Vaccines, Mitochondria & Autism: The Role of Inflammation and Metabolic Health

is there any evidence that vaccines or the adant um for vaccines or anything about

vaccines and their delivery can disrupt mitochondrial function you know so often we think that it's like the vaccine

having a specific effect on what the vaccine was designed to Target that could potentially cause side effects or

something like that that's what many of the theories hold but given um the key role of mitochondria in all aspects of

brain functioning and given that some people are convinced I'm not saying I believe

this but are convinced that vaccines are tied to these mental health challenges or to autism let's be direct about this

is there is there any evidence that vaccines can of any kind can disrupt mitochondrial function or support

mitochondrial function for that matter it is a contentious it's maybe it's a different episode no no no and I

definitely I'm I'm definitely going to answer it but I'm going to give a long-winded answer if that's okay

because because I want I want to give credible information the only information we're

interested and I don't want to come down on one side that vaccines are 100% safe there is no question about it or yes

vaccines cause autism and that's why we've got Sky recording Ras of autism because I don't think either of those

extreme positions is true so I want to First back up and just ask a slightly different question is there any evidence

that high levels of inflammation impair MIT andrial function the answer to that is

unequivocally yes high levels of inflammation inflammatory cyto kindes like tnf Alpha in Lucan 6 and others

impair mitochondrial function we know that it is clear and unequivocal um and there are

physiological reasons for it the the organism has to adapt so when you have the

flu do you have neuros psychiatric SYM symptoms yes you do you're going to feel exhausted you're going to be less

risk-taking you are not going to want to reproduce more than likely you're going to completely lose your libido

completely lose it like zero interest and what are you going to want to do you're going to want to hide in

bed and pull the covers over you and just Retreat from the world for safety those are all effects on your

mood your motivation rewarding behaviors all sorts of things the inflammation the infection is doing that to you and we

know that it's inflammation because this happens with cancer it happens with treatments that cause inflammation if we

give treatments that cause high levels of inflammation people experience these

symptoms acutely if we give interferon for example which can be a treatment for

some disorders people will acutely develop all of these symptoms so we know that interferon

itself will produce all of these neuros psychiatric symptoms we also know from basic cell

biology interfer on interferes with mitochondrial function we know that it is

unequivocal we now let's go to autism is there any evidence that inflammation can lead to autism

we have Decades of evidence for this we know

that over the course of the last century as there were kind of outbreaks of bacterial or

viral infections in the population we saw higher rates of Neuropsychiatric neurodevelopmental

disorders in The Offspring of the pregnant women so we've long known that and that

evidence is pretty well established for instance uh forgive me but the one that I'm aware of is that flu in pregnant

mothers at the first to second trimester transition is correlated with statistically higher incidents of

schizophrenia in The Offspring do I have that right that's correct okay but then there there was a rubella outbreak that

resulted in much higher High rates of autism in The Offspring um that I think that was in

the 1960s um and now we have really Decades of animal

models so they take mice and they inject them with lipopolysaccharide which causes an

inflammatory reaction and when they do this to pregnant

mice the the the mice that are born to those women those those female mice are at much higher risk for showing

signs or symptoms of what looks like a neurodevelopmental disorder um it's it's different

diagnosing or whatever a neurodevelopmental condition in a mouse is it 100% no it's just we

increase the risk so if you inject a pregnant Mouse with lipopolysaccharide can she can that

Mouse still have a normal appearing Mouse yes but can't but the probability that The

Offspring will have a neurodevelopmental symptoms of a neurodevelopmental condition increase

that is where so much of the autism research has been focused is trying to understand this trying to understand

what is happening with inflammation how does that impact neurodevelopment we know

that so now back to the question that you posed is there any possibility that vaccines could contribute to that

process do vaccines increase inflammation I think the answer to that is

yes is there variation in the inflammatory response between different people I think the answer to that is

yes can some people have a hyper exaggerated inflammatory response in response to a

vaccine I think the answer to that is yes in that condition so in that rare less common condition where

somebody is having a hyper exaggerated inflammatory response to a

vaccination could that impact neurodevelopment the science right now says

yes we have no reason to think it wouldn't there's one case of a young child who already had an

existing mitocondrial disorder it was already known she got vaccines

and I think within days or weeks of getting the vaccinations she developed profound

neurodevelopmental symptoms that case won a lawsuit that went to court it was tried

in court and she won and the Court ruled that the vaccine did in fact contribute to this girl's neurodevelopmental

condition now they assumed it was because she had a pre-existing mitochondrial

disorder um and I would support that it lines up perfectly with what I've been talking about all along um that people

who have vulnerabilities with mitochondria or metabolism you can only absorb so many

hits and when you get that final hit that tips kind of the balance um to impact neurodevelopment

you can get that when now coming back to the bigger question so should people get vaccinated

