Autism Unpacked: The Mystery Behind its 3x Growth in the Past 30 Years

Today, according to the CDC, 1 in 36 children have been identified with autism spectrum disorder, and that number has continued to climb over the years. Even though we are better at diagnosing it now, maybe it would've been 1 in 100, not 1 in 150. Either way, there's still a 3 times greater level of ASD disorders today versus in the past. And again, 2 primary reasons.

Hi everyone, I am Dr. Josh Axe, Hi, I'm Dr. Axe, and welcome to the Growth Lab Podcast, where each and every week we cover the science behind how to grow. Now, today we're going to be talking about the rising rates of autism, and a new study just broke this week that I'm going to start off talking about. But in addition to that, I'm also going to go over many of the other studies in science.

I'm going to put it into layman's terms so you know how diet affects autism, the natural treatments, the supplements, the uh, the root causes. And this is something I don't see many people talk about.

In fact, I think there's a lot of doctors afraid to talk about what's actually causing autism and how to treat it today, uh, because there is a lot of even controversy around the diagnosis and some of the causes. But I'm going to dive into all of that today. Also, listen, I want to hear from you.

I'm going to be spending time afterwards in the comments section, so please ask your questions, make your comments. I'd love to hear from you right now. What do you believe some of the root causes of autism are, and why have the rates skyrocketed over the last 50 years? In fact, when I get into these numbers in a little bit, I actually have a graphic I'm going to show you, the chart.

I think you're going to be surprised to see just how extreme the numbers have gone from so low to so high in such a short period of time. But to start here, a recent study just broke this week, and it says 1 in 4 teens may have undiagnosed case of autism. So 1 in 4 teens may have an undiagnosed case of autism. Now, autism could be general autism.

It could be Asperger's syndrome or other neurological development delays that are related to those particular conditions. And autism can manifest again in a number of ways, as we're talking about. It could be trouble communicating, trouble interacting with others, There tends to be a very, very strong social component of trouble socializing normally with other people.

And again, the researchers in this study found that 1 in 4 adolescents with ASD have not been diagnosed. And so even though the numbers are high, they're probably even higher than the numbers could state. Now, I want to get into some of the root causes related to autism, and then we're going to talk about um, diet. We're going to talk about treatments and get into more of that.

But I'm interested to hear from you if, if you are, especially if you're a parent and you're around kids, uh, how much have you seen these autism rates and Asperger's rates increase in your lifetime versus, um, you know, just— I'd love to hear from you how much you've seen those increase.

So, so, so here's a few things that— and I want to kind of get into the basis of my theory and my belief around what causes autism based off of all of the medical literature I've pored through. And I also wanna say I've taken care of numerous, many, many kids with autism, uh, in the early part of my career when I was practicing functional medicine.

In fact, when I first moved to Nashville, Tennessee and opened my functional medicine clinic, I was part of the autism support group. I spoke regularly at the events. In fact, I also would speak, uh, regularly at the Autism One Conference. This was a conference put on by, actually, uh, again, this is controversial, but, uh, Ro— Robert F. Kennedy. Was there every year.

In fact, I spent some time and, and spoke to him. A friend of mine, Will Cole, was speaking there, Jenny McCarthy. And so I would go and speak and actually educate, uh, other doctors and parents on autism and some of the nutritional practices that could be used to benefit those children. And so I— this has been a, you know, a big part of my career.

I've been doing studying and research, and here's what I found. Um, there is a combination of what The parents pass on and what the child, uh, has happened early in their life. And by the way, I want to say this because this is so important. When I say that a parent's health affects the child's health, this is not to make anyone feel guilty.

I've had people comment before saying, are you blaming the mom? Are you blaming the parents? I'm not blaming anybody. I'm just going over the science and trying to help people educate themselves so they can better care for their own body. And those of their children. So I'm just the messenger. So what I've found is, is that there is a gut neurological, a gut-brain immune issue.

So your gut, your immune system, and your neurological system, and there is a response going on that affects one another, which then causes some autistic symptoms within the children. And so first and foremost, we see that the parents health greatly affects the child's health. We know that.

