive review article about PANS by Dr. Kiki Chang and colleagues published in the Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology in 2014.
This past June, Anne found a doctor who understood PANS and was willing to run the appropriate tests on Jake. The tests revealed that Jake had at one time been infected with the bacteria mycoplasma. Read more
Nutritional Supplement Minimizes Stress After a Natural Disaster
Certain nutritional supplements may help people cope following natural disasters. Following a 7.1 magnitude earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2010, researchers there who were working on a clinical trial of a broad spectrum mineral and vitamin formula for ADHD realized that they could compare participants who had been taking the nutritional supplements at the time of the earthquake with those who had either already completed the trial or had not yet begun it. Two weeks after the quake, those who had been taking the multivitamin at the time of the quake were less anxious and stressed than those who hadn’t been taking the formula.
When another large earthquake struck five months later, the researchers implemented a randomized trial comparing two doses of the same broad spectrum supplement with a B Complex vitamin formula that had previously shown efficacy for stress and anxiety. Those participants taking any supplement showed fewer symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) a month after the second quake compared to controls, and those taking the higher dose of the broad spectrum formula had greater improvements in mood and anxiety than those taking the B Complex supplement.
More recently, in Alberta, Canada, flooding forced many people from their homes. Researchers there who were studying the effects of micronutrients on stress and anxiety realized they had the opportunity to replicate the research from New Zealand in a different type of environmental disaster.
Researcher Bonnie J. Kaplan and colleagues recruited adults who had been affected by the flood, and randomized the participants to receive different types of supplements: vitamin D (1 pill/day); a B complex vitamin containing B6, B12, and several other nutrients (1 pill/day); or a broad spectrum supplement containing 24 vitamins and minerals and several botanical extracts (4 pills/day). No placebo was used—it was considered unethical to deny participants access to a potentially helpful treatment.
In a 2015 article in the journal Psychiatry Research, the Alberta team reported that while all of the nutrient supplements minimized stress after the flood, patients randomized to the B complex vitamin or the broad spectrum formula had less stress and anxiety following the flood than those randomized to vitamin D.
We have previously described a broad spectrum vitamin preparation called EMPowerplus, used by psychiatrist Charles Popper and psychologist Mary A. Fristad to treat children with treatment-resistant bipolar disorder. This may be the same formula used in the Alberta study. We await larger trials of this preparation in children with bipolar disorder.
RTMS and Other Treatments for Depression in Pregnancy
At the May meeting of the Society of Biological Psychiatry, researcher Deborah Kim gave a talk on the use of repeated transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) for depression in women who are pregnant. In rTMS treatment, an electromagnetic coil is placed against the side of the forehead and magnetic pulses that can penetrate the scalp are converted into small electrical currents that stimulate neurons in the brain. Kim had recently completed an open study of rTMS in pregnant women, in which 70% of the women responded to rTMS. In another controlled randomized study of 30 women (also by Kim), 75% responded to active rTMS and 50% responded to a sham procedure. None of the women included had problems with the fetus or during delivery.
RTMS offers an alternative to women who are reluctant to take antidepressants during pregnancy. Kim cited data by Lee S. Cohen and colleagues in which women taking antidepressants show a 68% relapse rate if they stop taking these medications during pregnancy compared to a 26% relapse rate among those who continue taking antidepressants during pregnancy. Concerns about antidepressants’ potential effects on a fetus may have been overemphasized. Kim summarized the literature on antidepressants in pregnancy, concluding that there is a preponderance of evidence that antidepressants are safe for the mother and fetus, with few serious effects having been observed. Some researchers have been concerned about risks of persistent pulmonary hypertension or autism among offspring of women who took antidepressants during pregnancy, but studies have shown that the absolute risk of either is small. Stay tuned—on Wednesday we’ll discuss a new large and comprehensive study in which most SSRIs showed no link to birth defects, but fluoxetine and paroxetine were associated with risks of certain birth defects.
