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MTHFR Gene Mutation?

AsheSkyler

Feathered Jester
Yes, it looks like a truncated dirty word. Feel free to take this moment to get the giggles out of your system. ;)

I'm only a few months in to my Aspie self-diagnosis, so I don't know how much this is common knowledge (and only found one reference here on AC), but I'll pass it on anyway:

MTHFR and Autism - Glutathione Pro
MTHFR | NW Integrative Medicine
MTHFR Mutation | MTHFR Gene Mutation | What is MTHFR? - MTHFR.net
Dr. Becky Andrews
http://www.jpands.org/vol9no4/boris.pdf

So, if I read that right, we have something along the lines of a 90%-98% chance of having this mutation? And on top of that, nearly half of humanity has some form of it. Does anybody know why this doesn't come up more often in discussions of what causes autism? That journal in the last link probably has the answer, but all those acronyms and insanely long scientific words make my eyes cross. (Methylenetetrahydrofolate? Sounds like an illegal spa. "Get your meth facial folation here!")

If I am one of the mutant X-Men, I'm hardly on the radar. For now, I suspect I'm in the 2%-10% range that didn't mutate. I don't have migraines or illogical mood issues and my immune and other systems seem pretty stout. Although my confirmed and diagnosed hereditary hormonal disorder in addition to my suspected autism makes me wonder...
 
I could not get over the word. I started reading the article, but every time that combination of letters came up, I just lost all focus. :)
 
They really should have picked a better abbreviation. :laughing:

Still rather interesting that it has strong roots in depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, autism, and other stuff. I wonder if MTHFR is a blanket term since there are many variations on it? If I understood correctly, some garbled pairs are pretty rare and apparently some of those pairs are pretty common. If it is a possible cause, it's appropriate it'd be a kind of spectrum mutation that contributed to a spectrum condition.
 
I have Lyme disease, and the MTHFR mutations are a big part of that for a lot of us. It controls how we detox. If someone with Lyme tries to kill the infection too quickly and has the mutation, it can get bad when the dying bacteria can't leave the body quickly enough, letting toxins build up.

But I don't know what any of that has to do with autism.
 
Bothers B vitamins? Tell me more. I have a strongly positive reaction to massive B-complex doses---B-6 and B-12, especially.
 
This link kind of reads like one of those weird scam sites with all the random bold text in funny colors, but it does put it more simply than some of the more technical sites I've found. Supposedly, MTHFR makes it hard for some people to convert folic acid and other things into a chemical usable and easily absorbed by the body. This site promotes B9 and B12 conversions. I am no where close to a scientist, so I'd ask your doctor for some tests before hunting down supplements.

There was another thread around here that suggested autistic kids eating broccoli and other foods high in B vitamins where helping them a little bit with some symptoms like anxiety. I don't know if that was one more ploy to get kids to eat their veggies, one of those weird cure scares, or if it adds merit to the gene possibility.

I first heard of it here.
 
I doubt there is a link to autism. I inherited some MTHFR mutations from my mother (who is homozygous for several mutations linked to vitamin B6, B9 and B12 methylation), but she is completely neurotypical. My father has Asperger like me, but doesn't have any MTHFR mutations. We all tested with 23andMe.

I have tried supplements of very highly dosed methylated B6, B9 and B12, but it did not affect at all my Asperger traits. According to me blood test I had enough B12 before starting the supplements anyway. It may have improved a bit my memory though, but that's it.
 
I don't think it's a guarantee, probably more like a goodie bag and whatever you reach in and get is what you end up with. :yum:
 
When I think of buying a fresh vegetable for myself, it is broccoli.
I cook it.

I have been using B-6, between 200 and 600 mgs per day, depending on the circumstances, since 1977.
At the beginning of this year I re-learned why I do that.
I had vertigo and puked and didn't feel like eating for a couple days.
Definitely couldn't handle swallowing vitamins.

When I felt better, it seemed silly to have to 'waste my time & money' (as my relatives say)
getting out 2 dozen (assorted) pills and downing them.

After a week and a half I was miserable. Dull witted with pain in my joints. Like glass shards in the joints.
I thought it was the weather. Or maybe I was sick.
Eventually I realized that I started feeling bad 2 days after I quit taking all my vitamins.
And then...SURPRISE...when I took them all again, the pain went away.
 
When I think of buying a fresh vegetable for myself, it is broccoli.
I cook it.

I have been using B-6, between 200 and 600 mgs per day, depending on the circumstances, since 1977.
At the beginning of this year I re-learned why I do that.
I had vertigo and puked and didn't feel like eating for a couple days.
Definitely couldn't handle swallowing vitamins.

When I felt better, it seemed silly to have to 'waste my time & money' (as my relatives say)
getting out 2 dozen (assorted) pills and downing them.