And so what tends to happen is, um, you know, oftentimes starting in birth, the mother's immune health and their gut health actually is then passed on to the child. And there might even be— because if, if— and you, many of you are already aware of this— your gut, your, your gut is called your second brain.

And the reason it's called your second brain is it has the second highest amount of neurological tissue, so nerves and tissue. So, you almost have a brain in your gut. I mean, it's that much neurological tissue. And so, if your gut— if the child's gut doesn't fully develop, well, then that actually affects how certain parts of the brain develop.

And so, there's a real connection there between the gut and the brain. And if the gut doesn't fully develop, the immune system, there's dysfunction there, means it's not functioning properly. And that's also at the root cause Of autism. And so what I believe tends to happen is, you know, the, the mother is, uh, the— her health, and it could be the par— the father as well.

I'm gonna get into this research, but the parent's health is then passed on to the child. And there are studies that show if parents had an autoimmune disease or a digestive issue, that greatly increases the child's risk of autism or developmental delays. Yeah. And so this is really important.

And one of the reasons that could be is, is that let's say a child does not have a fully developed, uh, well, let's say the parent, for instance, their gut's not healthy. Well, they're not absorbing nutrients properly. That affects the child. Uh, we know that if those nutrients aren't there, that can also affect the development of the brain and the gut.

Or if there's toxins that are passed on to the child, right, that affects, causes inflammation and can affect development. So those are some of the issues. So the way you should think about this is What are some of the big things that cause autism? 2 Things to consider: toxicity and deficiency. Okay. And those toxicities and deficiencies then affect the gut, right?

So let's say the gut doesn't get enough zinc, which it needs to build itself, or not enough collagen or not enough magnesium, right? There are certain things your gut has to have where children need to develop. Folate's another one, right? So there are certain things. That are needed to develop. So if there are deficiencies, that's going to cause developmental delays.

The body's not going to develop properly. And the next thing, if there are toxins that the body's exposed to, well, that's going to cause inflammation and tear down areas that then don't get to develop.

So what happens is you have inflammation of the gut, which then will cause an immune reaction, uh, like a condition called leaky gut, where you have your gut lining, which acts as a net, it gets holes in it. Well, Well, then proteins or certain things then leak into the bloodstream, they circulate, and for children, their blood-brain barrier isn't fully developed.

So then what happens is these proteins recirculate, then they cause inflammation of the brain over and over and over again, and it's a vicious cycle of nutritional deficiencies and the body overreacting or reacting normally, but— Yeah. It's not developed to handle this, just these constant inflammatory response, and that can affect certain areas of the brain with neural or brain inflammation.

And so, I think that's the pattern we're seeing here. And there are many toxic exposures. In fact, the first study here I want to reference is environmental, an environmental study on how Roundup. Okay, so Roundup, which is a pesticide, has actually been linked to Autism. It's extremely damaging to animals and the environment, but even more so to our physical bodies.

And so, it's important to know that in the study showed that exposure to high levels of Roundup or glyphosate during pregnancy caused ASD, autism-like behaviors, and abnormal composition of gut flora in juvenile offspring. As the exact verbiage of that study.

And so, uh, you'll see here Roundup, a toxin, comes in, it affects the parents' and the child's gut microbiome, and then— and, and it causes, uh, symptoms of autism. Okay, so that's one of the first studies we see here as well. Now I want to get into another study, and toxins can be, of course, uh, could be an environmental toxin.

It could also be toxins in the way of maybe lack of care emotionally. It could be toxins from, from too much screen time or radiation. So here's another study, and they found that early exposure to screens causes neurochemical changes. So reduced level of melatonin.

So if children are on screens all the time, their phones, their tablets or computer or TV, they have reduced melatonin concentration, which has been found significantly in a group who were exposed to screen time. And also has been linked to one of the greatest deficiencies in children with autism and certain other issues, even ADHD, is our low levels of melatonin.

So the neurotransmitter melatonin, if that's low, which is what helps your body sleep more deeply, if that's low, that's associated with issues like autism. They also found deficiencies in other neurotransmitters like dopamine, Acetylcholine, GABA, 5-HTP. Um, they, they found this all in these, uh, they found this all in this one, one singular study.

