June 6, 2024 • 43 mins
SHOW NOTES
Dr. Richard G. Boles is a medical geneticist and pediatrician who specializes in mitochondrial medicine, functional disease, and autism spectrum disorders.
His expertise stems from decades of both clinical work and research at a major academic center as well as from his most recent experience in cutting-edge biotechnology and genomics. He uses an innovative and integrative approach in both diagnosis and treatment to best serve his patients.
Dr. Boles leads the NeuroGenomics program at NeurAbilities.
Neurogenomics can help to unravel the biological causes and contributions for many diseases and disorders, as well as provide important information for changing clinical management.
Dr. Boles recently shared his expertise at the Akhil Autism Foundation Ascend Annual Summit, in a presentation called Genetic Testing in Autism Results in a Precise Diagnosis and Individualized Treatment Options in Most Cases. You can find the link to that presentation in the show notes and view Dr. Boles’ entire presentation there. Today he breaks it down into more of a Q&A discussion.
Summary
Brett and Richard discussed the evolution of genetics, its impact on medical diagnosis and treatment, and the complex interplay between genetics and the environment in the development of conditions such as autism, diabetes, and asthma. They also explored the potential of using specific pathways to address neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism and the benefits of a supplement to aid brain recovery. The conversation ended with a discussion on the importance of omega-3 fatty acids and potential side effects of a supplement aimed at improving mental function.
LINKS
Dr. Richard Boles’ Presentation for Akhil Autism Foundation (2024)
https://youtu.be/WmGL4RxZmRs?si=8vx1TaJiBx6LSkqt
NeuroNeeds - https://www.neuroneeds.com/
Contact Dr. Boles - drboles@molecularmito.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Brett (00:08):
Welcome to the Akhil Autism Foundation podcast,
providing practical andscience-based solutions for
families dealing with autism.
Foundation founder andexecutive director, Manisha Lad
is a nutrition consultant andmother of an only son recovering
from autism.
Alad is a nutrition consultantand mother of an only son
recovering from autism.
He inspired her to not onlystart the Akil Autism Foundation
(00:29):
, but he transformed her tobecome a holistic health coach
and autism advocate.
Akhil's foundation was formedto educate, treat research and
support autism.
Through her coaching sessions,she shares their journey and
empowers parents who arestruggling with all aspects of
autism, including emotionalhardships related to this
condition.
The following program is foreducational purposes only and is
(00:53):
not intended to be a substitutefor professional medical advice
or diagnose or treat for autismcondition.
Please do not apply any of thisinformation without first
speaking to your physician.
And now on to our show.
Dr Richard G.
(01:19):
Boles is a medical geneticistand a pediatrician who
specializes in mitochondrialmedicine, functional disease and
autism spectrum disorders.
His expertise stems fromdecades of both clinical work
and research at a major academiccenter, as well as from his
most recent experience incutting-edge biotechnology and
genomics.
He uses an innovative andintegrative approach in both
(01:43):
diagnosis and treatment to bestserve his patients.
Dr Boles leads theNeurogenomics program at
NeurAbilities.
Neurogenomics can help tounravel the biological causes
and contributions for manydiseases and disorders, as well
as provide important informationfor changing clinical
management.
Dr Boles recently shared hisexpertise at the Akhil Autism
(02:05):
Foundation Ascend Annual Summitin a presentation called Genetic
Testing in Autism Results in aPrecise Diagnosis and
Individualized Treatment Optionsin Most Cases.
You can find the link to thatpresentation in the show notes
and view Dr Boles' entirepresentation there Today.
He breaks it down into more ofa Q&A discussion.
You'll want to lean in close soyou don't miss a thing.
(02:27):
Come on in.
Dr Boles, thank you so much forbeing here on the Akhil Autism
Foundation podcast.
We are very excited to hearwhat you have to tell us,
because so much has changed inthe world in the last few years
(02:48):
and we have a lot to learn.
So thank you for being here.
Dr. Richard Boles (02:52):
Well, thank you for inviting me.
We really appreciate it.
Brett (02:55):
Tell us a bit about your background, how you came to be a
medical geneticist and wherethat has led you.
Dr. Richard Boles (03:01):
Well, I started off as a pediatrician.
I love to work with kids I havefour of my own and I always
liked genetics because it'sreally the foundation of biology
, it's a foundation of health,it's the foundation of disease,
and I felt that I can do abetter job of really figuring
out what's going on with mypatients and how to help them if
(03:21):
I understood it better with mypatients and how to help them.
Brett (03:26):
if I understood it better , wonderful.
And did you study genetics inschool?
Or how did you get after youwere a pediatrician?
How did that lead to where youare now?
Dr. Richard Boles (03:34):
I went back to.
I went to Yale to do a secondresidency in genetics and
metabolism.
Brett (03:40):
Yeah, when would that have been?
And?
Dr. Richard Boles (03:44):
how have things changed?
Oh, that's going to really dateme Okay 1991 for 93.
Brett (03:49):
Okay, yeah, well, that shows you've got some experience
in this field.
Now I have, yes, and has a lotchanged since you first started
studying genetics.
Dr. Richard Boles (04:05):
Oh, it's dramatically different.
I mean the field is completelydifferent At the beginning and
we were diagnosing about 10% ofthe kids that we saw with an
actual diagnosis, not just adescription.
Now I can diagnose more thanthree quarters.
I mean it's made a hugedifference.
The amount of information thatwe have, the technology not just
to be able to make diagnosisbut to treat it's dramatically
(04:28):
improved.
Brett (04:28):
Wow, this is a very it's kind of a behind-the-scenes
thing for most of us.
I don't understand how geneticswork, so is it through a blood
test?
How do you test somebody'sgenetics?
What's the process like?
Dr. Richard Boles (04:42):
Well, I do whole genome sequencing.
I work with a laboratory,variantics, which I think is the
best one.
It's in the Boston area.
I have no conflict of interestwith them, I just think they're
the best in the world.
They take a saliva sample or itcan be assisted saliva sample
for a child that won't spit in atube.
It's sent by regular mailbecause saliva is on envelopes
all the time.
(05:02):
So saliva can be sent byregular mail and it's sent.
And they sequence thechromosomes from end to end, the
whole thing, all 3 billionnucleotides of all the
chromosomes plus themitochondrial DNA.
It's sent to me on the internet.
I have access to the back endof the computer, so I have the
exact entire sequence.
Brett (05:22):
Sounds like a very simple way to get a lot of complex
results.
Dr. Richard Boles (05:26):
Well it's terabytes of information.
Yes, the amount of informationin a DNA sequence is
extraordinary.
Brett (05:33):
And how long does it take to get back results and start
working on treatment?
Dr. Richard Boles (05:39):
It varies.
I mean it used to be a year,six months and then it got down
to as little as two months.
Now it's back more like fourmonths there's really.
It depends on how busy thelaboratory is at a time and it
depends, unfortunately, on howquickly insurance approves it.
They often will deny it a fewtimes just to do so, but almost
(06:02):
all of my patients get approved,particularly with autism.
It's rare now to have a childthat will not get approved for
sequencing when they have autism.
Brett (06:13):
Interesting.
So besides autism, what elseare you testing for?
Dr. Richard Boles (06:16):
Well, when you have a whole genome sequence
, you have it all right.
You have the entire geneticcode, the whole thing.
I could do anything with it,but I mean, I feel like I do too
many things already.
So I have one focus onneurodevelopmental disorders
autism, adhd, intellectualdisability, epilepsy, et cetera.
So if it doesn't quite on thespectrum, it doesn't matter,
(06:38):
it's a neurodevelopmentaldisorder, it's really the same
genes.
And then I have another focusthat's also 50% on functional
disorders, like on chronicfatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia,
irritable bowel, migraine,cyclic vomiting syndrome and
that sort of thing.
And some of you in the audiencewill say well, my family has
both.
That's how I got into it.
(06:59):
I was doing functional diseasesnow for more than 30 years.
I saw kids with autism, butthey came to me and I was just
happy to be the geneticist.
I was not somebody that peoplewould see because of autism.
I was a chondrial guy and I dida lot of functional disease.
But then I realized that I wasdoing a lot of cyclopharmacy
syndrome and it seemed likeevery one of their brothers had
(07:21):
ADHD or autism.
And I realized, you know, thesegenes are the same.
There's a lot of overlap, and soI got more and more involved in
autism.
And well, here I am.
For the last 10 years I've beenfocusing on autism.
That's my number one focusWonderful.
Brett (07:36):
You gave a presentation a little while back for the Akil
Autism Foundation that we'regoing to refer to and make a
link for in this program, and sowe're not going to ask you to
reinvent the whole presentationagain, but I would love it if
you would give kind of a summaryof that and take it wherever
you would, and I just want tolet our parents know that you
(07:56):
offer a lot of hope and a lot ofinsight and wisdom and
actionable items to do,especially through your neuro
needs.
So stay tuned for that too I'mgoing to ask you more about.
For the parents, I'm going toask Dr Bowles more about neuro
needs and how we can get accessto those products.
Dr. Richard Boles (08:13):
Well, first of all, I do recommend that
people watch that, because ithas the slides in it with the
data and so you can see how thenames are spelled and everything
.
And then, if people really wantthe proof of that, they can see
how the names are spelled andeverything.
And then, if people really wantthe proof of that, they can go
to the paper that was publishedin January, which is easy to
find.
If you just look at my NameBulls RG, autism papers, you can
(08:35):
do that on PubMed and it'llcome up on top, yeah, and, or
one of the top ones.
And I mean to put it really ina nutshell we looked at 50 kids
with autism.
They all had other things aswell.
We took anyone who made thediagnosis of autism, the last 50
that I had seen.
So they were seen over like ayear and a half period of time.
(08:56):
That got trio whole genomesequencing at variantic.
So trio includes the child,which can be an adult, the
patient and the biologicalparents.
Okay, and so, by the way, triosequencing has come down
dramatically now.
It's the same price asSingleton or just sequencing the
child now.
Wow, so we can get to thatlater.
(09:18):
Yeah, $1,800 if you have noinsurance to do sequencing the
whole gentleman, all three ofthem.
That's amazing so really, Inever thought it would come down
that far.
We're living in the future.
Yeah, I know, incredible.
You think about how muchinformation you get from that
and insurance will usually payfor it.
You don't have to pay that too,but if you're outside of this
(09:39):
country you don't have medicalinsurance that will pay for that
sort of thing.
It's $1,800 to sequence thewhole genome in all three of you
.
