Chapter Ten
Potential Treatments
Of all the potential treatments, improving nutrition has the greatest effect on inflammation and strengthening the connections between neurons. For more information about how food type and food source affect inflammation, refer to Chapter 6 and Chapter 7. Refer to Chapter 8 for how inflammation can cause ASD. Refer to Chapter 9 for a discussion of factors that affect ASD risk.
Sensory Enrichment Therapy
Sensory enrichment therapy may benefit ASD people by increasing neuron connections in the brain. This can improve brain function and reduce ASD symptoms. However, if there is too much inflammation getting in the way, then the effects of sensory enrichment are not as effective.
Sensory enrichment studies with ASD people have led to some positive results. A study found that after six months of sensory enrichment, ASD children between 3-6 years of age showed “statistically significant gains in their IQ scores, a decline in their atypical sensory responses, and an improvement in their receptive language performance, compared to controls (676).” Also, 21% of the children with an ASD diagnosis, “improved to the point that, although they remained on the autism spectrum, they no longer met the criteria for classic autism (676).” Other researchers found sensory enrichment led to significant improvement in 42% of the sensory enriched group, whereas only 7% in the control group experienced improvement (677).
Examples of sensory enrichment are pairing a sound to an image or an image to a specific motor coordination. Pairing multiple stimuli together promotes the formation of new neuron pathways between different brain areas. Given the limited connectivity discussed in Chapter 8, new neuron connections in the brain are beneficial.
Learning music is another form of sensory enrichment. The multiple neuron pathways involved in playing music encourages the brain to become more connected. A study on non-ASD people found musical training correlated to increased gray matter (678). Music therapy for ASD people may also improve joy, social skills, and quality of parent-child relationships (679).
Applied Behavioral Analysis
Although a commonly used form of treatment, applied behavioral analysis (ABA) might not be the best form of help for many ASD people. ABA may seek to change an individual’s behavior while not changing the biochemical reasons for that behavior. For example, an ABA therapist can desire for an ASD child to stop a soothing repetitive behavior that inflammation is causing. Trying to stop the behavior without finding the cause can lead to increased anxiety and frustration in the child.
This attempt at control can be extremely uncomfortable for the ASD child and worsen psychological stress, which increases inflammation. Multiple attempts at control are like having a big fear of spiders and being forced to hold a spider again and again. In addition, too much stimulus, such as light and sound, may easily overwhelm ASD people because of excess glutamate and a disordered neuron network. Therefore, using ABA to influence behavior can cause significant overwhelm and discomfort.
However, a modified version of ABA, known as the Early Start Denver Model (ESDM), seeks to improve symptoms of ASD at a younger age. ESDM uses applied behavioral techniques and promotes positive affect. This model also focuses on creating a shared engagement between the therapist and the child, which increases communication. Research found ESDM intervention improved cognitive and adaptive behavior as well as reduced severity of ASD diagnosis in toddlers (680). Others found ESDM may reduce autism symptom severity (681) (682). Parental involvement appears to be an important part of effective early intervention programs, and parent-implemented intervention leads to better maintenance of skills (683).
Importantly, “findings suggest that the younger the child at the initiation of intervention, even among one year olds, the more developmental gain and symptom reduction occurs over the short term (683). Therefore, noticed ASD symptoms when a child is young may help because early intervention may have better effects.
Some behaviors early in life that may indicate ASD are reduced “orienting to name; impoverished joint attention behaviors; some early motor abnormalities and reduced emotional expression (684).” Other behaviors to be aware of are unusual visual fixations, repetitive patterns of exploration, lack of intentional communication, and decreased social interest (685).
Despite the previously mentioned potential issues with ABA, regular ABA therapy may be semi-effective at leading to fewer behavioral problems. However, this limited improvement may compromise the sense of self and lead to problems associated with psychological conditioning. The current popularity and effectiveness of ABA may be primarily because of the sensory enrichment involved in the one-on-one therapy. Therefore, simply focusing on the sensory enrichment, in combination with methods to reduce inflammation may improve ASD.
Mental Training
Mental training also has benefits because of the brain’s ability to change synaptic pathways in response to types of stimulation. Like sensory enrichment, mental training creates connections in the brain. Specific mental training increases synaptic connections that help accomplish the specific goal. Amazingly, other types of mental training can weaken certain synaptic connections to reduce a bad habit.
Researchers found different types of targeted short daily mental training practices affected different brain areas. They saw training of present-moment focused attention changed one brain area, while socio-affective and socio-cognitive training each changed different brain areas (686).
Therefore, having a positive, disciplined, targeted, and active approach to daily mental exercises may improve brain function. Once there is also less inflammation, then these improvements will be even more powerful.
Exercise
Physical exercise is one of the more well-known lifestyle habits that improves health. Exercise can reduce inflammation and create new, more efficient mitochondria. One way exercise boosts health is by activating PPAR gamma co-activator-1 alpha (PGC-1alpha). Researchers remark how exercise increases PGC-1alpha activation (687). This is important since PGC-1alpha helps regulate antioxidant enzymes (688). Also, PGC-1alpha influences mitochondrial antioxidant defenses (689).
