Autism, inflammation, asthma and calcium channels

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As an asthmatic, I was excited to see the news that researchers have found the cause of asthma and are within a few (perhaps 5) years of a comprehensive cure. It would be really nice just to be able to breathe reliably!

I was reading about this and was interested to note that the mechanism discovered by this research involves the calcium sensing receptor (CaSR)--it seems that airway smooth muscle cells in asthmatics have up-regulated CaSR and this is stimulated by polycations resulting in the classic hyperresponsiveness and inflammatory responses that define asthma. The asthmatic response can be stopped by CaSR agonists called calcilytics and these have been shown to suppress hyperreactivity in the airways of mice in tests.

http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/news/view/9664 ... -discovery


It seems to me that I have read quite a bit of research suggesting calcium channel problems and inflammatory response as contributory to autism.

There doesn't seem to be a lot of research on it, but some studies have shown that there are higher rates of asthma in autistic people.

Even more interesting, there have been studies suggesting some specific links between irregularities in voltage gated calcium channels, developmental abnormalities in the lungs (specifically in the branching of airways) and autism.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3840017/

Just before you posted this, I was doing some research on the implications of raised calcium and creatanine levels for cardiovascular and kidney disease (not good). I too am asthmatic, though fortunately I respond to the sprays (usually), though one of my grandchildren does not, and so she has been hospitalised a number of times, so this research that you posted was of particular interest.

Here is a link to more on calcilytics: not much in the top text though the references may be interesting.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcilytic

I have the "classic allergic triangle" of asthma, hayfever and excema, so it was fortunate that only one of my grandchildren inherited serious allergies.

I hope this is the breakthrough to more useful treatments for asthma without harmful side effects.

This is certainly fascinating research and quite a different approach to the current strategy of steroids and beta receptor agonists presently used for asthma.

This looks similar to some information I have from the CAM (complimentary and alternative medicine) world.

Its essential to balance calcium and magnisium. Calcium constricts and magnesium relaxes. Some people find that a lot of things get better when they include magnesium suppliments in their daily diet.

Having been around science a while, I wouldn't expect this to cure asthma. IT might lead to a new pill though, which should be useful if the old ones aren't working for you.

A lot of misery is caused by inflammation in the body. It seems perfectly logical that autistics would be more miserable and therefore show more severe symptoms if they have a lot of inflammation. That's one reason why certain diets work for some people on the spectrum. If your body is reacting to wheat, for example, its going to make your intestinal tract all inflammed and irritated. That feels rotten. If you can heal that, everything gets better. We can't just get rid of inflammation all together, though. It evolved for a reason. Infammation helps us ward off infection and heal injuries. If you want to create real long-term health, you have to stop the thing causing the inflammation, not just squash the body's inflammitory response.