Wow, so yeah, it's really weare in the future.
It's amazing what we can do now.
That's exciting.
Anyway, I looked at the wholegenome in those patients and I
was looking for diagnoses Likefirst of all, everything is
(10:00):
genetic and everything isenvironmental.
That's the truth about autism.
Well, everything is genetic andeverything's environmental.
That's the truth about autism.
That's the truth about diabetesor Alzheimer's or asthma or
high blood pressure, it doesn'tmatter what it is Epilepsy, adhd
everything is genetic andusually more than one gene.
And everything is environmentaland usually more than one
environmental insult.
But, having said that, I'mlooking for the principal
(10:24):
genetic factor because, allright, our environment is full
of toxins and there's a lot ofdifferent things there, yeah,
and they are very important inthis, and I know that they're
triggering our kids and probablycausing these mutations as well
, but there's a reason why thatkid got autism and not the next
one.
They are genetically vulnerableversus genetically protected.
(10:47):
If I can figure out the geneticvulnerability, then I hopefully
can figure out how to treatthem to make them less
vulnerable.
That's what I do.
I find their vulnerabilitiesand their genetic
vulnerabilities.
I'm a geneticist.
You go to a cardiologist, youget an EKG, right.
You go to me, you get genomesequencing, okay.
So I look for the geneticvulnerabilities and so I can
(11:07):
treat that.
That doesn't in any way dismissthe fact that there are
environmental insults that needto be looked at too.
But I'm the geneticist, okay.
So in whole genome sequencingtrios I was able to make a
diagnosis.
I mean, this is the geneticpredisposition of disease in 68%
of them.
So 34 out of 50.
(11:28):
So more than two thirds.
Yes, we have a diagnosis on.
That's much higher than it wasbefore.
20% of those from Mendelianautosomal, dominant autosomal,
recessive X-linked sequencevariants that were inherited
from one or both parents.
Okay, that's what other studieshave shown.
Yeah, 50% were de novo.
(11:49):
De novo in Latin just means new.
They're mutations, that's inthe child.
Again, child can be any age,but they're absent in the
parents and that's the mainreason we need the parental DNA.
To look on a computer and lookat free building nucleotides and
see what's in the child and notin both parents.
Brett (12:07):
And that's almost always the case.
Dr. Richard Boles (12:09):
Well, I mean, this study is the first one in
the world to really show it atthat level.
And to look at the clinical,there is another study earlier
that did show de novo's as beinghigher, and I'm working with a
follow-up study with Dr RichardFry in which we're looking at
100 of his patients.
I've already looked at 85 ofthose.
I'm not going to talk too muchabout that.
(12:30):
That paper is going to come out, hopefully, later this year.
But we're seeing the same thing, maybe even a little more.
So most of the mutations thatwe're finding do not come from
the parents or de novo, which iswhat a lot of people are saying
.
Is that, well, there's nobodywith autism in my family.
It must be environmental.
Well, it probably was theenvironmental insult that caused
the mutation that happened andthe other environmental insults
(12:55):
which make that mutation worse,I see.
So, yes, it is Everything'sgenetic and everything's
environmental.
Those people that say they onlywant to look at environment are
missing a huge part of thepuzzle.
Those people and there are alot of them, particularly in the
ivory towers, like where Itrained that say it's all
genetic.
They're missing a lot ofproblems too, because the
(13:16):
environment needs to be dealtwith.
Yes, you really need to look atthe whole thing.
So, anyway, what I showed isthat I can find the diagnosis in
most of them and that most ofthose diagnoses are de novo.
They're mutations which aren'tin either parent.
But in addition, I foundvariants that are inherited,
usually from both parents, thatalso affect their modifiers,
(13:41):
because the primary mutation canpush towards intellectual
disability or autism or migraineor schizophrenia or autism or
ADHD.
I mean it can push in differentdirections.
Modifying ones tend to pushtowards autism and those are
often the ones that are moretreatable.
So I'm not only looking for theprimary diagnostic variant, but
(14:07):
I'm also looking for what Icall the modifying variants as
well, because more variantsmeans more opportunities to
treat.
Brett (14:15):
Through what you've offered through NeuroNeeds.
Dr. Richard Boles (14:18):
Well, NeuroNeeds is a company that I
helped put together.
I'm one of the three partnersto make products for that.
But one of the things is I meanit's okay, you have a diagnosis
, right, but what does that meanfor the child?
Can you treat it?
Well, yes, 75% of the time Imade a change based upon the
(14:39):
genetics.
Now, almost all of those werealready on supplements, and most
of those were on neuro-needsupplements because I'd seen
them before.
Brett (14:48):
Yes, yes.
Dr. Richard Boles (14:48):
The change that I saw in the genetics were
maybe to increase thesupplements or to add something
else add potassium, double themagnesium, add NAC or something
like that.
Yeah, sometimes it was alaboratory test, but those were
actually pretty real, prettyrare.
Yeah, occasionally it wasreferral to another specialist,
almost always immunology, butthat was only 16% of the time I
(15:10):
referred to any otherspecialists.
It was really the vast majorityof the interventions were drugs
, in 48% and supplements in 60%.
So in 66% I made a therapeuticintervention.
Did it make a difference or not?
I believe in about half of themit made a significant
(15:32):
difference.
It's hard to say they're seeingother doctors, many things are
being tried but I believe frommy data that it's showing that
about half the cases significantimprovement was made based upon
the genetics.
Brett (15:45):
I love that you have all this data on it because it
really gives you real viablesolutions that otherwise it
feels like you would just beguessing.
It's wonderful.
Dr. Richard Boles (15:58):
Well, you can .
I mean, not everyone can getgenetic testing, particularly
throughout the world.
The vast majority of peoplecan't.
One of the things is that thesenumbers come from me taking a
look at the back end of thecomputer and looking at the
entire DNA sequence myself, thelaboratory, somewhere on the
laboratory report.
The answer was on 28% of them.
(16:19):
But I went from 28% to 68%.
Wow, so the difference is 40%.
What did I do in those 40% tomake a diagnosis that wasn't on
the lab report?
They were new diagnosis, almostall of them.
They were the first one in theworld to ever been described in
a paper.
There might have been otherones that have been seen by
(16:39):
sequence throughout the world,but because there are thousands
of genes that mutations cancause autism, or I could say are
the genetic predispositiontowards autism, and we're still
finding them all the time Inthose 50 patients the primary
diagnosis was different in everysingle one.
(17:00):
Wow, well, modifying genes tendto be the similar modifying
genes I see over and over again,particularly cation channels
that we'll get to mitochondrialgenes, those you know, those are
modifiers that happen a lot.
But the primary diagnosis wasalways different and and about
half the time I made a diagnosis.
That primary diagnosis was notin the.
(17:20):
That was not anywhere in theliterature.
No one had described it before.
How do you know?
How do you know it's thediagnosis?
That's where I spoke about inthat hour and that's what's in
the paper.
I actually have statistics,p-values, odds, ratios, all of
that.
The proof is there.
There's not time to go overthat here.
Brett (17:40):
Yeah, yeah, and I'm glad you're covering what you are
here so that they can goreference that later.
Yeah, wonderful, and I'm gladyou're covering what you are
here so that they can goreference that later.
Yeah, wonderful.
So are there seven pathwaysyou're going to share about.
Dr. Richard Boles (17:50):
Yeah, I mean in those 50 patients there were
seven major pathways.
There's a few other pathwayswhich I've seen in many other
patients which didn't show up somuch in those 50.
So I mean the major treatablepathways are cation channels,
mitochondria, amino acids andneurotransmission.
Okay, cation channels, what arethose?
(18:11):
An ion is the salt.
It has a positive charge.
Cations are positive.
The main cations are potassium,sodium, calcium, magnesium.
So these are cation channels.
Mostly they were sodium and orcalcium channels.
Generally they leak, which meanswell, maybe they open too much
(18:32):
or maybe they don't, they opentoo long or maybe they never
quite close, but they let toomuch cation in.
The cation is positivelycharged and it caught when the
cells, positively charged, isactivated.
It does this thing Nervousimpulses, muscles twitch glands,
secrete hormones, et cetera.
Cell is active.
You leak, you're really, reallyactive.
(18:57):
The cell is overactive and soyou get cellular hyper activity.
Cellular hyperactivity does manythings.
First of all, the cells docrazy things because they're
over activated.
Yeah, it said, had pain signalsor fatigue signals or vomiting,
or it can cause confusion inthe brain, causing ADHD or
autism.
The other thing is that thecation channels do is that they
deplete your energy stores.
(19:17):
Number one the cell isenergized, so it needs more
energy.
But number two, pumping thosecations back out is very energy
dependent.
It takes a lot of ATP or energyto pump them back out.
So you have a cell which needsmore energy because it's
hyperactive and it has lessenergy because it's using up its
energy to pump it again.
Think like a dam with a leak init.
(19:38):
Pumps take a lot of energy topump it back.
You're running out of energypretty quickly, yeah.
Brett (19:43):
Is this separate from neurotransmitters and inhibitory
?
Dr. Richard Boles (19:47):
Well, the cation channels allow the cell
to fire.
They make the cell positivelycharged so that it's activated,
yeah.
When the activation thenspreads to the end of the cell,
it gets to the synapse, becausethe cells are not really
touching.
There's that gap, right, thesynapse, right, yes, yeah, and
then you release aneurotransmitter to then go to
(20:09):
the next cell and then that onefires.
So cations are necessary forthe impulse to go down a neuron,
but to go across the synapse ofthe next neuron, you have
neurotransmitters, and that'sanother one that's highly
treatable.
I see, um, and in autism theexcitatory neurotransmitters are
higher than the inhibitorytransmitters.
(20:29):
Everyone in this audience knowsthat right but you're saying
they're always firing hyperexcited.
What?
What happens when your child'sneurons are hyper excitable?
Well, they have stray thoughtsand emotions and they can't
concentrate and they'rehyperactive and they can't sleep
.
And they're hyperactive andthey can't sleep and you get
migraine, maybe even seizures.
I mean, these arehyperactivities.
(20:50):
Why do you have cellularhyperactivity?
A lot of people were saying well, my kid has a mitochondrial
problem, they have no energy.
So why does he have so muchenergy?
That's because the inhibitoryneurons require more energy.
Think about a toddler in acookie jar.
(21:11):
Okay, okay, dad, I want acookie.
No, dad, I want a cookie.
No, I want a cookie.
No, I want a cookie.
No, I want a cookie.
Okay, son, that cookie is gone.
