Vitamin K Deficiency Linked to Autism

Below is a link to a pdf that is too long to put here, but looks interesting -- haven't read much of it yet.  I may print it later if seems relevant.  First page is below the link.

One thing I might want to do at some point is revisit Blaylock's book, which I haven't finished reading, since she quotes it?


http://www.gutresearch.com/VitaminK.pdf


September 16, 2006

VITAMIN K DEFICIENCY AS A CAUSE OF AUTISTIC SYMPTOMS

Catherine Tamaro, B.S.M.E.

Mercer Island, Washington

Vitamin K overview

Vitamin K is a fat-soluble vitamin important in blood coagulation and bone metabolism. One of its functions is to keep calcium in the bones and out of soft tissues, blood vessels, and the nervous system. Vitamin K1, the predominant circulating form, is found in green leafy vegetables, some dietary oils including olive, hemp, canola, soybean & cottonseed oils, liver, and fish meal. Vitamin K2 can be found in chicken egg yolk, butter, cow liver, certain cheeses, and fermented soybean products such as natto, and it is also produced by intestinal bacteria. Vitamin K3 is a synthetic form.1 Many of the recent studies on Vitamin K have found that the K2 form is the most effective in calcium and bone health.2
Vitamin K has a number of interesting functions, many of which relate specifically to autism:

• Vitamin K regulates calcium in the body through osteocalcin and the matrix G1A protein.3 Both bone proteins are active only after undergoing carboxylation, a process in which Vitamin K is a required cofactor. Carboxylated bone proteins have a strong affinity for calcium and control its movement, directing it to the bones and teeth and preventing its deposition in soft tissues.
Calcium management appears to be dysregulated in people with the E4 form of Apolipoprotein.4,5,6 Osteocalcin is found in the brain; in its absence, it appears that brain cells become more vulnerable to the effects of calcium.
Vitamin K deficiency appears to play a role in the development of osteoporosis and in the deposition of calcium into blood vessels.7,8 Calcification of the arteries, known as “arteriosclerosis,” contributes to heart attacks and strokes.

• Vitamin K, an anti-oxidant that is more powerful than Vitamin E or CoQ10, is able to potently inhibit glutathione depletion-mediated oxidative cell death.9,10

• Vitamin K inhibits production of Interleukin-6, an inflammatory cytokine.11

• Vitamin K is found in high concentration in the pancreas and appears to be involved in controlling blood sugar.12

• Vitamin K is involved in the development of the nervous system.13
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• Vitamin K has a role in glutamate conversion14 and its absence affects the rate of activity of the enzyme glutamate dehydrogenase15.

In this paper I am proposing that a deficiency in Vitamin K causes unregulated calcium movement and deposition in the body of the autistic child, and that unregulated calcium is a cause of many of the symptoms associated with autism. I am also proposing that a Vitamin K deficiency is the cause of the calcium oxalate crystals found in many autistic children.

Calcium, in tandem with the neurotransmitter glutamate, is essential to the functioning of the excitatory cells of the nervous system: once glutamate opens the neuronal cell’s calcium channel, calcium pours into the channel and triggers the neuron to fire. The concentration of glutamate within the nervous system is therefore carefully regulated by the nervous system (specifically the astrocytes, which can be negatively affected by mercury and by neurotoxins produced by Lyme spirochetes) because excess glutamate will keep the calcium channels open, allowing calcium to continue to enter, and excite, the neurons. Dr. Russell Blaylock, among others, has written extensively about the neurotoxicity associated with an excess of glutamate.16 However, I believe that unregulated calcium may play an unappreciated role in triggering the incessant neuronal firing and resultant cell death that are a hallmark of excess glutamate in the nervous system. If a child is unable to regulate calcium due to a Vitamin K deficiency, that child may display signs of glutamate toxicity and uncontrolled neuronal firing that manifest as the cluster of behavioral disorders called autism.

Russell Blaylock, M.D., characterizes glutamate as
“one of the most common neurotransmitters in the brain. Its role is primarily that of an excitatory substance, that is it causes the brain to be stimulated, much the way cocaine does. Using biochemical mapping techniques, we now know that many areas of the brain (such as the cortex, striatum, hippocampus, hypothalamus, thalamus, cerebellum, and the visual and auditory system) all contain an extensive network of glutamate type neurons. This means that glutamate is involved in a wide variety of brain functions. It has also been demonstrated that activation of cortical glutamate neurons can in turn activate other neurons within the nuclei located deep within the brain, even those not using glutamate as a neurotransmitter…

“After studying a number of brains specifically stained for these special receptors, scientists determined that the glutamate receptor is located on the cell body of the neuron and its dendrite – on the fibers emanating from the neuron cell body like the branches of a tree. Being excitatory transmitters, glutamate and aspartate both are involved in activating a number of brain systems concerned with sensory perception, memory, orientation in time and space, cognition, and motor skills.”  [a) Russell L. Blaylock, M.D., Excitotoxins: The Taste That Kills, (Santa Fe, NM), 1997, pp. 31-32]