These activities of PGC-1alpha increase the body’s ability to reduce reactive oxygen species, which may lead to less inflammation. Improved management of reactive oxygen species also reduces the risk of brain neurodegeneration. PGC-1alpha expression suppressed the neurodegeneration of neurons in culture (690).
One way PGC-1alpha reduces neurodegeneration risk is by increasing autophagy. Research found mice without PGC-1alpha have significantly less autophagy following exercise (691). As mentioned earlier, autophagy is important because autophagy removes damaged cells and damaged mitochondria. In the long-term, this leads to less reactive oxygen species generation and lowers the risk of neurons getting destroyed.
Critically, PGC-1alpha also increases the creation of new mitochondria (692). New mitochondria are not damaged and therefore generate fewer reactive oxygen species than old and damaged mitochondria. Upgrading the mitochondria is hugely beneficial for many different health conditions.
Importantly, long-term caloric restriction increased PGC-1alpha activity in mice (693). Therefore, periodically using long-term caloric restriction may also lead to some of the benefits of PGC-1alpha activation.
Before increasing exercise to boost autophagy, remember balance is important. Physical exercise also has a hormetic effect (694). For example, an association exists between excessive exercise and damaging oxidative stress (695).
In contrast, regular moderate exercise is associated with a decrease in oxidative stress (695). Exercising at least five times a week may provide the best health benefits. Not exercising too intensely is important, especially if first starting a new exercise.
Unfortunately, many people are exercising less than in the past because of desk-based work environments and a sedentary lifestyle. There are associations between a lack of exercise and severe health consequences. Sitting for a long time is very harmful to overall health. Researchers note the relationship between the time spent sitting and mortality in both men and women (696).
Also, research on elderly sedentary women found women who were most sedentary had about a 50 percent chance of getting a respiratory illness during the fall season. In contrast, women that walked 30 minutes daily had only a 20 percent chance, while conditioned runners had a risk of just 8 percent (697). Importantly, even running for less than 10 minutes each day at slow speeds of less than 6 miles per hour is associated with fewer health risks (698).
Exercise is also beneficial for brain health. For example, resistance exercise training reduced depressive symptoms among adults (699). Exercise is also a “potential non-pharmacological treatment for addiction (700).” In addition, exercise might improve various symptoms of attention hyperactivity deficit disorder (ADHD) (701). Exercise may also improve the executive function of children, especially when the exercise is cognitively engaging (702).
Aerobic exercise is especially beneficial. Research found that aerobic exercise may reverse age-related shrinkage of the brain’s memory centers (703). Amazingly, vigorous exercise for 40 minutes led to the highest probability of significant BDNF elevation (704). As mentioned, BDNF helps to create additional neurons and synapses, increasing intelligence and enhancing the ability to achieve.
Exercise also improves brain function by increasing the levels of antioxidants, such as glutathione. Exercise can increase the glutathione regeneration by raising glutathione reductase activity (705). This enzyme takes useless oxidized glutathione and, with a few cofactors, makes two useful glutathione molecules. Increasing this enzyme’s activity is important because of the multiple benefits associated with having more glutathione availability.
Another way exercise benefits health is by increasing the ability to deliver oxygen throughout the body. Research found people with higher max oxygen uptake ability had greater levels of two important antioxidant enzymes that help to control reactive oxygen species (706).
The ability of exercise to boost antioxidant enzymes and create new mitochondria may even further limit reactive oxygen species, helping to maintain lower blood glucose levels. These cell upgrades especially occur in the muscle cells. This is critical because muscles are a major tissue “responsible for the regulation of glucose homeostasis (707).” Therefore, a lack of exercise may increase glucose levels in the blood, which, as previously mentioned, increases the risk of many different health conditions.
Exercise is also important for habit change in other areas of life. This is because exercise can change mentality and how difficulty is perceived. The good feelings that follow challenging exercises and overcoming difficulty show the mind and body that limitations can be broken. This also increases self-esteem, making other habits easier to do. Simply stated, improving body power also increases mind power.
A form of exercise for the cells is fasting. As mentioned, fasting requires restricting when eating happens. A type of fasting called intermittent fasting involves not eating for about 16 hours per 24 hours. This way of eating can be challenging to learn how to do correctly. Breakfast and lunch must be larger to make up for not having dinner Also, getting comfortable dealing with feelings of hunger is difficult for people accustomed to frequently eating for emotional reasons.
In addition to intermittent fasting regularly, fasting may be taken further by completely not eating food for a few days every month. However, this form of fasting may only be safe if someone is not already too depleted and dealing with a severe health condition.
Either type of fasting is challenging for the body and may require medical supervision. Always be cautious when fasting because various mineral deficiencies, which cause many negative health symptoms, can become worse from a lack of food intake. A concern for some fasting people is electrolytes, such as magnesium and potassium.
Overall, if fasting is safely done, then fasting can lead to many health benefits, even more so than many expensive modern pills. There is further discussion about fasting in Chapter 6.
Sunlight
Natural sunlight is another way to reduce inflammation. One way sunlight does so is by raising vitamin D levels. Vitamin D is associated with less inflammation (708).