Okay, the dad has to say no, no, no, no, no all the time.
Once he says yes, once thatcookie is gone, the inhibitory
nerves are constantly firing.
If they run out of energy, theexcitatory nerve will fire.
The inhibitory nerves are whatwe call tonic.
They're always on.
The excitatory nerve only fireswhen it sends an impulse.
(21:33):
So when you run out of energy,the inhibitory nerves go first
and you have an overexcitation.
So many of the treatments areinvolved in trying to help the
inhibitory neurotransmitters,gaba and serotonin.
That is interesting.
I didn't talk that much aboutthe energy metabolism.
(21:53):
I talked about how the cationsare a problem.
I spoke about how energydeficiency can cause
neurotransmitter imbalance.
But there's also another thingis that a lot of people have
mutations in genes that affectenergy metabolism as well.
So it's not only on the demandside they use energy too much,
(22:14):
but it's on the supply side.
They can't make enough.
And maybe they make enough fornormal situations, but not a
situation that's in stress.
Yeah, it's high energy demands,and mitochondrial dysfunction,
or even mitochondrial disease insome cases, is another major
genetic pathway I see in autism,which is treatable.
Brett (22:33):
Yeah, that's encouraging too.
Manisha, in particular, wascurious about what we ended up
talking about off-targetfindings.
If a parent or grandparent hascancer or diabetes, how does
that translate to knowing aboutthe child?
Dr. Richard Boles (22:48):
Well, I mean, I have whole genome, so I have
everything in front of me.
And while I'm concentrated onfinding on target, why does this
child have what he has and whatcan I can do about it?
Sometimes something is prettyglaringly obvious in front of me
.
Here's a mutation in a genethat will cause disease.
If it's viable that means itlooks real and if it actually
(23:09):
will do something, I would liketo tell the family what to do to
mitigate that.
That's what we call off-targetfindings.
99% of my families have wantedoff-target findings.
In fact, at least one girl'slife was saved by an off-target
finding and several others werehelped.
An off-target finding could bethat there's an increased cancer
risk in the family.
I've seen that before.
(23:30):
I saw it in a family that agrandfather had died of colon
cancer.
In the child and in one of theparents had the same gene, and
well, they didn't even know thatabout the grandfather, but I'm
sure it was the same one.
Now everyone in the familyneeds colonoscopies.
That's something they did notwant to hear.
But now that they know that itcan save a life, or maybe even
more than one life, Somewhere inthe 40s or so those people get
(23:54):
colon cancer.
So you want to start searching,like at 30 or something.
Wow, so that is actually badnews.
Off target, it was 4% in thestudy.
I don't want to scare peopleout.
Two out of the 50 people got badnews off target.
One of them I just told youabout.
The other one found out theyhad an Ehlers-Danlos type gene
(24:14):
that could be a problem.
We did all the tests and foundit wasn't a problem.
It was bad news because theygot upset and had to do a bunch
of MRIs and everything.
Yes, Out of 50 people, that wasit.
I mean, nothing else was badnews.
They either knew about itbefore or it was something like
oh, there's a gene for hypercholesterol.
Yep, Everyone in my family hasthat.
I know that.
Well, now you can talk to thecardiologist and know what
(24:36):
treatment because you know whatgene it is.
That's wonderful.
That really bad news.
It's just kind of you know.
But anyway, off-target findingsone in five was given
off-target findings.
Now, if I went for the wholegentleman look for every little
problem, I'm sure I could find alot in everyone, but that's not
what I do.
Brett (24:53):
Yeah yeah.
Wow, that's interesting.
That's a little extra bang foryour buck too, for doing the.
Dr. Richard Boles (24:59):
Right, I mean , at least you know there's
nothing really obvious in there.
Brett (25:02):
That's great.
Yeah, that could be really likeyou said, out of 50 people.
That could be really a reliefin the long run.
Dr. Richard Boles (25:09):
So that's good, good news yeah no, a lot
of families are relief youdidn't find anything else at all
and they feel better that theygot good, oh yeah.
Brett (25:15):
A sigh of relief.
Dr. Richard Boles (25:17):
Well, I mean I told them something usually,
but I mean, almost everybody hassomething positive.
I would say about 10% of thefamilies that I do this on, I
didn't find anything at all, soI sent it to immunology for that
.
But about 90% of the time Ifound things that were important
, relevant to the situation.
That's good.
And, like I said, about 68% ofthe time 66% of the time I found
(25:42):
things that then led directlyto treatment, and not
necessarily years later.
The other thing that the genomecan give you is an investment
in the future.
What it gives you is that yourwhole DNA is on the computer
thing and if something comes uplater, it can be useful.
Like one of the patients I have,she had cyclic vomiting
syndrome that's one of thethings I do and then a couple of
(26:04):
years later she developed athyroid cancer.
Well, the cancer specialistwanted the genetic sequence and
it was right there already.
They can use it immediately.
By the way, they took the tumorout and she's doing great
Wonderful Cyclic vomiting gonetoo.
But you know these are thingsthat can be helpful.
Right that other doctors canalso use this information to
(26:25):
help, for you know what's needed.
It's an investment in thefuture.
That's good, that's really good.
Brett (26:31):
And it's all good news, encouraging.
So how do these pathways fitinto the neuro needs?
Dr. Richard Boles (26:37):
Well, I had worked at Cortagen and I was the
medical director and had seenliterally like a thousand kids
with autism with theirsequencing.
Back then we were only doingabout a thousand genes or to
three thousand genes.
Now we're doing all twentythree thousand genes and I've
done multiple hundreds on thatthat I've looked at personally.
So the genes that can causeautism, yeah, there's thousands
(27:03):
of them, several hundred thatare proven and probably at least
a thousand or more.
But there's a thousanddifferent ways an autistic kid
can present.
They're all different, they'reall unique, but there's not that
many pathways in the middle.
Genes don't cause disease ontheir own.
Genes cause disturbances andcell homeostasis.
(27:23):
They take things out of balanceand those are in particular
pathways and those pathways thenlead to disease.
So it depends on how.
In that one study there wereseven pathways and five of them
are treatable and six of themactually were treatable in some
cases and four of them arehighly treatable.
(27:44):
Two of them were semi-treatabledepending on the situation, one
of them not.
If you go beyond that study andyou look, okay, what other
pathways were there in otherpatients?
There are other pathways likeneuroinflammation and
methylation, cytoskeleton andcell migration.
There are other pathwaysinvolved.
But when you look at it all andthere's maybe you know 10 or so
(28:04):
pathways that are instrumentalinto autism and half of those
pathways are treatable, and Itook all of the treatments for
all of those pathways and Istuck them into one jar.
That's basically what I did,and Spectrum Needs is a powder
form.
It comes in lemon or berry.
You can mix it in any beverage,you can put as much water or
(28:27):
smoothie or anything you want totaste, and it has 33 active
ingredients in it and they notonly hit all of those pathways
that are important inneurodevelopmental disease, but
it's also a very strong andhighly activated multivitamin,
multimineral with a lot ofantioxidants.
And I hit a lot of the minorpathways, like the creatine
(28:49):
transport pathway and thenitrogen oxygen synthase pathway
, which opens up the bloodvessels in the brain that some
people have them, other peopledon't, but I want to make sure
it's in there.
So it hits the major pathways,the minor pathways that your
child may or may not have umplus vitamins and minerals, and
so what it really is is youdon't need to take a
(29:09):
multivitamin on top of that.
It doubles as that.
Oh good, and it um, itaddresses that.
So I start my kids on that um,while I get the DNA, and this is
um, this is a uh, a dailysomething that you take twice a
day.
Yeah, a kid between 44 and 88pounds, 20 to 40 kilos, take two
(29:32):
scoops twice a day, two scoopsin the morning, two scoops in
the evening.
That one tub will last a month.
Younger kids will take smallerkids will take less.
Older kids or adults, if theywant to take it will take more.
It's by weight, it's on thelabel.
I see yes, yeah, they take ittwice a day and it takes a
couple of months two to threemonths to really kick in and
then six months to see full, youknow, even some recovery after
(29:56):
that, because you need to healthe brain and then the brain
needs to remodel and you need tolearn.
So it takes a while.
It's not going to be if DrMcCoy beamed down and said
here's the pill.
You're not going to suddenlyjump off the gurney and run
around, right, you're going toget better first.
Okay, so it takes a while, butit covers the basics and the
(30:19):
vast majority of the childrenimprove.
Some of them improvedramatically so that their
disease basically is gone.
Others have mild improvementand Some of them improve
dramatically so that theirdisease basically is gone.
Others have mild improvementand most of them are somewhere
in between those two extremes.
Brett (30:30):
And this doesn't take place of diet.
This is in addition to a gooddiet, correct?
Oh, of course.
Dr. Richard Boles (30:35):
I mean you can take all the supplement in
the world and not make up for agood diet, and you can eat the
best diet in the world and notgive the high amounts of some of
these that you can get in asupplement.
They're synergistic and they'reboth necessary.
You need good diet and you needgood supplementation.
Brett (30:51):
I see.
Dr. Richard Boles (30:52):
It's like diet and exercise One without
the other is just not doing it.
Brett (30:55):
Right right.
Dr. Richard Boles (30:56):
Not that one without the other isn't better
than neither right.
But it's still just not gettingthere.
Yeah, yeah, so you need both.
And for those that can swallow,and usually around 10 years of
age or so, I recommend to try totransfer over, if not earlier.
There's energy needs and itcomes in a capsule form and so
(31:18):
you would take the capsules inthe morning, depending on your
weight, and the capsules in theevening, and it has 40 active
ingredients and it's a littlebit more geared towards what an
adolescent or adult needs interms of dosing.
I see A little bit less of theB vitamins, a little bit more of
the carnitine and vitamin D,etc.
So it's more geared on what theneeds of that age group are.
(31:39):
But 90% of the two products areidentical.
It's just whether you canswallow or not.
Yeah, that's good.
The other things I make, becausethose are in a powder and you
know oil and water doesn't mix.
The oils don't mix with thepowders.
I've tried it.
I wanted one product that coulddo everything.
It didn't work.
Blood levels did not go up.
I also get blood levels tocheck that in my patients.
(31:59):
I get carnitine levels,magnesium levels, potassium
levels, coenzyme, q10 levels andvitamin D 25-hydroxy, q10
levels and vitamin D 25 hydroxy.
But anyway, at least I getthose.
But coenzyme Q10 and theomega-3 fatty acids are in oils
and they're not bioavailable.