or not we do have reasonably good evidence that unvaccinated people are

more likely to develop autism than vaccinated people is that right the problem with that study is that it's an

it's a retrospective cohort epidemiological study and the biggest critique that I

have of that type of research is that the researchers decide what they control for and what they don't control

for but the existing research right now as published and as designed suggests

that if you don't get a vaccine you're more likely to develop autism than if you do get a vaccine

and how would I understand that I just talked about infections themselves can cause neurodevelopmental

disorders so if a child gets measles they're not only at risk of dying of measles they're also at risk of

impacting their mitochondrial function and developing a neurodevelopmental disorder as a result of getting a severe

infection assuming there's choice there's a risk benefit analysis do you do you want the the uh the potential

inflammation from the vaccine or lack of infl you run the gamble it's hard to predict who's going to have a big

inflammatory response and who's not although I'm thinking in the back of my mind about these lifestyle factors even

though it's a young child or a or um an adolescent in some cases but but young children typically there are things that

you can do to bolster the the uh the health of that kid going into a vaccine if you're choosing to vaccinate your

kids right like proper sleep proper nutrition proper proper everything you wouldn't want them even slightly sleep

deprived because that would uh increase the risk of inflammation right I mean these things compound as I understand it

um so you know I think what most all parents really want is a sense of

control over what are inevitably a mixture of controllable and uncontrollable factors and this is what

I hear when I really listen to this debate about vaccines I hear my science colleagues inevitably saying okay the

Wake field data or BS Etc like no no no there's no possibility and then I hear parents who are having kids whose kids

are due for vaccines and they're like I don't know what to do they're they're terrified and these are smart people and

they don't know what to believe anymore that's the challenge I mean the science that I just laid out is true it's

clear um and again we've got Decades of research to support most of what I've just said

all of what I've just said I think um if you understand the

biology when a child begins to show symptoms of a neurodevelopmental disorder instead of assigning a label

this is autism it's a life sentence good luck

we should be intervening and what could we do to intervene what you just said in terms of

prevention strategies absolutely let's make sure that even before you're going to the doctor even before you're

exposing yourself to any of these vaccines that you're healthy why because we want you to be healthy why wouldn't

you want to be healthy so let's just be healthy but I would actually go much further and say as soon as a child

begins to show signs or symptoms especially when it's an Abrupt change when they were developing in a

neurotypical way and then all of a sudden they got an infection or they got a vaccine or something happened and now

they are falling off the trajectory and that's what we hear from these parents who are saying No this is

real this is that's why they believe vaccines cause it do I think it was just the vaccine on its own I suspect a lot

of them have had other hits they probably had other vulnerabilities going into that

vaccination and that the vaccination if we even entertain the possibility that That vaccine did

contribute to their autism I'm doubtful that it was the sole only cause I'm doubtful it was the sole

cause but regardless once the kid starts showing signs or symptoms we should be doing a full workup we

should be looking for vitamin and nutrient deficiencies we should be looking for this Central B12 deficiency

did the vaccine somehow cause an autoimmune reaction to cd320 so that now this kid has Central B12 deficiency and

that is why this kid is falling off the chart um should we entertain a ketogenic diet

for this child I would say yes we should that should be on the table of options um we might want to put this child on a

ketogenic diet does that ever happened it happens all the time in kids with epilepsy so why not do it for

neurodevelopmental conditions but again it's not just keto diet is going to save the day and we don't have to think about

Central B12 deficiency or any of these other things like let's put it all together and especially with AI now we

can do this this is a solvable puzzle it is a complex puzzle no doubt but it is a solvable puzzle and we should start to

solve it but right now the state of the field is that we assign a label autism and we tell the parents to just

prepare for a disabled child just prepare yourself to take care of a disabled child for life

we're really sorry we don't have anything more to offer we can do some ABA training we can do some basic you

know we'll try to teach them some social skills the the the real outcome data on that is pretty

bad if if your brain's not working right it's hard to teach people how to have how to do the skills that the brain is

designed to do and that's the challenge is that um it's all well and good to recognize a problem but now we need to

come up with effective treatments and we know that a lot of the you know people talk about early

intervention with autism as though early intervention is going to save the day I don't mean to bash the people

doing that work let's do anything we can it might help a little but when you

look at the outcome data it's not helping much and when you look at the statistics of the prevalence of autism

it's going through the roof so those strategies are just not working they're not working for prevention they're not

working to improve long-term outcomes they're not I mean we have a lot of work to do so I appreciate the thoroughness

of your answer I can um promise you that uh anything we put out about that will include the full context we're not we're

not people will take the sound bite and well if they do I'm going to get I'm going to um get rabid um by posting the