Unsurprisingly, researchers found vitamin D was much lower in ASD people than in non-ASD people (709) (710) (711). A study found severe autism correlated to lower vitamin D levels than mild autism (712).
Research also notes links between vitamin D deficiency and a higher “risk of age-related chronic diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, cognitive impairment, and cancer (713).” Unfortunately, 61 percent of US children may have insufficient levels of vitamin D (714).
Vitamin D might also be the reason that research found cancer diagnosis in summer and autumn associated with improved survival (715). The skin does not produce enough vitamin D in winter if living above 33 degrees latitude (716). In addition, multiple studies found an inverse association between vitamin D and cancer risk (717).
Interestingly, season also affects ASD risk. A study found a relationship between spring births and increased ASD risk in the United Kingdom (718). This is likely because less vitamin D is available in winter to help control inflammation during pregnancy.
Vitamin D deficiency is also associated with an increased risk of Th1 mediated autoimmune diseases (719). Vitamin D inhibits Th1 immune response (720). In addition, Vitamin D increases anti-inflammatory Th2 subset (721). This Th1/Th2 effect controls the amount of pro-inflammatory cytokines generated.
Interestingly, the depletion of vitamin D may serve as a purposeful signal to increase the inflammatory response if the normal response cannot control the problem. This signal activity makes sense because inflammation itself can lower vitamin D levels (722).
In the distant past, the depletion of vitamin D was likely a response to pathogens overwhelming the body’s normal defensive system. Hence, a much stronger inflammatory response would be needed to stop the pathogens.
Importantly, vitamin D may be just one of many benefits that sunlight gives the body. Therefore, taking vitamin D supplements without enough sunlight may trick the body into behaving as if it received the electron activation and infrared light benefits from the sunlight. Taking vitamin D supplements may activate processes for which the body does not have the resources to safely perform. Vitamin D supplementation might make someone feel better in the short-term because of the reduction of inflammation, but the long-term effects may be much worse. Likely, most of the benefits associated with high vitamin D levels reflect its connection to the many other hidden benefits of sunlight and not the unnatural vitamin D supplementation.
There is a history of using sunlight as medicine. Treating health ailments with sunlight was used frequently by Dr. Rollier, who wrote about the curative power of the sun. He reported the success of sun treatments for abscesses, bone infections, anemias, and multiple other non-healing wounds (161).
Perhaps the anti-inflammatory effects of vitamin D and sunlight even affect multiple sclerosis, a condition that inflammation might cause. A review found a correlation between this condition and latitude (723). Living at higher latitudes causes the body to create less vitamin D and receive less solar energy. A lack of solar energy increases inflammation and contributes to higher rates of multiple sclerosis.
Importantly, windows block the UVB light necessary for vitamin D production. Research found “building window-glasses were opaque to UVB” but did not block UVA (724). Therefore, going outside in direct sunlight is the best way to get the power of solar energy.
A caution about vitamin D supplements is they can cause a severe magnesium deficiency (725). This probably happens because there is an enzyme that requires magnesium to activate vitamin D. Suddenly adding a lot of unnatural vitamin D activates too many of these enzymes, causing the body to use up a significant amount of magnesium. Of course, there could also be other unknown reasons for this decline that are yet to be discovered.
This just further reinforces the power of natural living. Rather than vitamin D and magnesium supplements, the better option is to receive adequate daily sunlight and eat many dark leafy greens, which contain magnesium and calcium. Fish, liver, and eggs also have vitamin D. If the source of salmon is low in pollutants, then salmon can be a good choice.
However, since adequate vitamin D from the sun depends on latitude, then vitamin D supplements may be necessary if living at a higher latitude. If taking vitamin D supplements, remember the magnesium relationship, and eat many dark leafy greens rich in magnesium and calcium.
The next paragraph is a very interesting idea but may be incorrect and is only mentioned here because of the idea’s potential. If this is wrong, then do not let that take away from the rest of this book.
Cholesterol sulfate synthesis may be a method that the body uses to capture solar energy. The endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) enzyme, which makes nitric oxide, may also help produce cholesterol sulfate (726). Solar energy may cause flavin molecules, part of the eNOS enzyme, to release electrons and help form cholesterol sulfate (727). The cholesterol sulfate molecule has a charge of +6, while a nitric oxide molecule only has a charge of +2. Therefore, cholesterol sulfate may carry more electrons to cells.
After its formation, cholesterol sulfate may travel to cells, providing both sulfur and extra electrons. The cells may use sulfur to form iron-sulfur clusters that are important to the proper function of electron transport chains in the mitochondria. The extra electrons help to reduce reactive oxygen species in the mitochondria.
When there is not enough sulfur available or inadequate sunlight exposure, then less cholesterol sulfate may form. As a result, cells receive fewer electrons than usual. This lack of electrons limits reactive oxygen species reduction, contributing to mitochondria inefficiency and increased inflammation.