And so, and, and the exact results were children who spent greater than 3 hours per day on, on a screen had greater developmental delays in terms of language delays, short attention spans, and hyperactivity. So that's sort of the key marker. You don't want your kids to have more than 3 hours a day of screen time. You want them spending time outside and playing and using their creativity.

It's another important, important thing we saw here in terms of the research. Now, I went ahead on another study here, and this is big, and I referenced this earlier. Parents who have autoimmune disease, their kids have a sick— well, both parents, it's 40%, but if the mom has autoimmune disease, there is a 60% increase in the child having autism.

Okay, so if a parent has autoimmune disease, there's a 60% child— greater chance of their child having autism. And here's what the study found. They, they said maternal inflammation, so the mother's inflammation levels in her body, has been linked with autism and other neurodevelopment outcomes in children.

And Judy Van de Water, she's a professor of medicine at the University of California Davis, said It all speaks to the mother's immune dysregulation. So the mother's immune system overfiring or overreacting. So one of the keys to helping prevent autism is having the mother care for and strengthen, regulate her immune system and her gut health.

So caring for the, the, the gut and the immune system is paramount when it comes to the health of kids. Now listen, this isn't just with autism, this is with almost every health condition you can imagine. If the mother has— And by the way, the father too, just the mother has a greater influence. So in this study, by the way, both parents or the father having it also increased the risk.

So the mother and father, their health both contributes to the health of the kids, but the mother's, because of the time in the womb, has a greater influence according to the studies. But actually both are important. There is another study that found that if parents have IBD, that's inflammatory bowel disease, that also increases the likelihood of autism.

And that was an increase by 32% if the mom had, uh, IBS, uh, Crohn's or colitis or another form of inflammatory bowel disease. And by the way, this was a study done on, um, uh, 48,000 autistic children and 243,000 controls in the United States. And so, this is— we're talking about hundreds of thousands of people in this study.

So, it's a very, very well-done study, uh, and very, very accurate in terms of we're seeing here that the gut health of the parents— and again, I want to say this doesn't just correlate to autism, it's almost all health. So, the parents' health greatly, greatly influences the health Of the children.

And so when we're talking about some of the root causes of autism, I want to say this is that, again, first and foremost, the parent's health is the primary indicator. The next things in addition, though, once the child is born, the child's gut health and immune health are the biggest things because those are the things that affect the neurological system.

And so when we're talking about children, you need to make sure to do everything you can To decrease the exposure to any toxins. Also, anything that can have a negative effect on the gut and the immune system, right? So gut health, think about prescription antibiotic medications.

If a child at 1 years old or 2 years old gets prescribed an antibiotic, what that does to their immune system and their gut, it can have some really damaging effects. If children really early on are Being fed or have exposed to major environmental toxins like Roundup and pesticides, that also contributes.

And anything else that could be done by the medical system that would cause the body to have an immune reaction, okay, that can also greatly contribute. Now, there are certain things I want to say here that I can't necessarily get into all the details here, but I do want to say, I'm going to get into the numbers now, but it's important to care for those things with children.

With autism, gut health and the immune system. Do everything you can to balance those out. And I'm going to get into how to do that in the future. Now listen to how fast autism has grown over the years. Today, according to the CDC, 1 in 36 children have been identified with autism spectrum disorder, and that number has continued to climb over the years.

You can see here, if you're watching here on YouTube, back here in 1992, 1 in 150 kids. By the way, if you go back to 1950, I think it's 1 in 500 or 1 in— it is, it is much, much less than this. But even as we're looking over the past, call it, let's just call it 30 years, you know, if we're talking about 1992, it was 1 in 150 and it's jumped every year since then.

And now 1 in 36 kids have ASD disorders. Now, One of the arguments against this, uh, or, or this actual rate of increase is, is that we're better at diagnosing now. And I would say generally we probably are diagnosing more, but most other physicians even that say that say, well, it's still on the rise even though we are better at diagnosing it now. Maybe it would've been 1 in 100, not 1 in 150.