When you mix them in powders,the blood levels don't go up,
(32:20):
hardly at all.
The vast majority of the CoQsthat you buy coenzyme Q10, are
worthless.
They're ubiquinone with anN-O-N-E.
If it says none at the end, youdon't want it and they usually
just say coenzyme Q10.
What you want is ubiquinol withan N-O-L at the end, usually
because that's more expensive.
It's hard to find in stores andusually people don't buy it
(32:42):
because it's twice as expensivebut it's five times more
bioavailable.
So that means a half times moreeconomical for the same amount,
right, so it makes no sense orwhatever, but people don't want
to pick up a $50 jar in a storeand I can understand that.
So anyway, not all ubiquinolsare the same.
Some of them are, most of themare in soy, some of them are in
(33:07):
limoline, which is the oil of,like lemon or orange peel.
The one that we private labelas Q needs are little capsules
and they have ubiquinol inlimoline and they're highly
reduced so that they're betterthan just the average one.
So I do recommend that and Iusually have adults on about 200
(33:29):
.
That's two of them in themorning and another two at night
, and adolescents are usuallytwo in the morning, one at night
and school-aged kids areusually one and one.
I mean, obviously, if you havelike a preschooler, you would
have to reduce the dose oranything, and then I get blood
levels and I can go up or downdepending on the blood level.
Quest Diagnostics does goodblood levels for CoQ.
(33:51):
You just have to make sure thatthey order the tubes ahead of
time and that they know whatthey're doing and they check the
computer and they do it right.
Brett (33:58):
Yes, yeah, and all these are you order directly from
NeuroNeeds or are you availablein stores?
Dr. Richard Boles (34:08):
Well, there are some stores and you can
certainly get it from some ofthe doctors that do it, but most
people order directly fromNeuroneeds.
It's just neuroneedscom, okay,and you can get it directly.
You don't need a doctor'sprescription or everything.
They're all natural compounds,they're all things that are in
food, but the amounts are higherthan you could get for eating
(34:29):
the entire salad bar.
Basically, yes, at least someof them Incredible.
The other one that I recommendis an omega-3.
Omega-3 means the double bondis at the third to the last
carbon.
So why is that omega?
Omega means the last letter,the Greek alphabet.
The omega-3s are criticallyimportant for brain growth and
for heart and the rest of thebody hair, skin, nails and a lot
(34:49):
of cosmetics and things.
We don't get a mega freeze.
Our cavemen, ancestors did, andcavewomen, because they picked
things off the dirt and they hadmold and fungus and all sorts
of things on there.
Those microorganisms make amega freeze, but the plants
really don't make very much andeverything's been washed and
polished and everything, andit's been.
(35:11):
You know, through factoryfarming and things, that we
don't get enough omega threes.
Now it's in plankton and thefish and the shrimp eat the
plankton.
But if you don't eat very muchseafood you're not getting
enough, and if you eat a lot ofseafood you're probably mercury
toxic.
So I mean, so most people getit from fish oil.
And fish oil is great if you'renot trying to get it to brain,
(35:34):
but it's triglyceride bound, itdoes not cross the blood-brain
barrier and the liver can onlyconvert a little bit.
So all the fish oil in theworld, liver still converts a
little bit.
You want it to get into brainfor neurodevelopmental disorders
or even for cyclic vomiting,which appears to be in the
brainstem.
The main thing on chronicfatigue.
You need to get across theblood-brain barrier.
(35:54):
It has to be phospholipid-bound.
That's normally you get fromkrill, like in shrimp.
Yes, if you get krill oil, itgoes directly across the
blood-brain barrier.
So I have a mega needs.
It's krill oil plus fish oilplus sunflower seed, derived
phosphatidylserine, which isalso good for blood.
So it's one product that hasfish, krill and sunflower seed
(36:16):
together.
It would be like threedifferent products otherwise.
Brett (36:20):
Yes, yeah.
So do you have any bundles?
Dr. Richard Boles (36:23):
Yes, I usually recommend that you take
the mitochondrial cocktailmultivitamin product.
That's either if you canswallow energy needs or if you
can't spectrum needs in eitherflavor.
So one of those plus the CoQ Qneeds, plus the omega-3 omega
needs.
So there's a brain bundle thathas the three of those and you
can choose whether you wantlemon or berry in the spectrum
(36:44):
needs or if you want energyneeds and then you get the Q
needs and the omega needs withit.
It's on the website If you justgo down to the bottom of the
cell tab or the buy tab, right,okay?
Brett (36:54):
So, potentially, how many ?
How many of these supplementswould a person be on a day?
Dr. Richard Boles (36:59):
Potentially, if they were trying to treat
everything.
It could be quite a lot becausethere's 40 active ingredients
and energy needs.
So I do recommend that you takefive capsules of energy needs
in the morning and five at nightTwo Q in the morning, two at
night, one omega in the morningand one at night.
So you're taking eight capsulesbut you're getting about 55 or
(37:19):
so active ingredients.
That's incredible.
I mean which you know.
Eight capsules is not 55, but Iknow a lot of people don't like
to take eight, but it's justthe amounts that are necessary
for healing.
Just one capsule isn't going todo it.
It just can't throw it into one.
But you don't start on five,you start on one twice a day,
work your way up.
Side effects are really rare.
(37:39):
I've never seen a severe sideeffect.
I've never seen a side effectthat didn't go away immediately
after stopping.
Okay, interesting.
Brett (37:45):
Okay.
Dr. Richard Boles (37:46):
That's good.
Their vitamins and minerals areover-the-counter.
The government considers themas generally recommended, as
safe they're correct okay, butthe two side effects that you
can get.
You can get nausea with anysupplement and this is no
exception.
If you take it with a meal,you'll get less nausea.
After a while your stomach getsused to it.
You don't need it anymore inmost people.
Then the other one is somepeople kind of over energize us
(38:15):
because you're kind of helpingtheir mind work and sometimes
sometimes these autistic kidscan be really good kids because
they have so much they don'thave enough energy to cause
trouble and when they becomemore normal kids they get into
normal trouble.
Brett (38:22):
Yes, yes.
Dr. Richard Boles (38:22):
Might be the problem.
Let them do their normal stuff.
But if there's a little bitover energized, move up a little
bit slower.
Some kids don't need the fullamount.
A half amount or so is goodenough.
And there's also anotherproduct called Calm Needs which
has many things in it that willhelp with the GABA and also with
the serotonin.
Okay, and so it doesn't sedate.
(38:46):
You can do a math test or youcan drive on it.
But it counteracts the positivething in those people that are
overly charged.
Most people don't take calmneeds because of that.
Most people take calm needssimply because they school
anxiety, test anxiety, socialanxiety.
The kids or adolescents or evenadults will take it in the
(39:06):
morning because they don't wantto meet their boss, they're a
little bit scared or something.
They'll take one or twocapsules.
It doesn't sedate them at all.
Like I said, you can drive, youcan do it, you can run a
meeting with PowerPoints andeverything on it.
It just makes you a little moremellow.
A lot of the teenagers say it'sa placebo, it doesn't do
anything, they don't feel anydifferent.
But their mothers say, you know, but he's not screaming anymore
(39:27):
.
Yeah, it's a little bit, youknow, a little soothing sort of
thing, kind of calms you down,you're not as easy to excite and
to get angry.
And then some people take it atnight.
It doesn't sedate at all, butwhat it does is that if they
ruminate for the day and they'reworried about what happened,
they can take one, just kind ofmellow out and go to sleep.
(39:53):
I was going to ask you aboutthat.
Okay, some people you can takeeither and some people will take
both.
But I see most of my patientswill take it in the morning or
maybe, you know, in theafternoon before homework.
They're getting all upset aboutthe homework.
They may take another dose, butyou know something like that,
the other products.
Like I said, it takes a fewmonths because the brain needs
to heal, calm needs.
You don't take it because youwant to get better three months
from now.
You take it because you want toget better 30 minutes from now.
It's like you can takeibuprofen.
It's something you do on themoment because you want it
(40:15):
better.
It'll be gone within 12 hoursor so.
Sure, yeah, yeah.
Brett (40:19):
Well, it all sounds safe and very accessible.
That's what I love about thistoo.
You don't have to do anythingsuper special.
Dr. Richard Boles (40:34):
So how can you get advantage if you can't
get sequence?
Well, I realize that noteveryone can afford to get the
sequencing, and have me take alook at it and everything.
Although it can say, even if itsaves a couple of emergency
room visits, it's a lot cheaper,but it's still not something
everyone in the world can do.
But the knowledge that we'regetting from the fact that so
many people are getting sequencecan help your children, even if
they're not sequenced, becauseof the pathways that I mentioned
Cation channels, mitochondria,neurotransmission those are the
(40:57):
main treatable ones.
But there's also amino acids,neuroinflammation, methylation.
These are all treatablepathways and they're all
treatable pathways which are inthe neuro needs.
So I guess the answer does goto NeuroNeeds and there are some
other brands out there.
But I really recommend that youget a combination product.
Take it twice a day, give it afew months and in the vast
(41:24):
majority of cases you will seeimprovement.
That's really encouraging.
Brett (41:28):
Wow, and you've mentioned already NeuroNeedscom.
Dr. Richard Boles (41:32):
I don't think I mentioned that, but
neuroneedscom all one word.
Brett (41:35):
Neuroneeds yes neuroneeds and also, how can people find
you?
Dr. Richard Boles (41:41):
I'm easy to find.
I'm at richardbowles atneuroneedscom.
Brett (41:46):
And that's Bowles B-O-L-E-S Right, and we'll put
that in the show notes as well,is there anything else we didn't
cover that you'd like to sharethat?
Dr. Richard Boles (41:55):
we should.
Well, if people are interestedin my looking at the sequence, I
suggest that they speak to Liz,and she's my coordinator and
she can help with the logisticsand the pricing and all that and
what you need to do, and heremail is a little bit complex,
but you're going to put that inthere as well, right?
I?
Brett (42:13):
will.
Yes, if you guys send it to us,I'll be sure to put it in there
Wonderful.
Well, dr Bowles, it's beenfascinating number one, but it's
also been a pleasure, andatreasure, having you here today
because of the work that you'redoing.
You took us back to the future.
I don't know how this works,but I really appreciate this and
(42:36):
we're so grateful that folkslike you are doing these studies
and can wrap their brain aroundthis and know that what you're
doing is really helping many,many families find treatable
solutions, especially for thoseon the spectrum right now, that
relate to what we're talkingabout today.