Sleep
The amount and timing of sleep powerfully affect health. For example, higher stroke rates associated with getting less than six hours or more than nine hours of sleep (728). Sleeping about seven to eight hours each night is best. Going to bed earlier, around 9 pm, will also help improve health. This is because there is a higher amount of deep slow-wave sleep (SWS) in the first half of night, and more active rapid eye movement (REM) sleep in the second half (729). Going to bed earlier gives the body more restorative deep slow-wave-sleep. Also, by going to bed earlier each night, the body receives more melatonin, a critical hormone that reduces inflammation.
Unfortunately, many ASD people have sleep challenges from excitation created by chronic inflammation. Mineral deficiencies can also affect sleep, such as magnesium and potassium, which chronic inflammation depletes.
Having a regular bedtime routine helps with these sleep challenges. A study found “a bedtime routine resulted in significant reductions in problematic sleep behaviors for infants and toddlers (730).” There is also an association between sleep irregularity and health problems among older adults (731). A bedtime routine can comprise winding down activity before bed, limiting light exposure at night, consistent procedures to get ready for bed, and maintaining a regular time of going to bed and waking up.
Getting regular sleep is critical for its anti-inflammatory benefits. A major reason for these benefits is melatonin, which the pineal gland releases into circulation at night. Melatonin has strong anti-inflammatory effects, directly detoxifying reactive oxygen species and indirectly increasing antioxidant enzyme activities (732). Melatonin also stimulates the T-lymphocyte production in people that have lowered immune function (161). In addition, melatonin may limit cancer growth (733).
Importantly, researchers found lower melatonin in many ASD people, and that supplemental melatonin has shown positive benefits (734). The lower melatonin levels are likely because chronic inflammation and the CDR reduce the levels of serotonin, which is used to make melatonin.
As discussed in Chapter 8, serotonin is inhibitory and limits the efforts of inflammation to increase excitation. Therefore, the body may purposefully reduce serotonin, so excitation is more effective. For this reason, to increase melatonin naturally, inflammation needs to be reduced. Also, all the necessary nutrients need to be eaten that the body uses to make melatonin. As discussed in Chapter 7, using a nutrient tracker to check the many daily nutrient goals is important.
Darkness helps melatonin release into the bloodstream, whereas light inhibits this release. Interestingly, people that live in brighter neighborhoods had a higher breast cancer risk (735). Other researchers found blind women had less breast cancer than women with sight (736). This likely relates to melatonin’s antioxidant abilities and the fact that inflammation promotes cancer.
Melatonin also affects brain function. For example, dim light exposure at night decreased brain activation during working memory tasks (737). Melatonin’s ability to control inflammation powerfully affects the brain, which is one more reason to get better sleep earlier in the night.
Importantly, in addition to needing darkness for release, melatonin also needs sunlight to increase production and storage (161). Therefore, getting sunlight, especially in the morning, is important.
This brings up the point that the body operates efficiently following the regular rhythms of Nature. The circadian rhythms, which cause the body to awake at sunrise and get tired at sunset, need respect. Sunbathing in daylight and sleeping in total darkness supports the creation and release of melatonin. Managing daily light exposure in this way also supports and regulates circadian rhythms.
In contrast, not receiving adequate sunlight and sleeping with light on in the room negatively affects both creation and release of melatonin. Since melatonin has powerful anti-inflammatory effects, lifestyle patterns that decrease melatonin can worsen many different health conditions primarily caused by inflammation.
As mentioned, eating food too late in the day negatively impacts the autophagic process that occurs during sleep. Because digestion and metabolism inhibit autophagy, the body purposefully reduces the activity of many metabolic enzymes at night. Therefore, eating late in the day causes less efficient digestion, increased insulin resistance, and more inflammation.
For these reasons, eating needs to happen before 4 pm to improve digestion, sleep better, and lower inflammation. As previously discussed, this is intermittent fasting and involves not eating for about 12-16 hours each day.
A reason some people have problems with intermittent fasting is that they do not eat enough food to compensate for the absence of dinner and snacking. When intermittent fasting, a much larger breakfast and lunch are required to meet nutritional and daily calorie needs before 4 pm. In addition, remember to track food intake to determine if the many different nutrient requirements are getting fulfilled.
Psychological Stress
The most overlooked part of reducing inflammation is the effect of psychological stress. Stress starts “inflammatory activity and affective-cognitive changes that play a critical role in the onset, maintenance, and recurrence of depression (738).” Other researchers note how psychological stress during childhood might have long-term negative health effects (739).
Sadly, a significantly larger inflammatory response to acute psychological stress may occur “among individuals reporting adverse psychosocial states or conditions such as depression, lower self-esteem, or lower self-compassion (740).” These people may have epigenetically upregulated inflammatory responses due to chronic inflammation.
Evolutionarily, the reason stress has a relationship with inflammation is stress often occurred before a physically damaging fight. Our ancestors better-survived pathogen invasion into a wound by preparing the inflammation response better there were injuries from fighting. Even though there is less physical fighting today, this stress reaction still exists.
Importantly, prenatal stress associates with an increased risk of having an ASD child (741). For example, researchers found being in a hurricane in Louisiana increased this risk, especially if the pregnancy is at 5-6 months or 9-10 months (742). Others also found an association between family stress and a higher risk of having an ASD child (743).