Preamble because it's very important that people hear the full context it's um and I I really appreciate you uh

embracing that topic with the the depth and rigor and uh sensitivity also that that you do uh

because I don't think we can um duck this vaccine question anymore um I never thought in my lifetime that vaccines

would be a thing it's like when I was a kid everyone got the polio vaccine the measles vaccine and they kind of went

about our way I do understand the number of vaccines that kids are getting now like the vaccine schedule has expanded

um uh yeah I've been um kind of thrown into the middle of this as different guests

have come on this podcast who've said they do get the flu vaccine others who say they don't and you know gosh if ever

there was a separator besides Democrat versus Republican it's this vaccine thing um it's really like V separator

it's it's it's so closely tied to um believes in science doesn't believe in science like that's those are the

stereotypes right or um suspicious of science NIH and CDC or believes in science NIH and the CDC wholeheartedly

like the The Divide is very Stark and this needs to stop like the The Divide needs to stop we we need to start

filling in with answers um and I think there's soon to be a exploration uh a scientific exploration of the

relationship between vaccines and autism I read this someplace on X which means but I think that's the idea and I

think some people were kind of upset that this that resources were going to be devoted to this cuz they felt like it

it was a it was a done deal and then others are very excited because they feel like Hey listen if if you don't

think there's a a link then there here's an opportunity to to establish that with with real rigor and I think everyone's

just really interested in the the studies being done properly I look I think more data is always great I don't

disagree I've and I've I've actually talked to some former NIMH directors about this and some other leading people

in this field and there's no doubt that this topic has been brought up multiple times at the NIH so there's this inter

agency um Coordinating Committee um on autism uh within among all of the NIH

kind of centers and institutes that's existed for decades they have looked into this issue um I've talked to some

autism Advocates who've said like I was hoping that vaccines might be the cause like I was really

hoping to see that vaccines are the cause because that would then give us a cause and it would lead us to

interventions um to make vaccine safer or whatever um and she said but it's just not there it's just not there and

this former NIMH director that I spoke with it's just not there Chris it's not there um we looked we looked high and

low um again I'm not sure that everybody looked with the same degree of scrutiny again

the study that I saw looked at people who are unvaccinated by choice so these are rebellious people who are defying

state laws who are risking not getting their children into schools because they're

not getting vaccinations that's the cohort of unvaccinated people um and then they're comparing

them to the cohort of vaccinated people and they only controlled for like a like two or three

variables they did not control for obesity they didn't control for diabetes and we know that obesity and diabetes

play a role in risk for autism and we know that people who have existing health conditions

might actually be more likely to be worried about vaccines and then not get vaccines perfectly happy healthy

thriving people usually just go along with status quo they usually don't refuse vaccines so people who are

refusing vaccines probably had some pre-existing health condition they didn't control for that did that

pre-existing health condition increase risk for autism probably

if there's an inflammation link then yes like like probably I mean you look at any pre-existing health condition and

does it increase risk for other health conditions usually the answer is yes so we know that like women with obesity

much more likely twice as likely to have an autistic child is that right yeah metaanalysis over three million people

women with obesity have doubled the risk of having an autistic child have rates of obesity been

skyrocketing in our population the answer is yes are pregnant women also in that camp of obese women yes well that

accounts for a doubling of autism same deal with um diabetes women who have

diabetes twice as likely to have autistic children as women who don't have

diabetes when you put the two together obese and diabetic quadruple the rate of autism in the Offspring what about dad

you know there there were these theories about the statistically significant increases in rates of autism for

offspring of U men who are 50 or older my read of the data uh is that it's still a very small increase it's not

like the kind of increases you're describing here for diabetes it is so men with obesity twice as likely to have

an autistic child as men who are not obese yeah which is which is um something like 25 times greater than the

increase due to age of the male so this is so important because people hear oh you know uh older sperm equals higher

probability of autism but yes still a very low probability of autism compared to Dad is obese but in his 20s or 30s

yes and so you know a lot of people are hyperfocused on vaccines cause autism and they come back to rates of

autism or skyrocketing there has to be a reason well I agree rates of autism are skyrocketing I agree there does have to

be a reason maybe we're missing the elephant in the room rates of metabolic poor

health are skyrocketing in our population rates of obesity and diabetes are skyrocketing but rates of poor

metabolic health so metabolic syndrome has five biomarkers you know abdominal obesity

blood pressure um uh glucose high levels of glucose and then high triglycerides and low HDL cholesterol those are the

five biomarkers of metabolic syndrome only 7% of Americans are healthy in all five

biomarkers yikes only 7% poor metabolic Health influences neurodevelopment an

offspring we know that so we've we see skyrocketing rates of autism it's not just autism we see skyrocketing race of

ADHD as well simultaneously and everybody's scratching their heads trying to figure

out where is all this autism coming from where is all this ADHD coming from well look around people as the metabolic

health of the United States population declines we are going to see more neurod devel velopmental disorders

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