*Starch, or the Decline and Fall of the AS Organism!*

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A few points:

Wild roots are much lower in starch than domesticated roots - they've been bred to be starchier.

Chimps have big guts and eat a lot of vegetation, but hominids ate/eat much more meat, and we have much smaller, shorter guts (more like dogs than chimps). The expensive organ hypothesis suggests that we can have big brain/small gut or small brain/big gut, but that the organism can only develop so many systems at a time, so something has to give. At any rate, comparing us to chimps doesn't work because we have different gut systems.

We may have evolved on the beach (seafood!) rather than the savannah per se. Given that my ancestors are nordic, I don't really think it makes any difference, though. Agriculture came late to the north, and we were meat eaters.

Anemone; pandd was right about amylase in humans. Humans on average have more than other primates; humans who have traditionally eaten more carbos have higher numbers of amylase gene copies than humans who traditionally ate high meat/fish diets though.

But did you read my last post? Our sulphating metabolism is dysfunctional/different, which impacts on production of pancreatic amylase:

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Do you have anything that backs up your theory? A link?

Because, frankly, while some pieces of what you say makes sense, others are quite contrary to what I've come to understand, and I'm really not inclined to simply take the word of a stranger on a message board. Especially one who has, in making the argument, demonstrated the ability to make unmerited connections.

Do you have anything that backs up your theory? A link?

Because, frankly, while some pieces of what you say makes sense, others are quite contrary to what I've come to understand, and I'm really not inclined to simply take the word of a stranger on a message board. Especially one who has, in making the argument, demonstrated the ability to make unmerited connections.

Do you have anything that backs up your theory? A link?

Because, frankly, while some pieces of what you say makes sense, others are quite contrary to what I've come to understand, and I'm really not inclined to simply take the word of a stranger on a message board. Especially one who has, in making the argument, demonstrated the ability to make unmerited connections.

This does, brilliantly:



It is scientific fact that autists/AS have reduced/dysfunctional sulphation pathways, and it is scientific fact that sulphation is necessary to trigger production of pancreatic amylase, ( which is essential for starch digestion ). The disruption of sulphation pathways in AS alters the digestibility of starch-based foods.

What more do you need?
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Last edited by ouinon on 20 Feb 2009, 2:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Which were those?

Making original/creative connections between apparently disparate/disconnected things is an AS trait. It is one of our strengths so long as the idea is submitted to rigorous examination. Which is why I so appreciate pandd's points because they obliged me to look harder at the role played by amylase, ... and so find the scientific proof for my theory, ( see above ).

AS have a reduced ability to digest starch.

This a recipe for gut overload, and overload always impacts negatively on our ability to function, ( especially when it is 300 square meters of our body surface which are overloaded ).
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Last edited by ouinon on 21 Feb 2009, 8:00 am, edited 1 time in total.

Ouninion, the problem is that Wakefield's research is widely considered a fraud. The journal that published it has retracted, people working with Wakefield have accused him of falsifying data, and no one has ever been able to replicate the findings (even if no fraud occurred the results are not repeatable and therefore not empirically valid).

Wakefield is evidently the chap who started the vaccine scare; this research Rosemary Waring refers to is the infamous vaccine scare research.

Rosemary Waring's findings about sulphation were completely independent of Wakefield's studies, and do not rely on them in any way. Her findings about sulphation have been replicated by two other studies;

Alberti et al. 1999
Karoly Horvath

Wakefield's results may have been based on manipulating anecdotal data but Waring's experiments have not, as far as I am aware, been shown to be false/fraudulent or dubious. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Sulphating pathways are disturbed/dysfunctional in AS, and this will have an impact on starch digestion. Please post links/refs to any studies/articles that you are aware of which contradict this finding.

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Pandd, if you look at Waring's paper you will see that Wakefield's study is only quoted in reference to gut permeability.

Her own work on sulphation stands up on its own, and is definite evidence for AS having difficulty digesting starch.

"Sulphation and Autism", by Rosemary Waring, ( School of Biosciences. Birmingham University ), in "The Autism File", at:

http://www.autismfile.com/papers/Rosema ... hation.asp

Waring does not say that vaccinations cause Autism, nor does she suggest that they should not be carried out. She specifically states in her conclusions that screening for the gene ( concerned with sulphate pathways and which is sensitive to auto-immune activity/inflammation/infection ) would be a good idea, and that where it is present vaccinations should be delivered on a different schedule.

