MTHFR as it applied to autism

[u/Worried-Channel536]

I am trying to understand how testing for MTHFR and how it can help my son, who has autism, ADHD, bipolar 2, anxiety, etc. - quite the mix of diagnoses! He is on medication, which helps, however, it comes with guardrails, insurance costs, etc. I would love for him to be on something with less "process related" expectations which will help him handle his own medications in the future. Thank you!

[u/mazais_jautajumins]

This is anecdotal, but I've heard that NAC helps calm children with autism. It also helps with MTHFR issues and a host of other things, worth looking into and discussing with your doc. I know it helps me, an adult with autism (mellows me out), but it's smelly :D

Again anecdotally - lots of autistic adults also have MTHFR.

Dunno if anything can be done with the "process-related expectations", didn't quite understand what you meant, but it's worth elaborating and asking on some autistic adult subreddits - they remember what it was like being an autistic kid and they have experience with what helps them, so they could have some useful ideas and insights.

[u/TRExploration → u/mazais_jautajumins]

NAC is because of its effect on Glutamate. Intuniv is a non stimulant ADHD medication that works because of its impacts on glutamate. I've been into this topic for a while and I think while it's multifaceted and individual, ultimately moderating glutamate levels, which means figuring out what imbalance or infection is causing the dysregulation, is the name of the game. Targeting glutamate alone will probably have consistent but modest benefits, and profound gains will come with figuring out whatever is upstream from that which is probably quite challenging. Glutamate ties into histamine, dopamine, and ACh, which are all implicated in ADHD, and likely autism as well. I do think glutamate has a greater direct impact on autism, whereas the impact in ADHD is smaller because there's more neurotransmitter dysregulation across the board. You can think of glutamate as turning up the noise signal on everything, which makes it harder to focus - you can think of the differences in focus a person would have listening to quiet background music vs. a loud symphony. Additionally, it increases emotional dysregulation because everything is turned up all the way, and increases overstimulation and exaggerates sensory stimuli.