After a week and a half I was miserable. Dull witted with pain in my joints. Like glass shards in the joints.
I thought it was the weather. Or maybe I was sick.
Eventually I realized that I started feeling bad 2 days after I quit taking all my vitamins.
And then...SURPRISE...when I took them all again, the pain went away.
Can't say I blame you, I wouldn't want anything near my throat after a few rough days like that.

Random question, is your vertigo recurring? I've got a relative I heavily suspect to be on the spectrum, and they've had vertigo fits off and on their whole life. (If there is a correlation, I figure it's more rare like dyscalculia and autism.)
 
Vertigo----It comes and goes. If I don't keep my head covered, in less than a minute there is pressure in my ears (feels like my ears will explode) & pain in my face/sinuses, and a sick feeling. For added fun...my head feels like a balloon on a string, flying away. OR the highly entertaining spinning effect. (I am not able to think of anything else when that happens, it is a very absorbing experience.)

Sometimes I crawl because I can't walk.

I have had 3 broken ear drums. Last time was a couple years ago. Bled for a week. Had some hearing loss. The really strange part, at that time, was trying to read. In a straight line. I couldn't. I read diagonally.

Example:
A.....B
C.....D?

I read that as:
A.....D
B.....C.

I have the 4 symptoms of Meniere's Disease, but I am not greedy.
I would give them back to Meniere, if I could.
Ménière's disease - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
That does sound unpleasant. I can sympathize with the ear ringing, I get that from a separate issue. >_<

The high pitched ringing used to make me feel very frantic.
It was worse when my blood sugar would drop.
The irritating effect is less, now that I don't hear as well. (Did you say 'flowing wells' or 'floating whales'?)
So.....:):(:mad:o_O
 
Ah, makes sense that the pathway implicated in PTSD/Anxiety/other social disorders would be tied to ASDs somehow. At any rate abnormal repeats of a gene implicated in bipolar disorder, can't recall the name unfortunately, is also implicated in high functioning individuals. Which kind of makes sense too.
ROFL I saw the title and said to myself "I'm sure I have that one!"
xD Just kidding.
 
The high pitched ringing used to make me feel very frantic.
It was worse when my blood sugar would drop.
The irritating effect is less, now that I don't hear as well. (Did you say 'flowing wells' or 'floating whales'?)
So.....:):(:mad:o_O
Heh, I can imagine. Like having your own personal mosquito buzzing in your ear! So if you ever see me swatting at my head frantically, there ya go. Ya know what I'm doing. :p

Ah, makes sense that the pathway implicated in PTSD/Anxiety/other social disorders would be tied to ASDs somehow. At any rate abnormal repeats of a gene implicated in bipolar disorder, can't recall the name unfortunately, is also implicated in high functioning individuals. Which kind of makes sense too.
ROFL I saw the title and said to myself "I'm sure I have that one!"
xD Just kidding.
Of the 26 letters of the alphabet, they picked those five in that order? XD

As much as some organizations really get on my nerves, I think it'd be so cool if we could do some extensive neurology pathway and gene studies on people. Then we could expand to animal kingdom -esque categories as we mapped out the family. I think the schizotypical people are our closest "relatives". I wonder who our most distant "cousin" is? And think of all the nifty stuff we'd find! Like when some Russian guy bred the tamest wild foxes he got in an experiment to see if they could be made pets, he eliminated most of their adrenal reactions, their heads changed shape, they got spotty fur, their tails were more limber and curly, and they basically turned into dogs. Maybe a deep study on us neurodivergents would also go a ways to pointing out to some that we're not broken, just different, and they'd be more willing to accept our weaknesses along with our strengths. In example, some may lose a few ranks in grace and coordination when this gene is wonky, but it makes up for it by amping the cooking gene! Or something like that.
 
The human connectome project is supposed to answer a lot of these questions for us eventually. The current limitations are the statistical power of the studies that have looked at human subjects so far and the technology itself which is expensive and has limited accuracy. Microarray will eventually improve to the point when enormous genome-wide analyses will be reliably correlated to specific behaviors and disorders of the CNS.
Personally I think our view of diseases and disorders is fundamentally flawed, and that we expect to many things to be discrete. I expect it to take a very long time for any of this to actually come to fruition as a consequence, but I'm sure they'll find loads of polymorphisms that are associated with points on the spectrum.
 
The human connectome project is supposed to answer a lot of these questions for us eventually. The current limitations are the statistical power of the studies that have looked at human subjects so far and the technology itself which is expensive and has limited accuracy. Microarray will eventually improve to the point when enormous genome-wide analyses will be reliably correlated to specific behaviors and disorders of the CNS.
Personally I think our view of diseases and disorders is fundamentally flawed, and that we expect to many things to be discrete. I expect it to take a very long time for any of this to actually come to fruition as a consequence, but I'm sure they'll find loads of polymorphisms that are associated with points on the spectrum.
I don't expect it in my lifetime either, or if so then I don't expect the sophisticated or affordable machinery for it to be done in my life time. I just write it off like I do travelling to Saturn. :(
 

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