Old drug reverses autism symptoms

By Erin Elizabeth

With approximately 3.5 million Americans living with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and each person spending roughly $2.4 million over their lifespan, there’s a desperate call for a cure or treatment. As such, Robert Naviaux may have found some answers with his new research findings that suggest autism symptoms can be reversed.

On average, 1 in 68 children have ASD according to The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Based on these statistics, this condition is four times more common in boys than girls.

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Currently, there is no single approved drug that targets the core symptoms of autism according to Dr. Wendy Roberts, medical director at Integrated Services for Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disorders. She said, “We tend to borrow drugs from disorders like anxiety or inattention, so if we could find a drug that is helpful for a significant number of children and young people with autism, that would be great.”

Well, a professor of medicine, pediatrics, and pathology at US San Diego School of Medicine may have scratched the surface about a potential drug that can help children with ASD.

Robert Naviaux’s Research on Suramin and ASD

Robert Naviaux, MD, Ph.D., co-director of the Mitochondrial and Metabolic Disease Center at UC San Diego School of Medicine, together with his colleagues conducted a clinical study in 2017 that tested a 100-year old drug called suramin in children with ASD.

This clinical trial began with a double-blind, placebo-controlled safety study that involved 10 boys, aged 5 to 14 years old, all diagnosed with ASD. Half of them received a single infusion of suramin, a drug that was initially developed in 1916 to treat sleeping sickness and river blindness caused by parasites. Then, the other five boys received a placebo.

Children with ASD Spoke Their First Sentence After Suramin Infusion

The findings in this research were remarkable. All five boys that received the suramin infusion showed improvements in language and social behavior, restricted and repetitive behaviors and coping skills.

They witnessed a specific milestone in two of the five children that received the suramin infusion. Naviaux said, “We had four non-verbal children in the study, two 6-year-olds and two 14-year-olds. The six-year-old and the 14-year-old who received suramin said the first sentences of their lives about one week after the single suramin infusion. This did not happen in any of the children given the placebo.”

This particular finding was marked by their parents who were asked to record any changes in symptoms during a 6-week CGI only if the symptom lasted for one week.

In addition to their first sentences being spoken, the 14-year old boy showed tremendous improvement after receiving suramin. One of his parents said, “Within an hour after the infusion, he started to make more eye contact with the doctor and nurses in the room. There was a new calmness at times, but also more emotion at other times. He started to show an interest in playing hide-and-seek with his 16-year-old brother. Nothing has come close to all the changes in language and social interaction and new interests that we saw after suramin. We saw our son advance almost three years in development in just six weeks.”

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But the benefits were temporary. The improvements they witnessed in the boy’s cognitive functions, and behavior peaked, and then they slowly faded when the single dose of suramin wore off. But for its initial testing, it gave notable results that it worked on some level.

Editor’s Note: Pharmaceuticals should always be used with caution and substituted for effective natural and holistic solutions whenever possible. However, when we came across the news of a possible cure for such a serious disease, we couldn’t ignore it! We believe true holistic health can incorporate treatments from all kinds of perspectives, whether “alternative” medicine, natural remedies, or Western medicine that has been proven safe. The most important factor is its overall impact on your body, quality of life and wellbeing.

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