Metabolic network analysis of pre-ASD newborns and 5-year-old children with autism spectrum disorder, 2024, Lingampelly, Naviaux et al.

Metabolic network analysis of pre-ASD newborns and 5-year-old children with autism spectrum disorder
Lingampelly, Sai Sachin; Naviaux, Jane C.; Heuer, Luke S.; Monk, Jonathan M.; Li, Kefeng; Wang, Lin; Haapanen, Lori; Kelland, Chelsea A.; Van de Water, Judy; Naviaux, Robert K.

Classical metabolomic and new metabolic network methods were used to study the developmental features of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in newborns (n = 205) and 5-year-old children (n = 53).

Eighty percent of the metabolic impact in ASD was caused by 14 shared biochemical pathways that led to decreased anti-inflammatory and antioxidant defenses, and to increased physiologic stress molecules like lactate, glycerol, cholesterol, and ceramides. CIRCOS plots and a new metabolic _ network parameter, V net , revealed differences in both the kind and degree of network connectivity. Of 50 biochemical pathways and 450 polar and lipid metabolites examined, the developmental regulation of the purine network was most changed. Purine network hub analysis revealed a 17-fold reversal in typically developing children. This purine network reversal did not occur in ASD.

These results revealed previously unknown metabolic phenotypes, identified new developmental states of the metabolic correlation network, and underscored the role of mitochondrial functional changes, purine metabolism, and purinergic signaling in autism spectrum disorder.

Link | PDF (Nature Communications Biology) [Open Access]

 

Medical Xpress: Metabolism of autism reveals developmental origins

 

If I may ask and making no comment on this research itself…

Whether or not Autism and ME are in some way connected which some have proposed in highly implausible and wildly damaging ways (consumed any bleach recently anyone?). Others relatively innocuously so, look at us all on here geeking out over our special interests huh!
Putting this aside for now as irrelevant to the following question.

Might this type of finding of multiple interactions making up a particular outcome explain why our perhaps rather unimaginative less cutting edge research and medical professionals have been so sure that we’re imagining so hard that we’re creating physical symptoms, because nothing as far as they can see is wrong with our physical structures and they can’t imagine cumulative effects of chemicals causing illness but not structural damage that they can easily detect?

I don’t know if these findings are correct or valid, but I assume things like this can and do occur within the chemistry of the living human body and that this affects peoples experience in life and their physical health. So could plausibly be us too no?

 

This is why I find the Precision Life research interesting, it's a look at symptoms and genes on pathways and how they relate .
The interconnectedness. It's a systems approach.
As I've said on more than one occasion we need an interested climate change scientist on board .

 

Dealing with this in our understanding has been my dominant thinking for years. Shifts in biochemical regulation are potentially as damaging as gross structural changes. I have been calling these biochemical lesions. Of course I have my own biases being a biochemist trained in systems theory.