Thank you so much for beinghere.
Oh, you're welcome, all right,and we'd love to have you back
sometime if you're.
Oh, certainly, yeah, thank youAppreciate it.
Bye, okay, bye-bye.
What a mind-blowing concept andhope-filled conversation.
(43:05):
We are so grateful forpassionate doctors, researchers
and healthcare workers like DrBowles who are daily finding new
treatments and solutions for aworld desperate for answers in
the field of health.
Glad you could be with us.
Be sure to check out the shownotes for today's episode at
AkeelAutismFoundationorg or theAkeel Autism Podcast, wherever
you listen to your podcasts.
(43:26):
Thank you so much for listeningto the Akil Autism Foundation
podcast.
We hope you found it helpfuland inspiring and look forward
to seeing you here again soon.
Welcome to the Akhil Autism Foundation podcast,
providing practical andscience-based solutions for
families dealing with autism.
Foundation founder andexecutive director, Manisha Lad
is a nutrition consultant andmother of an only son recovering
from autism.
Alad is a nutrition consultantand mother of an only son
recovering from autism.
He inspired her to not onlystart the Akil Autism Foundation
(00:29):
, but he transformed her tobecome a holistic health coach
and autism advocate.
Akhil's foundation was formedto educate, treat research and
support autism.
Through her coaching sessions,she shares their journey and
empowers parents who arestruggling with all aspects of
autism, including emotionalhardships related to this
condition.
The following program is foreducational purposes only and is
(00:53):
not intended to be a substitutefor professional medical advice
or diagnose or treat for autismcondition.
Please do not apply any of thisinformation without first
speaking to your physician.
And now on to our show.
Dr Richard G.
(01:19):
Boles is a medical geneticistand a pediatrician who
specializes in mitochondrialmedicine, functional disease and
autism spectrum disorders.
His expertise stems fromdecades of both clinical work
and research at a major academiccenter, as well as from his
most recent experience incutting-edge biotechnology and
genomics.
He uses an innovative andintegrative approach in both
(01:43):
diagnosis and treatment to bestserve his patients.
Dr Boles leads theNeurogenomics program at
NeurAbilities.
Neurogenomics can help tounravel the biological causes
and contributions for manydiseases and disorders, as well
as provide important informationfor changing clinical
management.
Dr Boles recently shared hisexpertise at the Akhil Autism
(02:05):
Foundation Ascend Annual Summitin a presentation called Genetic
Testing in Autism Results in aPrecise Diagnosis and
Individualized Treatment Optionsin Most Cases.
You can find the link to thatpresentation in the show notes
and view Dr Boles' entirepresentation there Today.
He breaks it down into more ofa Q&A discussion.
You'll want to lean in close soyou don't miss a thing.
(02:27):
Come on in.
Dr Boles, thank you so much forbeing here on the Akhil Autism
Foundation podcast.
We are very excited to hearwhat you have to tell us,
because so much has changed inthe world in the last few years
(02:48):
and we have a lot to learn.
So thank you for being here.
Dr. Richard Boles (02:52):
Well, thank you for inviting me.
We really appreciate it.
Brett (02:55):
Tell us a bit about your background, how you came to be a
medical geneticist and wherethat has led you.
Dr. Richard Boles (03:01):
Well, I started off as a pediatrician.
I love to work with kids I havefour of my own and I always
liked genetics because it'sreally the foundation of biology
, it's a foundation of health,it's the foundation of disease,
and I felt that I can do abetter job of really figuring
out what's going on with mypatients and how to help them if
(03:21):
I understood it better with mypatients and how to help them.
Brett (03:26):
if I understood it better , wonderful.
And did you study genetics inschool?
Or how did you get after youwere a pediatrician?
How did that lead to where youare now?
Dr. Richard Boles (03:34):
I went back to.
I went to Yale to do a secondresidency in genetics and
metabolism.
Brett (03:40):
Yeah, when would that have been?
And?
Dr. Richard Boles (03:44):
how have things changed?
Oh, that's going to really dateme Okay 1991 for 93.
Brett (03:49):
Okay, yeah, well, that shows you've got some experience
in this field.
Now I have, yes, and has a lotchanged since you first started
studying genetics.
Dr. Richard Boles (04:05):
Oh, it's dramatically different.
I mean the field is completelydifferent At the beginning and
we were diagnosing about 10% ofthe kids that we saw with an
actual diagnosis, not just adescription.
Now I can diagnose more thanthree quarters.
I mean it's made a hugedifference.
The amount of information thatwe have, the technology not just
to be able to make diagnosisbut to treat it's dramatically
(04:28):
improved.
Brett (04:28):
Wow, this is a very it's kind of a behind-the-scenes
thing for most of us.
I don't understand how geneticswork, so is it through a blood
test?
How do you test somebody'sgenetics?
What's the process like?
Dr. Richard Boles (04:42):
Well, I do whole genome sequencing.
I work with a laboratory,variantics, which I think is the
best one.
It's in the Boston area.
I have no conflict of interestwith them, I just think they're
the best in the world.
They take a saliva sample or itcan be assisted saliva sample
for a child that won't spit in atube.
It's sent by regular mailbecause saliva is on envelopes
all the time.
(05:02):
So saliva can be sent byregular mail and it's sent.
And they sequence thechromosomes from end to end, the
whole thing, all 3 billionnucleotides of all the
chromosomes plus themitochondrial DNA.
It's sent to me on the internet.
I have access to the back endof the computer, so I have the
exact entire sequence.
Brett (05:22):
Sounds like a very simple way to get a lot of complex
results.
Dr. Richard Boles (05:26):
Well it's terabytes of information.
Yes, the amount of informationin a DNA sequence is
extraordinary.
Brett (05:33):
And how long does it take to get back results and start
working on treatment?
Dr. Richard Boles (05:39):
It varies.
I mean it used to be a year,six months and then it got down
to as little as two months.
Now it's back more like fourmonths there's really.
It depends on how busy thelaboratory is at a time and it
depends, unfortunately, on howquickly insurance approves it.
They often will deny it a fewtimes just to do so, but almost
(06:02):
all of my patients get approved,particularly with autism.
It's rare now to have a childthat will not get approved for
sequencing when they have autism.
Brett (06:13):
Interesting.
So besides autism, what elseare you testing for?
Dr. Richard Boles (06:16):
Well, when you have a whole genome sequence
, you have it all right.
You have the entire geneticcode, the whole thing.
I could do anything with it,but I mean, I feel like I do too
many things already.
So I have one focus onneurodevelopmental disorders
autism, adhd, intellectualdisability, epilepsy, et cetera.
So if it doesn't quite on thespectrum, it doesn't matter,
(06:38):
it's a neurodevelopmentaldisorder, it's really the same
genes.
And then I have another focusthat's also 50% on functional
disorders, like on chronicfatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia,
irritable bowel, migraine,cyclic vomiting syndrome and
that sort of thing.
And some of you in the audiencewill say well, my family has
both.
That's how I got into it.
(06:59):
I was doing functional diseasesnow for more than 30 years.
I saw kids with autism, butthey came to me and I was just
happy to be the geneticist.
I was not somebody that peoplewould see because of autism.
I was a chondrial guy and I dida lot of functional disease.
But then I realized that I wasdoing a lot of cyclopharmacy
syndrome and it seemed likeevery one of their brothers had
(07:21):
ADHD or autism.
And I realized, you know, thesegenes are the same.
There's a lot of overlap, and soI got more and more involved in
autism.
And well, here I am.
For the last 10 years I've beenfocusing on autism.
That's my number one focusWonderful.
Brett (07:36):
You gave a presentation a little while back for the Akil
Autism Foundation that we'regoing to refer to and make a
link for in this program, and sowe're not going to ask you to
reinvent the whole presentationagain, but I would love it if
you would give kind of a summaryof that and take it wherever
you would, and I just want tolet our parents know that you
(07:56):
offer a lot of hope and a lot ofinsight and wisdom and
actionable items to do,especially through your neuro
needs.
So stay tuned for that too I'mgoing to ask you more about.
For the parents, I'm going toask Dr Bowles more about neuro
needs and how we can get accessto those products.
Dr. Richard Boles (08:13):
Well, first of all, I do recommend that
people watch that, because ithas the slides in it with the
data and so you can see how thenames are spelled and everything
.
And then, if people really wantthe proof of that, they can see
how the names are spelled andeverything.
And then, if people really wantthe proof of that, they can go
to the paper that was publishedin January, which is easy to
find.
If you just look at my NameBulls RG, autism papers, you can
(08:35):
do that on PubMed and it'llcome up on top, yeah, and, or
one of the top ones.
And I mean to put it really ina nutshell we looked at 50 kids
with autism.
They all had other things aswell.
We took anyone who made thediagnosis of autism, the last 50
that I had seen.
So they were seen over like ayear and a half period of time.
(08:56):
That got trio whole genomesequencing at variantic.
So trio includes the child,which can be an adult, the
patient and the biologicalparents.
Okay, and so, by the way, triosequencing has come down
dramatically now.
It's the same price asSingleton or just sequencing the
child now.
Wow, so we can get to thatlater.
(09:18):
Yeah, $1,800 if you have noinsurance to do sequencing the
whole gentleman, all three ofthem.
That's amazing so really, Inever thought it would come down
that far.
We're living in the future.
Yeah, I know, incredible.
You think about how muchinformation you get from that
and insurance will usually payfor it.
You don't have to pay that too,but if you're outside of this
(09:39):
country you don't have medicalinsurance that will pay for that
sort of thing.
It's $1,800 to sequence thewhole genome in all three of you
.
Wow, so yeah, it's really weare in the future.
It's amazing what we can do now.
That's exciting.
Anyway, I looked at the wholegenome in those patients and I
was looking for diagnoses Likefirst of all, everything is
(10:00):
genetic and everything isenvironmental.
That's the truth about autism.
Well, everything is genetic andeverything's environmental.
That's the truth about autism.
That's the truth about diabetesor Alzheimer's or asthma or
high blood pressure, it doesn'tmatter what it is Epilepsy, adhd
everything is genetic andusually more than one gene.
And everything is environmentaland usually more than one
environmental insult.
But, having said that, I'mlooking for the principal
(10:24):
genetic factor because, allright, our environment is full
of toxins and there's a lot ofdifferent things there, yeah,
and they are very important inthis, and I know that they're
triggering our kids and probablycausing these mutations as well
, but there's a reason why thatkid got autism and not the next
one.
They are genetically vulnerableversus genetically protected.