PS. The wikipedia page about Waring, at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosemary_Waring , makes no mention of studies refuting her findings, nor of any controversy/doubt about the quality of her work, ( in stark contrast with the wiki page on Wakefield ). And so long as that is the case there is scientific evidence/support for a theory that AS find it more difficult than NTs to digest starch.
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Last edited by ouinon on 21 Feb 2009, 9:25 am, edited 3 times in total.

I am surprised that you don't mention any mental/emotional effects, because I definitely feel different; more positive, enthusiastic, optimistic, and generally more able to cope with stress. I seem to have more initiative, more "oomph". And like you I have lost an astonishing amount of weight without trying. Rediscovering my younger leaner body shape.


Prawns don't contain fat at all, or not much. But lambs heart, ( not expensive ), and cheap duck cuts do. I eat both of them about twice a week, ( aswell as egg and oily fish ).

I am finding not only that I need much less food on a no-starch-at-all diet but that if I eat foods on their own, or almost, they are more satisfying, and I think this may be because we can metabolise them more easily/efficiently when isolated like that.

Many AS children insist on separating the foods on their plates, and I wonder whether that isn't an effort to reduce overload with mixtures/combinations which are harder to deal with. Do AS children eat them all simultaneously, or only one food at a time and then move onto another on the plate?

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See the 2nd page of this thread. My first post on that page, as well as one from Silvervarg.

Carb-free? Why? That's not what Ouinon is suggesting. She specifically contrasts sugars with starches. Or do you have your own reason for dropping other carbs? Dropping all carbs sounds very unhealthy to me. Dropping just starches (complex digestable carbs) doesn't strike me as in any way unhealthy.

I wonder whether it is possible for many people in the modern world to learn to treat their guts as they would wish to be treated themselves before undergoing a severe shock/loss of power or breakdown?

I didn't. It took three and a half years of destructive mood disorder, and crippling depression at the end, ( plus physical exhaustion which expressed itself in many ways ), to open my eyes to the importance of my gut in my mental and physical health.

Who else has had this experience? And has anyone here understood the importance of the gut without that kind of pressure/collapse? What did it take?

If the three forests in The Lord of the Rings could be said to represent three different relationships with, and consequent manifestations of, the gut, then Gandalf's death before they reach Lorien, ( which has set sentries about it to keep out "enemies" in the same way as an exclusion diet protects the gut ), is perhaps significant.

Maybe you have to receive some sort of severe shock before the brain will give up deluding itself that it the best and only leader, before it is ready to listen to another part of the body, ( the Enteric Nervous System, so complex and independent from the CNS that it has been called "the second brain ), hand over some power, willingly.

The gut is "nothing" to most people nowadays, and yet it was once widely acknowledged to be the seat and root of much power and wisdom, aswell as of confusion and fear when neglected/ignored.

I am not surprised that most people on WP don't seem to care about overload to the 300 square meters of their gut, ( it's not taken seriously in general ), but I feel very frustrated, and sad, reading the frequent accounts of overload, anxiety, depression, insomnia, headaches, exhaustion, panic, feelings of powerlessness, etc, on here and knowing that suggesting a change of diet will seem completely "off topic".
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Last edited by ouinon on 21 Feb 2009, 11:19 am, edited 3 times in total.

Of course people would rather think that "gut reaction" ( the subject of your post ) was a metaphor. Thinking otherwise would involve paying attention to your gut. Silvervarg's post I have already replied to at length.

What do you have to say to the link which you asked for, and which I provided, to serious scientific support for my theory? Rosemary Waring's paper " Sulphation and Autism" at :

http://www.autismfile.com/papers/Rosema ... hation.asp

which states that AS have dysfunctional sulphating pathways, and that sulphation is necessary to trigger production of pancreatic amylase, which is essential for starch digestion.

AS have far more difficulty than NTs digesting starch. Waring's work has not been discredited, so ...

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Too many simple sugars can also overload the gut (indigestion etc.). For me, personally, fruit sugars have at times triggered episodes of very painful fibromyalgia. And table sugar, while more digestible for me than fruit, is not a food and shouldn't be treated as one.

My approach is: if it gives me indigestion, out it goes. I don't pay attention to things like amylase etc., since the body is so complex, and you can't really predict the whole from the parts (though you can analyse backwards from the whole to the parts, and some people like to).

One reason people don't talk about food may be because it is so expensive to eat well, and also very inconvenient, so it's not like it's easy for many people to change the way they eat. Vegetarian restaurants abound, but how trendy is a stone age diet? You become the monster who won't eat what mom cooks, the way vegetarians used to be before it became cool. It can be very disruptive socially and economically, and it's just not easy to explain to people. It's a hassle.