Either way, there's still a 3 times greater level of ASD disorders today. Versus in the past. And again, 2 primary reasons: toxicity and deficiency, both for the parents and the child in the early stages of life, especially those ages of 0 to 5 years old. And 0 to 2 is really, really big there as well.

Now, there's a study done on— as we're going to talk about deficiencies here— and in the United States, data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey found that many people consume less than the estimated average average requirements to have a healthy diet for you to optimally develop. To give you an example of this, I'm going to go through some of this data.

On average, people get 74% less vitamin D than they should. So most people only get one quarter of the vitamin D they should in their diet. And the same goes for children. And vitamin D is responsible for The immune system and the brain. Okay. It's actually known as a prohormone. It supports hormones, it supports the immune system, it fights cancer, supports neurological development.

So this is a big one. We're talking about fat-soluble vitamins, vitamin D. And the next one's another fat-soluble vitamin in vitamin E. You're going to get vitamin D and vitamin E by eating more healthy fat. This is something so many people are deficient in today, partly because we had this low-fat craze that was during this time of autism increasing. In so many years.

But vitamin D, vitamin E, magnesium, it's around 46% of people are deficient in magnesium. And magnesium is the mineral that has probably— we're probably responsible for the most, um, probably has the greatest responsibilities in the body. And specifically for gut health, it's most responsible for having healthy bowel movements. Okay?

It helps relax your body, get your body out of the fight or flight response, helps with vagal tone. And so that's another one there is magnesium. Magnesium is huge for gut health, neurological health, and just general function of the entire body. Calcium, 39%, uh, less than optimal levels. Vitamin A, another fat-soluble vitamin, is low in children.

Vitamin A is critical for the immune system and for the brain. So as you can see here, we're seeing 5 of the largest deficiencies in kids: vitamin D, vitamin E, vitamin A, fat-soluble vitamins, and minerals like magnesium and calcium. And so making sure that kids get this, and parents, especially if you're planning on having kids or pregnant, it's absolutely crucial.

I wanna throw a couple others in the mix. For women, iron deficiency is extremely common. Many more women are anemic than they realize. And another study found that a lot of kids with autism are low in iron because they're not absorbing it. Another big one is zinc. So those are 2 other primary minerals that are incredibly important. All of this is due to the studies. Now, listen to this.

One of the— some of the clinical research found this as well, is that when we're looking at some of the root causes of autism, they found a variety of metabolic problems, including increased oxidative stress, methylation pathway insufficiencies, mitochondrial disorders, cerebral folate transporter antibodies, and sulfate deficiencies.

Now, To put this in layman's terms, the first one is oxidative stress. So, you know, the body is not able to respond to all of the oxidative stress that it's put upon it. So getting more antioxidants, having more probiotics, having more things to protect the body is critical. Methylation pathways.

So one of the things that is now recommended for mothers who are pregnant, for many of them, is taking methylated B vitamins. Wow. And methylation, basically this methylation pathway, these B vitamins you can take are formulated in a way to where they follow the correct— a specific pathway that they become fully absorbable by the body.

So, what we find is some people genetically do not absorb B vitamins as well as others do. This is why you want to make sure you're getting B vitamin in a food form. The ideal one is actually taking a liver supplement. You can take liver capsules or just eat liver, but taking liver capsules along with taking a methylated B vitamin there as well. Another one we see here is mitochondrial disorders.

Now, a lot of this is due to what I mentioned earlier, toxicity and immune dysregulation. We're seeing cells being damaged over and over and over again. Now, a study came out recently that found that if you take antibiotics, prescription antibiotics, that damages the mitochondria in the body, and that damage lasts a very, very long period of time.

So if a parent or a child has ever taken an antibiotic, that definitely could be potentially something that could damage the body there. And so all that being said, we see mitochondria disorders. Now, one, one supplement that helps with the mitochondria is glutathione, and that could be as N-acetylcysteine. It could be glutathione. It could be even things like alpha-lipoic acid.