(10:47):
If I can figure out the geneticvulnerability, then I hopefully
can figure out how to treatthem to make them less
vulnerable.
That's what I do.
I find their vulnerabilitiesand their genetic
vulnerabilities.
I'm a geneticist.
You go to a cardiologist, youget an EKG, right.
You go to me, you get genomesequencing, okay.
So I look for the geneticvulnerabilities and so I can
(11:07):
treat that.
That doesn't in any way dismissthe fact that there are
environmental insults that needto be looked at too.
But I'm the geneticist, okay.
So in whole genome sequencingtrios I was able to make a
diagnosis.
I mean, this is the geneticpredisposition of disease in 68%
of them.
So 34 out of 50.
(11:28):
So more than two thirds.
Yes, we have a diagnosis on.
That's much higher than it wasbefore.
20% of those from Mendelianautosomal, dominant autosomal,
recessive X-linked sequencevariants that were inherited
from one or both parents.
Okay, that's what other studieshave shown.
Yeah, 50% were de novo.
(11:49):
De novo in Latin just means new.
They're mutations, that's inthe child.
Again, child can be any age,but they're absent in the
parents and that's the mainreason we need the parental DNA.
To look on a computer and lookat free building nucleotides and
see what's in the child and notin both parents.
Brett (12:07):
And that's almost always the case.
Dr. Richard Boles (12:09):
Well, I mean, this study is the first one in
the world to really show it atthat level.
And to look at the clinical,there is another study earlier
that did show de novo's as beinghigher, and I'm working with a
follow-up study with Dr RichardFry in which we're looking at
100 of his patients.
I've already looked at 85 ofthose.
I'm not going to talk too muchabout that.
(12:30):
That paper is going to come out, hopefully, later this year.
But we're seeing the same thing, maybe even a little more.
So most of the mutations thatwe're finding do not come from
the parents or de novo, which iswhat a lot of people are saying
.
Is that, well, there's nobodywith autism in my family.
It must be environmental.
Well, it probably was theenvironmental insult that caused
the mutation that happened andthe other environmental insults
(12:55):
which make that mutation worse,I see.
So, yes, it is Everything'sgenetic and everything's
environmental.
Those people that say they onlywant to look at environment are
missing a huge part of thepuzzle.
Those people and there are alot of them, particularly in the
ivory towers, like where Itrained that say it's all
genetic.
They're missing a lot ofproblems too, because the
(13:16):
environment needs to be dealtwith.
Yes, you really need to look atthe whole thing.
So, anyway, what I showed isthat I can find the diagnosis in
most of them and that most ofthose diagnoses are de novo.
They're mutations which aren'tin either parent.
But in addition, I foundvariants that are inherited,
usually from both parents, thatalso affect their modifiers,
(13:41):
because the primary mutation canpush towards intellectual
disability or autism or migraineor schizophrenia or autism or
ADHD.
I mean it can push in differentdirections.
Modifying ones tend to pushtowards autism and those are
often the ones that are moretreatable.
So I'm not only looking for theprimary diagnostic variant, but
(14:07):
I'm also looking for what Icall the modifying variants as
well, because more variantsmeans more opportunities to
treat.
Brett (14:15):
Through what you've offered through NeuroNeeds.
Dr. Richard Boles (14:18):
Well, NeuroNeeds is a company that I
helped put together.
I'm one of the three partnersto make products for that.
But one of the things is I meanit's okay, you have a diagnosis
, right, but what does that meanfor the child?
Can you treat it?
Well, yes, 75% of the time Imade a change based upon the
(14:39):
genetics.
Now, almost all of those werealready on supplements, and most
of those were on neuro-needsupplements because I'd seen
them before.
Brett (14:48):
Yes, yes.
Dr. Richard Boles (14:48):
The change that I saw in the genetics were
maybe to increase thesupplements or to add something
else add potassium, double themagnesium, add NAC or something
like that.
Yeah, sometimes it was alaboratory test, but those were
actually pretty real, prettyrare.
Yeah, occasionally it wasreferral to another specialist,
almost always immunology, butthat was only 16% of the time I
(15:10):
referred to any otherspecialists.
It was really the vast majorityof the interventions were drugs
, in 48% and supplements in 60%.
So in 66% I made a therapeuticintervention.
Did it make a difference or not?
I believe in about half of themit made a significant
(15:32):
difference.
It's hard to say they're seeingother doctors, many things are
being tried but I believe frommy data that it's showing that
about half the cases significantimprovement was made based upon
the genetics.
Brett (15:45):
I love that you have all this data on it because it
really gives you real viablesolutions that otherwise it
feels like you would just beguessing.
It's wonderful.
Dr. Richard Boles (15:58):
Well, you can .
I mean, not everyone can getgenetic testing, particularly
throughout the world.
The vast majority of peoplecan't.
One of the things is that thesenumbers come from me taking a
look at the back end of thecomputer and looking at the
entire DNA sequence myself, thelaboratory, somewhere on the
laboratory report.
The answer was on 28% of them.
(16:19):
But I went from 28% to 68%.
Wow, so the difference is 40%.
What did I do in those 40% tomake a diagnosis that wasn't on
the lab report?
They were new diagnosis, almostall of them.
They were the first one in theworld to ever been described in
a paper.
There might have been otherones that have been seen by
(16:39):
sequence throughout the world,but because there are thousands
of genes that mutations cancause autism, or I could say are
the genetic predispositiontowards autism, and we're still
finding them all the time Inthose 50 patients the primary
diagnosis was different in everysingle one.
(17:00):
Wow, well, modifying genes tendto be the similar modifying
genes I see over and over again,particularly cation channels
that we'll get to mitochondrialgenes, those you know, those are
modifiers that happen a lot.
But the primary diagnosis wasalways different and and about
half the time I made a diagnosis.
That primary diagnosis was notin the.
(17:20):
That was not anywhere in theliterature.
No one had described it before.
How do you know?
How do you know it's thediagnosis?
That's where I spoke about inthat hour and that's what's in
the paper.
I actually have statistics,p-values, odds, ratios, all of
that.
The proof is there.
There's not time to go overthat here.
Brett (17:40):
Yeah, yeah, and I'm glad you're covering what you are
here so that they can goreference that later.
Yeah, wonderful, and I'm gladyou're covering what you are
here so that they can goreference that later.
Yeah, wonderful.
So are there seven pathwaysyou're going to share about.
Dr. Richard Boles (17:50):
Yeah, I mean in those 50 patients there were
seven major pathways.
There's a few other pathwayswhich I've seen in many other
patients which didn't show up somuch in those 50.
So I mean the major treatablepathways are cation channels,
mitochondria, amino acids andneurotransmission.
Okay, cation channels, what arethose?
(18:11):
An ion is the salt.
It has a positive charge.
Cations are positive.
The main cations are potassium,sodium, calcium, magnesium.
So these are cation channels.
Mostly they were sodium and orcalcium channels.
Generally they leak, which meanswell, maybe they open too much
(18:32):
or maybe they don't, they opentoo long or maybe they never
quite close, but they let toomuch cation in.
The cation is positivelycharged and it caught when the
cells, positively charged, isactivated.
It does this thing Nervousimpulses, muscles twitch glands,
secrete hormones, et cetera.
Cell is active.
You leak, you're really, reallyactive.
(18:57):
The cell is overactive and soyou get cellular hyper activity.
Cellular hyperactivity does manythings.
First of all, the cells docrazy things because they're
over activated.
Yeah, it said, had pain signalsor fatigue signals or vomiting,
or it can cause confusion inthe brain, causing ADHD or
autism.
The other thing is that thecation channels do is that they
deplete your energy stores.
(19:17):
Number one the cell isenergized, so it needs more
energy.
But number two, pumping thosecations back out is very energy
dependent.
It takes a lot of ATP or energyto pump them back out.
So you have a cell which needsmore energy because it's
hyperactive and it has lessenergy because it's using up its
energy to pump it again.
Think like a dam with a leak init.
(19:38):
Pumps take a lot of energy topump it back.
You're running out of energypretty quickly, yeah.
Brett (19:43):
Is this separate from neurotransmitters and inhibitory
?
Dr. Richard Boles (19:47):
Well, the cation channels allow the cell
to fire.
They make the cell positivelycharged so that it's activated,
yeah.
When the activation thenspreads to the end of the cell,
it gets to the synapse, becausethe cells are not really
touching.
There's that gap, right, thesynapse, right, yes, yeah, and
then you release aneurotransmitter to then go to
(20:09):
the next cell and then that onefires.
So cations are necessary forthe impulse to go down a neuron,
but to go across the synapse ofthe next neuron, you have
neurotransmitters, and that'sanother one that's highly
treatable.
I see, um, and in autism theexcitatory neurotransmitters are
higher than the inhibitorytransmitters.
(20:29):
Everyone in this audience knowsthat right but you're saying
they're always firing hyperexcited.
What?
What happens when your child'sneurons are hyper excitable?
Well, they have stray thoughtsand emotions and they can't
concentrate and they'rehyperactive and they can't sleep
.
And they're hyperactive andthey can't sleep and you get
migraine, maybe even seizures.
I mean, these arehyperactivities.
(20:50):
Why do you have cellularhyperactivity?
A lot of people were saying well, my kid has a mitochondrial
problem, they have no energy.
So why does he have so muchenergy?
That's because the inhibitoryneurons require more energy.
Think about a toddler in acookie jar.
(21:11):
Okay, okay, dad, I want acookie.
No, dad, I want a cookie.
No, I want a cookie.
No, I want a cookie.
No, I want a cookie.
Okay, son, that cookie is gone.
Okay, the dad has to say no, no, no, no, no all the time.
Once he says yes, once thatcookie is gone, the inhibitory
nerves are constantly firing.
If they run out of energy, theexcitatory nerve will fire.
The inhibitory nerves are whatwe call tonic.
They're always on.
The excitatory nerve only fireswhen it sends an impulse.
(21:33):
So when you run out of energy,the inhibitory nerves go first
and you have an overexcitation.
So many of the treatments areinvolved in trying to help the
inhibitory neurotransmitters,gaba and serotonin.
That is interesting.
I didn't talk that much aboutthe energy metabolism.
(21:53):
I talked about how the cationsare a problem.
I spoke about how energydeficiency can cause
neurotransmitter imbalance.
But there's also another thingis that a lot of people have
mutations in genes that affectenergy metabolism as well.
So it's not only on the demandside they use energy too much,
(22:14):
but it's on the supply side.
They can't make enough.