Psychological stress increases cortisol levels in the blood. The hormone cortisol may shift the body into a more Th2 state (744) (745). One of the functions of cortisol is to limit the inflammatory response. Researchers found ASD children had higher cortisol levels (746). This is unsurprising, given the higher inflammation often found in ASD people.
Also, there is increasing “evidence for stress and trauma as a risk factor for comorbidity and the worsening of core ASD symptoms (747).” Therefore, reducing psychological stress may significantly improve ASD. This makes sense because of the relationship between psychological stress and inflammation.
Unfortunately, rather than understanding complicated health conditions, many doctors give corticosteroids to simply suppress the symptoms. However, corticosteroids have many negative effects from long-term use (748). Also, to try and find a natural balance, the body responds to these unnatural drugs by reducing receptors for corticosteroids, which increases resistance to these drugs. For example, corticosteroid resistance can happen in people using corticosteroids for asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (749).
Chronic stress may also cause glucocorticoid receptor resistance, limiting the ability to limit the inflammatory response (750). Therefore, naturally reducing psychological stress and making multiple lifestyle changes to decrease inflammation may be a better option than using synthetic steroids and taking many medications.
Interestingly, what is often incorrectly labeled as adrenal fatigue is actually glucocorticoid receptor resistance from long-term inflammation. Some adrenal supplements may help by boosting adrenal output and compensating for the resistance. However, the root cause of the inflammation needs to be discovered and fixed. Often, the main causes of inflammation are incorrect nutrition and excess stress.
As discussed in Chapter 7, certain types of data entering the mind may increase psychological stress. One of these data sources is negative people. Therefore, avoiding these types of people may significantly reduce stress. Another stressful data source is the news. No longer watching the news dramatically changes perception of the world and reduces stress.
Another major source of psychological stress for many people is psychological trauma, which can occur when an event overwhelms individual processing capacity. Such traumas tend to happen at a young age when people are less capable of processing the event and feeling powerful. Many people carry psychological trauma in their body for a long time. Trauma can create a story and affect how the world is perceived. This negatively influences life events and can make life more difficult than necessary.
Trauma is a source of psychological stress because the body does not feel safe and therefore may constantly be in an agitated state, which creates chronic psychological stress. The key to processing trauma is to work at the level of energy trapped inside the body. There is more information about this in Appendix C and a few books to reference about the idea of trauma being stored as energy inside the body. In general, healing psychological trauma may greatly help to reduce inflammation.
In addition to limiting sources of psychological stress it is important to add sources of relaxation, such as physical exercise, having a hobby, positive friends, loving a pet, yoga, and meditation. Making such things a priority may reduce inflammation and improve overall health.
Amazingly, psychedelics may also reduce psychological stress. For example, researchers at John Hopkins gave patients that had life-threatening cancer the psychedelic psilocybin and noted the following effects:
“High-dose psilocybin produced large decreases in clinician- and self-rated measures of depressed mood and anxiety, along with increases in quality of life, life meaning, and optimism, and decreases in death anxiety. At a 6-month follow-up, these changes were sustained, with about 80% of participants continuing to show clinically significant decreases in depressed mood and anxiety. Participants attributed improvement in attitudes about life/self, mood, relationships, and spirituality to the high-dose experience, with >80% endorsing moderately or greater increased well-being/life satisfaction. Community observer ratings showed corresponding changes. Mystical-type psilocybin experience on session day mediated the effect of psilocybin dose on therapeutic outcomes (751).”
Studies such as this are the beginning of an amazing major new field of medical research. Since psychedelics can greatly reduce psychological stress, then they may benefit many different health conditions. This is because psychological stress increases inflammation, which is the main cause of multiple health conditions. Hopefully, future studies examine the impact of psychedelics on health conditions through the interaction of psychological stress and long-term inflammation.
As a caution, psychedelic experience can be very intense. Therefore, balancing the mind and body through multiple months of better lifestyle habits is important before using psychedelics. Also, psychedelic purity can be a problem because psychedelics are illegal and not distributed to a regulated way. In general, natural psychedelics found in certain plants have a gentler experience than unnatural psychedelics made in a lab.
A major factor in using psychedelics is the environment. Maintaining a feeling of peace and security when taking psychedelics is important for reducing the risk of a bad experience. A mindset of reverence and sacredness is also critical for psychedelic use because these states of mind increase the likelihood of a positive journey.
Be cautious when using psychedelics, since taking too many can create an experience that is too powerful. Also, some people have mental health issues that psychedelics may destabilize, leading to negative health effects.
Of course, the use of psychedelics is also risky because of the extreme illegality of possessing psychedelics, which can lead to prison. Hopefully, medical care will advance to the point of allowing psychedelics in therapeutic settings to help with many health conditions by reducing stress and the associated inflammation.
Earthing and Touch
Another way to reduce inflammation is connecting to the Earth, which provides extra electrons to the body. These electrons reduce many reactive oxygen species, lowering inflammation. This technique of connecting to the Earth is called earthing or grounding.