Editor’s Note: For mild depression during pregnancy, exercise and psychotherapy might be optimal, along with folate and vitamin D3. For moderate depression, omega-3 fatty acids might also be helpful, but it now appears that rTMS would be less risky than electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), which in the past has been a typical recommendation for pregnant women, but which exposes the fetus to the effects of anesthesia and seizure. In her summary Kim recommended that women with a pattern of recurrent depression continue antidepressant treatment, especially since a mother’s depression itself poses non-trivial risks to the fetus.
Another Antidepressant Fails in Bipolar Depression
Despite repeated studies, including meta-analyses, showing that antidepressants that work in unipolar depression do not work in bipolar depression as adjuncts to mood stabilizers, antidepressants remain widely used for the treatment of bipolar depression. A recent study of the antidepressant agomelatine has shown that it is not effective in bipolar depression. In patients taking lithium or valproate but still depressed, agomelatine was no better than placebo at reducing depression.
Agomelatine has an unusual mechanism of action (blockade of 5HT-2C receptors and activation of melatonin M1 and M2 receptors) that helps normalize sleep and circadian rhythms, but only in unipolar depression. Until this study by Lakshmi Yatham and colleagues in the British Journal of Psychiatry, it was thought that these properties would make the drug ideal for bipolar depression.
Three atypical antipsychotics are have been approved by the Federal Drug Administration for bipolar depression: quetiapine (Seroquel), lurasidone (Latuda), and the olanzepine-fluoxetine combination Symbyax. These, used alongside mood stabilizers (lithium, valproate, carbamazepine, and lamotrigine) are more effective treatments for bipolar depression. There are other adjunctive treatments that may be helpful, such as the antioxidant N-acetylcysteine, vitamin D3, and folate.
High CRP Predicts Early Onset Of A Mood Episode
C-reactive protein
Barbara Gracious of Ohio State University became interested in the inflammatory marker CRP through studying vitamin D3 deficiency. Vitamin D is a neurosteroid, and low levels of it have been associated with risk of schizophrenia, cardiovascular disease (heart attack), diabetes, mood disorders, cognitive deficits, autoimmune disease, and obesity. High CRP levels are related to low vitamin D, to obesity, and to other inflammatory markers such as IL-6 and TNF alpha.
Gracious measured these levels of CRP in 621 children participating in the Longitudinal Study of Manic Symptoms (LAMS), who were followed up for many years. She found that those with higher levels of CRP developed a mood episode approximately two years earlier than those with normal levels. CRP binds phosphocholine, which activates complement, a kind of protein that induces inflammation. CRP is elevated in 14% to 53% of patients with depression and anxiety.
Copeland et al. reported in the American Journal of Psychiatry in 2012 that after a first depression, high CRP was associated with relapse. CRP also increases in adolescent females (who are at increased risk for depression).
Editor’s Note: These findings suggest the potential importance not only of using CRP as an indicator of depression risk, but also of targeting CRP levels in the hopes of reducing risk of a mood episode in children with elevated inflammatory markers. Supplementing vitamin D3 in those with low levels would be a good place to start, as would preventing or treating obesity and promoting good sleep hygiene and exercise. The potential role of medications with direct anti-inflammatory effects such as aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid) or minocycline deserves further study.
Balanced diet, exercise, and good sleep habits may be easier said (or recommended) than done. Such lifestyle advice must be delivered with motivational interviewing, and instilled through practice, positive feedback, encouragement, and more practice. In children in general, and especially in those at high risk for a mood episode due to a family history of a unipolar or bipolar mood disorder, starting things off right from the outset with good diet, exercise, and sleep routines would be highly recommended. The benefits for long-term health and wellbeing could be enormous.
The results of good health behaviors may be mediated through several pathways. They could lessen inflammation and obesity, increase brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF, which is important for new synapses and long-term memory) and neurogenesis (both of which are increased by exercise), and even lengthen the telomeres that cap the ends of each strand of DNA (short ones are associated with a variety of medical and psychiatric illnesses).