And maybe they make enough fornormal situations, but not a
situation that's in stress.
Yeah, it's high energy demands,and mitochondrial dysfunction,
or even mitochondrial disease insome cases, is another major
genetic pathway I see in autism,which is treatable.
Brett (22:33):
Yeah, that's encouraging too.
Manisha, in particular, wascurious about what we ended up
talking about off-targetfindings.
If a parent or grandparent hascancer or diabetes, how does
that translate to knowing aboutthe child?
Dr. Richard Boles (22:48):
Well, I mean, I have whole genome, so I have
everything in front of me.
And while I'm concentrated onfinding on target, why does this
child have what he has and whatcan I can do about it?
Sometimes something is prettyglaringly obvious in front of me
.
Here's a mutation in a genethat will cause disease.
If it's viable that means itlooks real and if it actually
(23:09):
will do something, I would liketo tell the family what to do to
mitigate that.
That's what we call off-targetfindings.
99% of my families have wantedoff-target findings.
In fact, at least one girl'slife was saved by an off-target
finding and several others werehelped.
An off-target finding could bethat there's an increased cancer
risk in the family.
I've seen that before.
(23:30):
I saw it in a family that agrandfather had died of colon
cancer.
In the child and in one of theparents had the same gene, and
well, they didn't even know thatabout the grandfather, but I'm
sure it was the same one.
Now everyone in the familyneeds colonoscopies.
That's something they did notwant to hear.
But now that they know that itcan save a life, or maybe even
more than one life, Somewhere inthe 40s or so those people get
(23:54):
colon cancer.
So you want to start searching,like at 30 or something.
Wow, so that is actually badnews.
Off target, it was 4% in thestudy.
I don't want to scare peopleout.
Two out of the 50 people got badnews off target.
One of them I just told youabout.
The other one found out theyhad an Ehlers-Danlos type gene
(24:14):
that could be a problem.
We did all the tests and foundit wasn't a problem.
It was bad news because theygot upset and had to do a bunch
of MRIs and everything.
Yes, Out of 50 people, that wasit.
I mean, nothing else was badnews.
They either knew about itbefore or it was something like
oh, there's a gene for hypercholesterol.
Yep, Everyone in my family hasthat.
I know that.
Well, now you can talk to thecardiologist and know what
(24:36):
treatment because you know whatgene it is.
That's wonderful.
That really bad news.
It's just kind of you know.
But anyway, off-target findingsone in five was given
off-target findings.
Now, if I went for the wholegentleman look for every little
problem, I'm sure I could find alot in everyone, but that's not
what I do.
Brett (24:53):
Yeah yeah.
Wow, that's interesting.
That's a little extra bang foryour buck too, for doing the.
Dr. Richard Boles (24:59):
Right, I mean , at least you know there's
nothing really obvious in there.
Brett (25:02):
That's great.
Yeah, that could be really likeyou said, out of 50 people.
That could be really a reliefin the long run.
Dr. Richard Boles (25:09):
So that's good, good news yeah no, a lot
of families are relief youdidn't find anything else at all
and they feel better that theygot good, oh yeah.
Brett (25:15):
A sigh of relief.
Dr. Richard Boles (25:17):
Well, I mean I told them something usually,
but I mean, almost everybody hassomething positive.
I would say about 10% of thefamilies that I do this on, I
didn't find anything at all, soI sent it to immunology for that
.
But about 90% of the time Ifound things that were important
, relevant to the situation.
That's good.
And, like I said, about 68% ofthe time 66% of the time I found
(25:42):
things that then led directlyto treatment, and not
necessarily years later.
The other thing that the genomecan give you is an investment
in the future.
What it gives you is that yourwhole DNA is on the computer
thing and if something comes uplater, it can be useful.
Like one of the patients I have,she had cyclic vomiting
syndrome that's one of thethings I do and then a couple of
(26:04):
years later she developed athyroid cancer.
Well, the cancer specialistwanted the genetic sequence and
it was right there already.
They can use it immediately.
By the way, they took the tumorout and she's doing great
Wonderful Cyclic vomiting gonetoo.
But you know these are thingsthat can be helpful.
Right that other doctors canalso use this information to
(26:25):
help, for you know what's needed.
It's an investment in thefuture.
That's good, that's really good.
Brett (26:31):
And it's all good news, encouraging.
So how do these pathways fitinto the neuro needs?
Dr. Richard Boles (26:37):
Well, I had worked at Cortagen and I was the
medical director and had seenliterally like a thousand kids
with autism with theirsequencing.
Back then we were only doingabout a thousand genes or to
three thousand genes.
Now we're doing all twentythree thousand genes and I've
done multiple hundreds on thatthat I've looked at personally.
So the genes that can causeautism, yeah, there's thousands
(27:03):
of them, several hundred thatare proven and probably at least
a thousand or more.
But there's a thousanddifferent ways an autistic kid
can present.
They're all different, they'reall unique, but there's not that
many pathways in the middle.
Genes don't cause disease ontheir own.
Genes cause disturbances andcell homeostasis.
(27:23):
They take things out of balanceand those are in particular
pathways and those pathways thenlead to disease.
So it depends on how.
In that one study there wereseven pathways and five of them
are treatable and six of themactually were treatable in some
cases and four of them arehighly treatable.
(27:44):
Two of them were semi-treatabledepending on the situation, one
of them not.
If you go beyond that study andyou look, okay, what other
pathways were there in otherpatients?
There are other pathways likeneuroinflammation and
methylation, cytoskeleton andcell migration.
There are other pathwaysinvolved.
But when you look at it all andthere's maybe you know 10 or so
(28:04):
pathways that are instrumentalinto autism and half of those
pathways are treatable, and Itook all of the treatments for
all of those pathways and Istuck them into one jar.
That's basically what I did,and Spectrum Needs is a powder
form.
It comes in lemon or berry.
You can mix it in any beverage,you can put as much water or
(28:27):
smoothie or anything you want totaste, and it has 33 active
ingredients in it and they notonly hit all of those pathways
that are important inneurodevelopmental disease, but
it's also a very strong andhighly activated multivitamin,
multimineral with a lot ofantioxidants.
And I hit a lot of the minorpathways, like the creatine
(28:49):
transport pathway and thenitrogen oxygen synthase pathway
, which opens up the bloodvessels in the brain that some
people have them, other peopledon't, but I want to make sure
it's in there.
So it hits the major pathways,the minor pathways that your
child may or may not have umplus vitamins and minerals, and
so what it really is is youdon't need to take a
(29:09):
multivitamin on top of that.
It doubles as that.
Oh good, and it um, itaddresses that.
So I start my kids on that um,while I get the DNA, and this is
um, this is a uh, a dailysomething that you take twice a
day.
Yeah, a kid between 44 and 88pounds, 20 to 40 kilos, take two
(29:32):
scoops twice a day, two scoopsin the morning, two scoops in
the evening.
That one tub will last a month.
Younger kids will take smallerkids will take less.
Older kids or adults, if theywant to take it will take more.
It's by weight, it's on thelabel.
I see yes, yeah, they take ittwice a day and it takes a
couple of months two to threemonths to really kick in and
then six months to see full, youknow, even some recovery after
(29:56):
that, because you need to healthe brain and then the brain
needs to remodel and you need tolearn.
So it takes a while.
It's not going to be if DrMcCoy beamed down and said
here's the pill.
You're not going to suddenlyjump off the gurney and run
around, right, you're going toget better first.
Okay, so it takes a while, butit covers the basics and the
(30:19):
vast majority of the childrenimprove.
Some of them improvedramatically so that their
disease basically is gone.
Others have mild improvementand Some of them improve
dramatically so that theirdisease basically is gone.
Others have mild improvementand most of them are somewhere
in between those two extremes.
Brett (30:30):
And this doesn't take place of diet.
This is in addition to a gooddiet, correct?
Oh, of course.
Dr. Richard Boles (30:35):
I mean you can take all the supplement in
the world and not make up for agood diet, and you can eat the
best diet in the world and notgive the high amounts of some of
these that you can get in asupplement.
They're synergistic and they'reboth necessary.
You need good diet and you needgood supplementation.
Brett (30:51):
I see.
Dr. Richard Boles (30:52):
It's like diet and exercise One without
the other is just not doing it.
Brett (30:55):
Right right.
Dr. Richard Boles (30:56):
Not that one without the other isn't better
than neither right.
But it's still just not gettingthere.
Yeah, yeah, so you need both.
And for those that can swallow,and usually around 10 years of
age or so, I recommend to try totransfer over, if not earlier.
There's energy needs and itcomes in a capsule form and so
(31:18):
you would take the capsules inthe morning, depending on your
weight, and the capsules in theevening, and it has 40 active
ingredients and it's a littlebit more geared towards what an
adolescent or adult needs interms of dosing.
I see A little bit less of theB vitamins, a little bit more of
the carnitine and vitamin D,etc.
So it's more geared on what theneeds of that age group are.
(31:39):
But 90% of the two products areidentical.
It's just whether you canswallow or not.
Yeah, that's good.
The other things I make, becausethose are in a powder and you
know oil and water doesn't mix.
The oils don't mix with thepowders.
I've tried it.
I wanted one product that coulddo everything.
It didn't work.
Blood levels did not go up.
I also get blood levels tocheck that in my patients.
(31:59):
I get carnitine levels,magnesium levels, potassium
levels, coenzyme, q10 levels andvitamin D 25-hydroxy, q10
levels and vitamin D 25 hydroxy.
But anyway, at least I getthose.
But coenzyme Q10 and theomega-3 fatty acids are in oils
and they're not bioavailable.
When you mix them in powders,the blood levels don't go up,
(32:20):
hardly at all.
The vast majority of the CoQsthat you buy coenzyme Q10, are
worthless.
They're ubiquinone with anN-O-N-E.
If it says none at the end, youdon't want it and they usually
just say coenzyme Q10.
What you want is ubiquinol withan N-O-L at the end, usually
because that's more expensive.
It's hard to find in stores andusually people don't buy it
(32:42):
because it's twice as expensivebut it's five times more
bioavailable.
So that means a half times moreeconomical for the same amount,
right, so it makes no sense orwhatever, but people don't want
to pick up a $50 jar in a storeand I can understand that.
So anyway, not all ubiquinolsare the same.
Some of them are, most of themare in soy, some of them are in
(33:07):
limoline, which is the oil of,like lemon or orange peel.
The one that we private labelas Q needs are little capsules
and they have ubiquinol inlimoline and they're highly
reduced so that they're betterthan just the average one.