Research found earthing may lead to reduced pain, better sleep, and a blood-thinning effect (752). Earthing can also reduce cortisol and normalize rhythm of the sleep-wake cycle (753). Amazingly, continuous earthing reduced blood glucose levels in diabetic patients (754). Therefore, earthing may improve the many health conditions associated with high blood glucose.
As discussed earlier, high blood glucose is associated with the creation of advanced glycation end-products (AGEs), which increase inflammation. Excess glucose in the blood also increases the risk of neurological problems, stroke, and heart attacks. Therefore, the body wants to quickly metabolize glucose or transform glucose to fat for storage on the body.
The most common reason for insulin resistance is excess reactive oxygen species damaging the mitochondria and electron transport chains. These damaged mitochondria make much less energy and more reactive oxygen species. When the mitochondria are damaged and inefficient, the cell reduces the amount of glucose that can enter to limit excess glucose metabolism from causing further damage.
Extra electrons coming from Earth reduce the number of reactive oxygen species, helping to protect mitochondria and their efficiency. Better mitochondria function leads to an increased rate of glucose removal from the blood and reduced health risks.
As an everyday practice, connect to the Earth by walking without shoes directly on the grass, dirt, or beach. For most of human history, people walked barefoot. For this reason, the design of the human body is to continually receive additional electrons from the Earth. The recent shift to using insulated shoes and synthetic flooring stops the flow of electrons that should be constantly flowing to the body from Earth. This lack of Earth connection is a huge, overlooked issue that worsens the chronic inflammation affecting many health conditions in modern society.
Like Earth, people also transfer electrons to other people during hands-on treatment. Perhaps this explains why patients with inflammatory conditions may deplete their therapists during hands-on treatment (755). The transfer of electrons is one reason different cultures have used touch to try and heal health conditions.
Amazingly, some researchers have started to investigate the power to heal with touch. Researchers injected mice with breast cancer cells and then used the “laying on of hands” to produce a high overall cure rate (756). The results were replicated at other colleges and produced “an overall cure rate of 87.9% in 33 experimental mice (756).” Future cancer reinjections into “the mice in remission in Arizona and New York did not take, suggesting a stimulated immunological response to treatment (756).”
Perhaps the extra electrons from touch reduced enough reactive oxygen species to lower inflammation and improve methylation cycle efficiency. The lower inflammation and better methylation may cause cancer remission. This improvement of inflammation and methylation may also have made these mice more resistant to future injections of cancer cells.
Research also found “laying on of hands” may improve cancer-related symptoms in humans, although this did not include remission of cancer (757). The healing power of touch may depend on focus and the amount of touch time.
Logically, the power of touch also depends on the size of the animal. A large human requires many more electrons than a mouse. For example, a car battery cannot charge with a phone battery. Perhaps if many people touched the cancer patient simultaneously, then that would create a powerful electron transfer. This transfer might increase even further if everyone is fully grounded to the Earth while the touch occurs.
Therefore, if someone uses many of the ideas in this book and has many healthy people simultaneously give their grounded touch there may be amazing improvements for various health conditions.
One specific touch-based style of healing is Reiki. A study on Reiki used patients getting knee replacement surgery and saw that, compared to the Standard of Care and the Sham Reiki group, “only the Reiki group showed significant reductions in pain, blood pressure, respiration, and state anxiety (758).” The sham reiki group was probably not using any specific focus when working on the patient, indicating the importance of focus when using touch.
Overall, there will likely be better effects if the individual transferring the extra electrons is in an excellent state of health, keeps focused, and stays in constant contact with the Earth. These conditions improve electron flow, which reduces reactive oxygen species and inflammation.
Meditation
Another way to reduce inflammation is meditation. This technique enhances awareness of the present moment, which increases mindfulness. Research found training in mindfulness meditation enhanced connectivity of specific brain areas and reduced the quantity of IL-6 (759). Another study found mindfulness-based stress reduction led to a smaller post-stress inflammatory response (760). Amazingly, expert meditators, meditating for a day, decreased expression of inflammation genes (RIPK2 and COX2) (761).
Also, meditation increases inhibition. This is important since people with low inhibition were more likely to have diabetes than those with high inhibition, possibly due to the connection between anxious arousal and activation of the inflammatory IL-6 cytokine (762). Overall, meditation helps to reduce stress, improve happiness, and increase consciousness.
The ability of ASD people to use meditation depends on ASD severity because meditation requires stillness and focus. Nonetheless, even some meditation might lead to less obsessive thinking and associated stress responses. Because meditation reduces inflammation, this practice may benefit many different health conditions.
As already mentioned, meditation reduces the amount of psychological stress (763) (764). Experienced meditators have less perceived stress and smaller inflammatory responses started by the nervous system (765). Reducing stress is one of the best, and most overlooked, ways to improve many health conditions.
Unfortunately, psychological stress is associated with an increased interest in self-promotion, which puts the focus on the individual rather than the group. Instead, moving the focus from self-promotion to compassion and altruism associated with reduced activation of a stress pathway (766). Amazingly, research found meditation raised compassion so much that individuals were five times more likely to help a suffering person (767).