But taking these things that really help support it— and this would also help oxidative stress that I mentioned earlier— but taking supplements that act as antioxidants to prevent oxidation and help prevent mitochondrial damage is important. The other thing we see here is cerebral folate transporter antibodies. And so we want to make sure we're getting proper B vitamins. Also sulfate deficiency.

Uh, all this is related to Getting things like choline in the diet. This is where egg yolks can be good for kids and parents. Taking liver, also very high in sulfur, sulfur-containing foods like cruciferous vegetables that are steamed, like broccoli and cauliflower and cabbage and kale. Those are steamed a long period of time.

All of those might contribute and help the health of the parents and the kids as well. I also want to say there was a great study that came out that said a multivitamin actually reduces symptoms of autism in children. And one small randomized study found significantly greater improvements in GI issues and improved sleep compared to the placebo.

So again, kids that took a multivitamin fared much better. Now, you can see here on this graph, especially if you're watching on YouTube, I posted this graphic here of— they have a present study along with a past study along with a placebo group. So in gray, the gray there is Kids that did not take a multivitamin. Okay. They were not getting these extra vitamins and nutrients in their diet.

In the orange, you'll see one study on a treatment group. Another one is another present study where they tweaked some of the vitamins and nutrients and did it a little differently. But you can see here, generally speaking, just taking a multivitamin has tremendous benefits for children who have ASD disorders.

Now, I want to get now into the treatments and some natural things you can do to support the body, uh, for both parents but also children with autism. And the first is hyperbaric oxygen therapy. We talked about oxidative stress earlier, we talked about mitochondrial function. One of the things we know is that the brain can heal and function better if it has more oxygen.

And so, the study found that people who get hyperbaric oxygen therapy Uh, have, uh, less inflammation, better mitochondrial function, less oxidative stress.

Listen, I'm reading that list of before, some of the root causes of autism that contribute, and now we're talking about hyperbaric oxygen therapy and seeing many of the benefits of HBOT, hyperbaric oxygen therapy treatments are— there are many of the same benefits. And so it could be therapeutic. Now, there are different studies of this.

Some say it's not that effective, and some say It could be very effective. The one study I want to reference here basically found that children who get in regularly definitely see benefits from hyperbaric oxygen therapy. So, the one study that was done, it was more sporadic, they weren't getting in that often, that didn't really seem to move the needle that much for the kids.

So, just going and bringing your children to get hyperbaric oxygen therapy once or twice or a few times didn't really move the needle. But the kids that went on a regular basis did see great improvements from hyperbaric oxygen therapy, uh, when it comes to ASD symptoms. And so that is very promising in terms of, uh, in terms of a therapy, uh, there for kids.

And I also want to say you don't typically want to go every day, but if you're doing, let's say, 3 sessions a week, uh, and it depends on how strong the hyperbaric chamber is. If you have an at-home or a soft chamber, you can actually do it much more often than a hard chamber, which is much, much stronger.

But generally, going to see a physician or somebody who has a hyperbaric oxygen therapy tank, getting kids in there on a regular basis, or adults— if you're looking to heal from chronic infections and Lyme and gut issues and neurological disorders, hyperbaric oxygen therapy is an incredible treatment. With some great clinical research there as well.

I also want to mention some other therapies I think that can be greatly beneficial for autism. One is speech therapy, right? I think being able to work with a practitioner who can generally help with speech is also helpful.

I think chiropractic care— one of the things that's really beneficial about chiropractic care is when chiropractors adjust, especially it really is related to the upper cervical spine or the sacrum. In fact, there's a therapy done by certain chiropractors and physical therapists and some osteopaths Um, called craniosacral therapy.

In fact, my daughter, uh, she, um, when we, we had her do craniosacral therapy, I've had it done. Uh, we, we did it with our daughter cuz when she came outta the birth, uh, canal, she had still a little bit of a misshapen head. And over time he worked on it and now, um, now everything is good.

But that being said, um, you know, craniosacral therapy and upper cervical chiropractic treatments, they stimulate something called your vagal nerve or causing a vagal response. Yeah. Most children with ASD disorders, they're living in a fight or flight response. Their, their sympathetic nervous system is overfiring, and your body's either in a fight or flight state or a rest and digest state.

