Abstract
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often involves a wide range of co-occurring medical conditions (“comorbidities”) and biochemical abnormalities such as oxidative stress and mitochondrial dysfunction. Nutritional supplements (“Nutraceuticals”) are often used to treat both core ASD symptoms and comorbidities, but some have not yet been formally evaluated in ASD. The potential biological mechanisms of nutraceuticals include correction of micronutrient deficiencies due to a poor diet and support for metabolic processes such as redox regulation, mitochondrial dysfunction and melatonin production. This paper reports on the results of the National Survey on Treatment Effectiveness for Autism, focusing on nutraceuticals. The Survey involved 1286 participants from across the United States. Participants rated the overall perceived benefits and adverse effects of each nutraceutical, and also indicated the specific symptoms changed and adverse effects. From these ratings the top-rated nutraceuticals for each of 24 symptoms are listed. Compared to psychiatric and seizure medications rated through the same Survey, on average nutraceuticals had significantly higher ratings of Overall Benefit (1.59 vs. 1.39, p = 0.01) and significantly lower ratings of Overall Adverse Effects (0.1 vs. 0.9, p < 0.001). Folinic acid and vitamin B12 were two of the top-rated treatments. This study suggests that nutraceuticals may have clinical benefits and favorable adverse effect profiles.
Highlights
This paper presents the results of a national survey in individuals with Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and contains more extensive assessments of the treatment effects on specific behaviors and adverse effects (AEs) of nutraceuticals in ASD
The majority of the surveys were completed by the primary caregiver of an individual with ASD (85%)
Benefits were rated slightly higher for the nutraceuticals than for the most commonly used pharmaceuticals reported in the previous paper, with significantly lower ratings of adverse effects
Summary
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a complex neurodevelopmental disorder involving core problems in social communication and repetitive behaviors and affects about 2%. A number of medical conditions cooccur with ASD (termed “comorbidities”), including intellectual disability [2], epilepsy [3], gastrointestinal disorders (such as constipation and diarrhea) [4], sleep disorders [5], attention deficit disorder [5], anxiety [5], and irritability, self-injurious behavior, and depression [6]. There are no FDA-approved medications for treating the core symptoms of ASD (social communication and restricted/repetitive behaviors), there are two FDA-approved medications for treating the associated symptom of irritability [14]
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