Meditation also diminishes stress because of the gradual increased perception of awareness as being separate from the mind. Using the analogy of an ocean better explains this separation. In this analogy, the thoughts of the mind are like ocean waves. Some waves have a small impact, and other waves have a big impact. Meditation is like taking the awareness underwater, beneath the waves, to a depth of stillness.
Unfortunately, the awareness of most people in modern society is on the surface of the ocean with the waves. If a large disruptive wave comes along, then they are hit with the full force of the wave and may experience significant psychological stress as a result. As previously mentioned, stress affects inflammation and many health conditions.
However, if meditation is done consistently for about 20 to 40 minutes daily, then awareness becomes deeper. Big waves will still happen, but now awareness has distance from the waves. This reduces stress generated by thoughts and emotions.
As awareness eventually goes even deeper, a beautiful separation between mind and awareness becomes clear. This separation brings peace and improved self-control. Deeper awareness also improves life quality because the many shifting mental preferences no longer control daily decision-making.
Meditation also increases awareness of the breath, which may lead to improved breathing and greater oxygenation. Many people unconsciously breathe shallowly because of stress and habit. Shallow breathing involves mostly chest movement and only limited diaphragm expansion. Once noticed, this breathing is easy to identify. Improved deep breathing increases both relaxation, metabolism, and the ability to control inflammation.
One meditation technique is to sit still and quiet while noticing the sensation of breathing in and out. There are multiple breathing techniques, but perhaps the simplest is to keep the inhalation time equal in length to the amount of exhalation, while breathing deep and slow. Imagine ocean waves on the beach. The inhale is water drawing back to the ocean. The exhale is the wave coming to shore.
Many people that have not tried meditation assume the process should be free of thought, relatively easy, and peaceful. However, when first starting a meditation practice, the mind is active and rebels against the meditation. This is one reason many people are resistant to having a meditation practice. The initial few weeks of practice may be uncomfortable because of personal judgment about the continual loss of focus on the breath, which is natural in the beginning. Also, the ego will likely feel threatened by meditation and try to find excuses to avoid meditating.
In addition, uncomfortable repressed emotions may come back into awareness. Becoming more aware of emotional content requires a compassionate, gradual approach over time. Some emotions are intense, which is why they were repressed. The ego believes some emotions are a threat. This is a reason the mind often resists meditation.
Especially during the first few months of meditation, the awareness needs frequent refocusing on breath and away from the restless mind. This can be frustrating but is a normal experience. Soon, over weeks of daily practice, the awareness will remain away from the mind for a longer time. The keys to this process are consistency, patience, and love.
Combining meditation and earthing at the same time can increase the health benefits. Meditating in contact with Earth reduces reactive oxygen species and psychological stress. To further increase the benefits, meditate outside in view of sunrise and sunset, which helps synchronize circadian rhythms to the cycles of Nature. A grounded sunrise and sunset mediation practice is a great way to improve overall health.
Doing this meditation practice next to a large tree may further increase the electron flow coming from the Earth. This is because trees naturally increase the upward flow of energy. That is why this book cover is a big tree in the sunrise.
Yoga
An extension of meditation practice is the system of yoga. This involves physical poses, known as asanas, breathing practices called pranayama, and meditation. The asanas are held for an extended time. The design of asanas is to both stretch and strengthen parts of the body, depending on the pose. Asanas are beneficial for meditation because they prepare the body to sit comfortably for a longer time in traditional meditation postures.
Pranayama is an essential part of yoga practice because pranayama oxygenates the body and helps create overall balance. There are various pranayama techniques. Each involves maintaining awareness and controlling breath in specific ways.
Yoga also involves other lifestyle changes, such as yamas and niyamas. The yamas, which translate to restraints, are non-violence, non-possessiveness, truthfulness, moderation, and non-stealing. The niyamas, which translate to observations, are self-purification, self-discipline, self-study, self-surrender, and contentment. Both yamas and niyamas help organize life and reduce the psychological stress that comes from unnecessary conflicts.
The reason yamas and niyamas have this effect is many conflicts in life emerge from attitudes and choices, which these rules help change. As mentioned, reducing stress lowers inflammation and improves many different health conditions affected by inflammation.
Nonetheless, yoga without consideration of niyamas and yamas still has multiple positive health effects. Research found yoga practice, consisting of asanas, pranayama, and meditation, led to a significant reduction of oxidative stress, and improved better antioxidant status (768). Other research looking at the combination of asanas, pranayama, and meditation saw improvements in total antioxidant status and increased activity of important enzymes that help to control reactive oxygen species (769). The same study also found carbon dioxide elimination and peripheral oxygen saturation increased. In contrast, none of these changes occurred in the control group (769).
Another research study examining the effects of asanas, pranayama, and meditation found improvement in total antioxidant status and glutathione levels compared to the control group (770). Research also found yoga practice reduced cortisol (771). Yoga may even reduce blood glucose levels (772). Also, specific breathing practices were found to improve inflammatory cytokine markers in the saliva of participants (773).