So I do recommend that and Iusually have adults on about 200
(33:29):
.
That's two of them in themorning and another two at night
, and adolescents are usuallytwo in the morning, one at night
and school-aged kids areusually one and one.
I mean, obviously, if you havelike a preschooler, you would
have to reduce the dose oranything, and then I get blood
levels and I can go up or downdepending on the blood level.
Quest Diagnostics does goodblood levels for CoQ.
(33:51):
You just have to make sure thatthey order the tubes ahead of
time and that they know whatthey're doing and they check the
computer and they do it right.
Brett (33:58):
Yes, yeah, and all these are you order directly from
NeuroNeeds or are you availablein stores?
Dr. Richard Boles (34:08):
Well, there are some stores and you can
certainly get it from some ofthe doctors that do it, but most
people order directly fromNeuroneeds.
It's just neuroneedscom, okay,and you can get it directly.
You don't need a doctor'sprescription or everything.
They're all natural compounds,they're all things that are in
food, but the amounts are higherthan you could get for eating
(34:29):
the entire salad bar.
Basically, yes, at least someof them Incredible.
The other one that I recommendis an omega-3.
Omega-3 means the double bondis at the third to the last
carbon.
So why is that omega?
Omega means the last letter,the Greek alphabet.
The omega-3s are criticallyimportant for brain growth and
for heart and the rest of thebody hair, skin, nails and a lot
(34:49):
of cosmetics and things.
We don't get a mega freeze.
Our cavemen, ancestors did, andcavewomen, because they picked
things off the dirt and they hadmold and fungus and all sorts
of things on there.
Those microorganisms make amega freeze, but the plants
really don't make very much andeverything's been washed and
polished and everything, andit's been.
(35:11):
You know, through factoryfarming and things, that we
don't get enough omega threes.
Now it's in plankton and thefish and the shrimp eat the
plankton.
But if you don't eat very muchseafood you're not getting
enough, and if you eat a lot ofseafood you're probably mercury
toxic.
So I mean, so most people getit from fish oil.
And fish oil is great if you'renot trying to get it to brain,
(35:34):
but it's triglyceride bound, itdoes not cross the blood-brain
barrier and the liver can onlyconvert a little bit.
So all the fish oil in theworld, liver still converts a
little bit.
You want it to get into brainfor neurodevelopmental disorders
or even for cyclic vomiting,which appears to be in the
brainstem.
The main thing on chronicfatigue.
You need to get across theblood-brain barrier.
(35:54):
It has to be phospholipid-bound.
That's normally you get fromkrill, like in shrimp.
Yes, if you get krill oil, itgoes directly across the
blood-brain barrier.
So I have a mega needs.
It's krill oil plus fish oilplus sunflower seed, derived
phosphatidylserine, which isalso good for blood.
So it's one product that hasfish, krill and sunflower seed
(36:16):
together.
It would be like threedifferent products otherwise.
Brett (36:20):
Yes, yeah.
So do you have any bundles?
Dr. Richard Boles (36:23):
Yes, I usually recommend that you take
the mitochondrial cocktailmultivitamin product.
That's either if you canswallow energy needs or if you
can't spectrum needs in eitherflavor.
So one of those plus the CoQ Qneeds, plus the omega-3 omega
needs.
So there's a brain bundle thathas the three of those and you
can choose whether you wantlemon or berry in the spectrum
(36:44):
needs or if you want energyneeds and then you get the Q
needs and the omega needs withit.
It's on the website If you justgo down to the bottom of the
cell tab or the buy tab, right,okay?
Brett (36:54):
So, potentially, how many ?
How many of these supplementswould a person be on a day?
Dr. Richard Boles (36:59):
Potentially, if they were trying to treat
everything.
It could be quite a lot becausethere's 40 active ingredients
and energy needs.
So I do recommend that you takefive capsules of energy needs
in the morning and five at nightTwo Q in the morning, two at
night, one omega in the morningand one at night.
So you're taking eight capsulesbut you're getting about 55 or
(37:19):
so active ingredients.
That's incredible.
I mean which you know.
Eight capsules is not 55, but Iknow a lot of people don't like
to take eight, but it's justthe amounts that are necessary
for healing.
Just one capsule isn't going todo it.
It just can't throw it into one.
But you don't start on five,you start on one twice a day,
work your way up.
Side effects are really rare.
(37:39):
I've never seen a severe sideeffect.
I've never seen a side effectthat didn't go away immediately
after stopping.
Okay, interesting.
Brett (37:45):
Okay.
Dr. Richard Boles (37:46):
That's good.
Their vitamins and minerals areover-the-counter.
The government considers themas generally recommended, as
safe they're correct okay, butthe two side effects that you
can get.
You can get nausea with anysupplement and this is no
exception.
If you take it with a meal,you'll get less nausea.
After a while your stomach getsused to it.
You don't need it anymore inmost people.
Then the other one is somepeople kind of over energize us
(38:15):
because you're kind of helpingtheir mind work and sometimes
sometimes these autistic kidscan be really good kids because
they have so much they don'thave enough energy to cause
trouble and when they becomemore normal kids they get into
normal trouble.
Brett (38:22):
Yes, yes.
Dr. Richard Boles (38:22):
Might be the problem.
Let them do their normal stuff.
But if there's a little bitover energized, move up a little
bit slower.
Some kids don't need the fullamount.
A half amount or so is goodenough.
And there's also anotherproduct called Calm Needs which
has many things in it that willhelp with the GABA and also with
the serotonin.
Okay, and so it doesn't sedate.
(38:46):
You can do a math test or youcan drive on it.
But it counteracts the positivething in those people that are
overly charged.
Most people don't take calmneeds because of that.
Most people take calm needssimply because they school
anxiety, test anxiety, socialanxiety.
The kids or adolescents or evenadults will take it in the
(39:06):
morning because they don't wantto meet their boss, they're a
little bit scared or something.
They'll take one or twocapsules.
It doesn't sedate them at all.
Like I said, you can drive, youcan do it, you can run a
meeting with PowerPoints andeverything on it.
It just makes you a little moremellow.
A lot of the teenagers say it'sa placebo, it doesn't do
anything, they don't feel anydifferent.
But their mothers say, you know, but he's not screaming anymore
(39:27):
.
Yeah, it's a little bit, youknow, a little soothing sort of
thing, kind of calms you down,you're not as easy to excite and
to get angry.
And then some people take it atnight.
It doesn't sedate at all, butwhat it does is that if they
ruminate for the day and they'reworried about what happened,
they can take one, just kind ofmellow out and go to sleep.
(39:53):
I was going to ask you aboutthat.
Okay, some people you can takeeither and some people will take
both.
But I see most of my patientswill take it in the morning or
maybe, you know, in theafternoon before homework.
They're getting all upset aboutthe homework.
They may take another dose, butyou know something like that,
the other products.
Like I said, it takes a fewmonths because the brain needs
to heal, calm needs.
You don't take it because youwant to get better three months
from now.
You take it because you want toget better 30 minutes from now.
It's like you can takeibuprofen.
It's something you do on themoment because you want it
(40:15):
better.
It'll be gone within 12 hoursor so.
Sure, yeah, yeah.
Brett (40:19):
Well, it all sounds safe and very accessible.
That's what I love about thistoo.
You don't have to do anythingsuper special.
Dr. Richard Boles (40:34):
So how can you get advantage if you can't
get sequence?
Well, I realize that noteveryone can afford to get the
sequencing, and have me take alook at it and everything.
Although it can say, even if itsaves a couple of emergency
room visits, it's a lot cheaper,but it's still not something
everyone in the world can do.
But the knowledge that we'regetting from the fact that so
many people are getting sequencecan help your children, even if
they're not sequenced, becauseof the pathways that I mentioned
Cation channels, mitochondria,neurotransmission those are the
(40:57):
main treatable ones.
But there's also amino acids,neuroinflammation, methylation.
These are all treatablepathways and they're all
treatable pathways which are inthe neuro needs.
So I guess the answer does goto NeuroNeeds and there are some
other brands out there.
But I really recommend that youget a combination product.
Take it twice a day, give it afew months and in the vast
(41:24):
majority of cases you will seeimprovement.
That's really encouraging.
Brett (41:28):
Wow, and you've mentioned already NeuroNeedscom.
Dr. Richard Boles (41:32):
I don't think I mentioned that, but
neuroneedscom all one word.
Brett (41:35):
Neuroneeds yes neuroneeds and also, how can people find
you?
Dr. Richard Boles (41:41):
I'm easy to find.
I'm at richardbowles atneuroneedscom.
Brett (41:46):
And that's Bowles B-O-L-E-S Right, and we'll put
that in the show notes as well,is there anything else we didn't
cover that you'd like to sharethat?
Dr. Richard Boles (41:55):
we should.
Well, if people are interestedin my looking at the sequence, I
suggest that they speak to Liz,and she's my coordinator and
she can help with the logisticsand the pricing and all that and
what you need to do, and heremail is a little bit complex,
but you're going to put that inthere as well, right?
I?
Brett (42:13):
will.
Yes, if you guys send it to us,I'll be sure to put it in there
Wonderful.
Well, dr Bowles, it's beenfascinating number one, but it's
also been a pleasure, andatreasure, having you here today
because of the work that you'redoing.
You took us back to the future.
I don't know how this works,but I really appreciate this and
(42:36):
we're so grateful that folkslike you are doing these studies
and can wrap their brain aroundthis and know that what you're
doing is really helping many,many families find treatable
solutions, especially for thoseon the spectrum right now, that
relate to what we're talkingabout today.
Thank you so much for beinghere.
Oh, you're welcome, all right,and we'd love to have you back
sometime if you're.
Oh, certainly, yeah, thank youAppreciate it.
Bye, okay, bye-bye.
What a mind-blowing concept andhope-filled conversation.
(43:05):
We are so grateful forpassionate doctors, researchers
and healthcare workers like DrBowles who are daily finding new
treatments and solutions for aworld desperate for answers in
the field of health.
Glad you could be with us.
Be sure to check out the shownotes for today's episode at
AkeelAutismFoundationorg or theAkeel Autism Podcast, wherever
you listen to your podcasts.
(43:26):
Thank you so much for listeningto the Akil Autism Foundation
podcast.
We hope you found it helpfuland inspiring and look forward
to seeing you here again soon.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Herd with Colin Cowherd
The Herd with Colin Cowherd is a thought-provoking, opinionated, and topic-driven journey through the top sports stories of the day.