We need to move the body into a parasympathetic state of rest or digest. That can be done through a vagal response. So your vagus nerve kind of runs— is around your upper cervical spine and also can be affected by Your lower, your sacrum area as well.

So kids with ASD disorders should ideally get their upper spine worked on and their sacrum worked on, and that can increase a vagal response, calming the body, calming the nervous system. And the same goes for adults who have those high levels of stress that live in a fight-or-flight response. Chiropractic or that osteopathic care, or somebody that does craniosacral work.

You can see great, great results there for those kids with autism, or general, just working on the upper cervical spine is the most important area there as well. Another great treatment for this could be acupuncture. Now, if you're an adult having these issues and you want to prep your body to say to get pregnant in the future, I think it's very effective.

Or kids as they start to mature, that can be another good treatment to consider there as well. Um, I do want to say as well, from a Chinese medicine standpoint, we've talked about more of the Western response of mitochondrial dysfunction, of gut-related issues, of immune-related issues. I now want to talk about the Eastern response.

If you go to an area today like Japan or China, and many of these areas have very— especially Japan— very, very sophisticated medical systems where they've sort of tied in some of modern research but also the ancient therapies and ideas. What they would call some of the symptoms related to autism are a spleen qi deficiency.

A liver qi deficiency would be the most common, and that has to do with the liver is toxicity and the spleen is the digestive system. So they would say there's an issue with toxins, something is affecting the body or has in the past causing an autoimmune response because of the toxins. And also in Chinese medicine, they would say, well, there's a spleen issue.

Where the digestive system is not healthy. And so they would recommend things like acupuncture. They'd spend it for, for the gut. They would say spend a lot of time outdoors barefoot outside, a lot of time in the sun. For the liver, they would say we need to do things to release frustration. That's very important in things to start to cleanse the body and decrease those toxic exposures.

And they believe a lot of this has to do with the foods we eat. And when I first opened up my functional medicine clinic years ago, which I no longer practice, but when I did, The first thing I saw great results on with children with autism were getting them off gluten and casein. Okay, so I got them off of wheat products like gluten that contain gluten and cow's milk dairy.

And then we would start lowering things like sugar in the diet, and we would get rid of food dyes and additives and some of those other things that can cause inflammation, hydrogenated oils. And that alone. Made a radical difference. I wanna tell you a story. I had a patient named Ben who came in, and when his— and he was about, I wanna say he was about 4 years old.

And when he came in, he only could say 3 words total. Um, I think it was mom and food. Uh, and that was, that was kind of it. That's all he could say. Uh, mom, food, no. So he had 3 words. And we put him on this diet where we removed all of these things. And listen, he wasn't eating perfectly.

We got him on pretty much— I, we started getting him the Chicken nuggets that were gluten-free, and I want to say applesauce and a couple other things. But 40 days later, he could say 40 words when he couldn't for his first 4 years of life. I mean, so the, the changes were radical and fast.

And part of what happens is when you start removing that thing that's causing that inflammation in the gut, well, the gut can now seal up. Well, that autoimmune reaction stops where Where those proteins stop cycling through the bloodstream and then affecting the brain. So now the brain can start redeveloping again. So that's sort of, that's, that's what happens, uh, simply in a nutshell.

But this is why removing gluten and cow's milk dairy and these things is so, so important there. So the thing is, remove the foods that harm the body. The next thing that we, we, I try and do is help incorporate foods that will help heal the body. A bone broth, ideally chicken broth, um, you know, wild-caught fish, chicken, grass-fed beef, any type of cooked vegetables.

And, you know, one of the, one of the challenges with children on the ASD disorders is that there tends to be a dislike for, uh, anything that's not a bland food or a very specific food and introducing new foods. And I know it's a battle, but you've got to do your best.

And so, for instance, you know, maybe— I know with Ben it was like, well, Okay, he won't eat spinach and he won't eat broccoli, but we finally, after battling him, he started to like steamed carrots, and then eventually it was steamed green beans.