The positive effects of consistent yoga practice may result from the combination of improved oxygenation because of the breathing exercises, increased electron flow through stretched fascia, and reduced psychological stress. The benefit of breathing in yoga brings up the importance of getting good oxygen supply in the body.
Hyperbaric
One way to increase oxygen supply is hyperbaric oxygen therapy. Correctly used hyperbaric therapy oxygenated the body like aerobic exercise and breathing deeply. The increased oxygen stimulates brain blood flow and affects how well the body removes damaged neurons. Increased oxygen supply also improves metabolism and antioxidant enzyme activity.
Amazingly, research found hyperbaric oxygen treatment associated with improvements in the overall functioning, receptive language, social interactions, and eye contact in ASD children (774). Research also notes hyperbaric oxygen therapy mobilized stem cells, which assist in the recovery from neurodegenerative diseases (775). Other researchers, studying rats, noticed that hyperbaric oxygen improved neurological recovery and increased antioxidant enzyme activity (776).
In contrast, conditions of diminished oxygen, known as hypoxia, are associated with increased inflammation (777). Hyperbaric oxygen can improve this condition and reduce inflammation from the lack of oxygenation.
Another benefit of hyperbaric therapy is that sleep may improve. A study found hyperbaric oxygen improved the sleep of ASD children and was good at reducing family stress (778).
However, hyperbaric oxygen therapy can be dangerous. If using this therapy, then the percentage of oxygen and oxygen pressure are critical variables that require careful consideration. Too much oxygen worsens oxidative stress, which leads to negative health outcomes. Instead, if the hyperbaric treatment is kept at less than 2.0 atm, then the therapy may reduce oxidative stress (779).
As is true for many areas of health, remember balance is critical because too much of a helpful intervention can be harmful. A much safer approach is to use natural deep breathing exercises to improve oxygen supply in the body.
Oxytocin
Oxytocin supplementation is another treatment that may help. Oxytocin supplementation enhanced brain function in ASD children (780). There is also an association between oxytocin and better social interactions, as well as feelings of trust in ASD people (781). In addition, oxytocin decreased inflammatory activation in men, potentially by altering the cholinergic anti-inflammatory pathway (782).
Supplementing oxytocin should only enter consideration after the multiple other methods mentioned throughout this book have already been used for enough time. This is because the body may limit oxytocin for a specific reason related to inflammation. In general, a natural approach to health has fewer side effects, is easier, less expensive, and often has better results.
Temperature
Temperature also affects inflammation. When exposed to higher temperatures, the body can activate various heat shock proteins. The activation of these proteins increases antioxidant enzyme activities. For example, heat shock protein 70 affects many glutathione-related enzymes (783).
Some of the benefits of saunas are because of heat shock proteins. There is an association between frequent sauna bathing and reduced risk of cardiovascular heart disease and all-cause mortality (784). Researchers also found sauna bathing inversely related to dementia and Alzheimer’s disease (785).
Fever leads to the production of more heat shock proteins (HSPs), which are “critical for cellular survival during stress (786). Interestingly, some researchers noticed ASD patients with fever recorded less irritability, stereotypy, and inappropriate speech (787). The activation of these proteins is potentially the reason for the association between fever and an improvement of ASD symptoms.
However, research found glutathione depletion inhibited heat shock protein activation in guinea pig cells (788). This makes sense, given that the benefits related to heat shock proteins are mostly because they activate the antioxidant defenses.
Therefore, heat therapy is not good for someone already depleted of antioxidant defenses and in a weakened state of health. If used too soon, then heat therapy may be too strong and cause negative health effects for many ASD people. Likely, many people first need to experience some health improvements before using heat therapy.
Cold therapy also has benefits. Cold exposure strongly activates PGC-1alpha (789). Activation of PGC-1alpha was discussed before regarding the many benefits of exercise. Taking a cold shower after exercise can further increase effects of PGC-1alpha. Various other forms of cold stress have benefits, including immune system improvement (790).
Interestingly, gender impacts the effects of cold therapy. For example, men had more shivering thermogenesis in acute cold stress, whereas women had a more insulative response (791). The same study also found men had a more significant immune response to the cold stress (791).
However, like heat therapy, cold therapy causes negative health effects when the therapy is excessive. Therefore, using cold therapy requires caution. Being in a stronger state of health before using temperature-based therapies is important. Having the supervision of a skilled medical professional is a safety requirement because of possible negative effects associated with temperature therapies.
Widespread Application
Many of the treatments mentioned in this chapter reduce inflammation, which helps improve neuron connections. When combined with sensory enrichment and multiple forms of mental training, then there will be even more improvements in the organization and connectivity of the neuron network. A reduction of inflammation, combined with improved connections between neurons, will reduce many challenging health symptoms in most ASD people.
Nutrition, primarily discussed in Chapter 7, is the most critical lifestyle factor to change to reduce inflammation. Tracking food intake and micronutrient requirements is one of the best ways to improve overall health. Rereading and following Chapter 7 will lead to health benefits.
Importantly, using many of these ideas in this book may also create great improvements for many different health conditions, since so many of these conditions are strongly affected by inflammation.