 Harvard neurologist Martha Herbert in a keynote address at an autism conference said, we need to conduct research as if we know this is an emergency. Already up to one and a half percent of American children have autism, and it appears to be on the rise. Well, what about fever's dramatic effect? This dramatic relief of autistic behavior during a fever continues to tantalize parents and practitioners. From a research standpoint, what could be more revealing than a common event that virtually normalizes autistic behavior for a time? There's so much going on during fever, though. Where do you even begin? Well, once it became understood that one cause of autism may reside in these synapses, the so-called soul of the brain, the nerve-to-nerve junctions where information is transmitted, attention turned to HSP's heat-shot proteins released by the brain when you have a fever that can improve synaptic transmission and thus may be capable of improving long-range brain connectivity, which is depressed in autism. ASD stands for Autism Spectrum Disorder. And there's this compound sulforaphane that upregulates those heat-shot proteins so you could potentially get the benefits without the fever. What drug company makes it? What do I ask for at the pharmacy? Nope, wrong aisle. Sulforaphane is not made in a chemical plant, it's made by a plant. Sulforaphane is made by broccoli, kale, cabbage, collards, and cauliflower. In other words, cruciferous vegetables. So maybe if we give some broccoli to those with autism, it will make things better by boosting the heat-shot proteins. But synaptic dysfunction is not the only contributing cause of autism. There's also oxidative stress. The brain is particularly vulnerable to oxidative stress because lots of free radicals are forged in the brain, which has few antioxidant defense capacities, and indeed there's a long history of study showing that autism is associated with oxidative stress and diminished antioxidant capacity. NERF 2 levels cut nearly in half, which is what triggers our body's antioxidant response. If only there was a way we could boost NERF 2 with foods. Boom, there it is! Sulforaphane just so happens to be perhaps the most potent natural inducer of NERF 2 on the planet. What's this NERF 2 thing again? It's considered to be a master regulator of our body's response to environmental stressors. Are there any kind of stress? Oxidative stress? Inflammatory stress? NERF 2 triggers our antioxidant response elements, activating all sorts of cell protective genes that balance out and detoxify the free radicals and facilitates protein and DNA repair. So maybe if we give some broccoli to those with autism, it will also make things better by triggering NERF 2, which activates those antioxidant response elements. And then there's the mitochondrial dysfunction. Children with autism are more likely to suffer from dysfunctional mitochondria, the little power plants within our cells where metabolism takes place. If only there were some food that could improve mitochondrial function, and there is. Diet-rich and cruciferous vegetables effectively retunes our metabolism by restoring metabolic balance. Power plants for our cellular power plants. Not only can sulfur fame boost the gene expression of heat shock proteins as much as six-fold within six hours, it can double the mass of mitochondria in human cells growing in a petri dish. So maybe if we give some broccoli to those with autism, it will also make things better by relieving some of that mitochondrial dysfunction that's creating even more free radicals. Okay, so can we try giving some kids some broccoli already? First one final factor, neuro-inflammation, brain inflammation. Another causal factor in autism. If at autopsy you look at brain tissue of those with autism, you can see inflammation throughout the white matter. And if you do a spinal tap up to 200 times the levels of inflammatory mediators like interferon bathing their brains. It's causing all that inflammation? Well, the master regulator of the inflammatory cascade is a protein called NF-kappa-beta, which induces inflammation. And if overexpressed, like in autism, can lead to chronic or excessive inflammation. If only there was a food. Wait, broccoli does that too? In fact, it's the major anti-inflammatory mechanisms for sulfur-fane, inhibiting NF-kappa-beta. Well then, that completes the picture. Give someone with autism broccoli, heat shock proteins are released to boost synaptic transmission, NERF2 is activated to wipe out the free radicals, mitochondrial function is restored, and we suppress the inflammation triggered by NF-kappa-beta. One food to rule them all. One food to counter all four purported causal factors. That's one of the differences between foods and drugs. Plants tend to have single effects, but autism spectrum disorder, ASD, is multifactorial. No wonder there's no drugs that work. But strategies using multifunctional phytochemicals like sulfur-fane, or even better, the whole plants themselves, are highly attractive in theory. But you don't know until you put it to the test, which I promise we'll cover next.