And so we just did our best to continue to get those in his diet, and then eventually we were able to get rice in there, and then eventually blueberries and some coconut oil. And so you just got to do your best to get everything you can in there and then supplement with supplements anything that they can't get in their diet. And you just want to do your best there.

And eventually, oftentimes kids will eat. They may not even eat a meal, but eventually, if you will, and they might throw a tantrum, but you want to do your best to start to introduce these foods. Now, I want to talk about making up for some of these nutritional deficiencies and some of the best supplements to take.

Number one, by far, in my professional opinion, and I think the research backs me up on this, is taking a probiotic supplement. It is crucial to start to repopulate good bacteria in the gut. There are plenty of studies that show that children with autism have dysbiosis of the gut. They have too much bad, not enough good probiotics in their gut.

So taking around 50 billion IUs of a good quality probiotic daily. Now, you may start with 10 billion or 20 billion IUs, you work your way up to 50 billion. If they ever get sick, you want to do probably double that dose a day. But I would say around 40 to 50 billion a day, getting both some food-based and some soil-based organism probiotics. Would be really, really good for kids and adults.

Again, this goes back to adults. If you've got inflammatory bowel disease or you have an autoimmune issue that could affect your kids, well, these will also help those things. Vitamin D is another big one, 5,000 IUs daily for children over 12 years of age. Younger, it's usually 2,000 IUs daily, but also just getting out in the sun, feet on the bare ground.

Number 3, this is an herb used in Chinese medicine. It's called astragalus. It is very Astragalus is very good for— we mentioned earlier that term immune dysfunction. This helps regulate and balance the immune system and strengthen the immune system and strengthen the gut lining. So astragalus is very good. Typically 500 milligrams once to twice daily can be very beneficial.

Bone broth and collagen, getting that in a smoothie or adding some of that to applesauce can be very beneficial because that's what makes up the gut lining. And omega-3s. 3 Supplement can be greatly beneficial because it reduces inflammation of the gut and brain.

A multivitamin, as I mentioned, especially getting nutrients like zinc, magnesium, vitamin D, vitamin A, and B vitamins is crucial as well. And then number 7, one other I want to add here is melatonin. If your child is not sleeping well at night at all, sleep is when the body heals and repairs itself. Taking a melatonin supplement at night, oftentimes a time release, can be beneficial as well.

But I really like melatonin. If you're an adult, similar thing, you know that you need to support your gut and your brain in these ways. Taking melatonin at night can be greatly beneficial along with a magnesium supplement or chamomile tea as well. Getting good night's sleep is when your body heals and repairs itself. So remember some of these other remedies we talked about.

I talked about acupuncture, craniosacral work, chiropractic, exercise, time in nature, grounding. Um, use it— listening to nature and soothing sounds is very good to calm that immune system as well. Occupational therapy and speech therapy, as we mentioned. Essential oils like vetiver and cedarwood can help the brain. Essential oils like lavender and chamomile can also help calm the nervous system.

Diffuse— just diffusing those in the air can also be beneficial. There as well. Well, listen, I covered a lot here. One, I would love to hear your comments here in this section about what do you believe the root causes of autism are and Asperger's syndrome. And hey, is there something I missed in terms of the research that you think you want to share? Are there any insights you have?

Please share that as well. Um, also, hey, don't forget to subscribe here to the channel. I've got a lot more information continuing to come out. On how to grow your health and your— and grow personally and, and a lot of other information. So thanks everybody for subscribing. If you know somebody who needs to watch this, please share it with them.

Now listen, I tried to cover everything in the video. I do want to share this though too. You know, there are certain things that YouTube won't let me say, so I covered everything I could possibly say in this video. But remember, the root causes of autism tend to be, according to the medical literature, deficiencies, toxicities, and genetic factors. So it's all 3. So genetics do play a role there.

There's certain things that are genetic. But again, I believe it's primarily environmental with toxicities, deficiencies related to the gut, the immune system, and the neurological system. Thanks for watching, and thanks for sharing, and thanks for commenting, uh, on this video as well.