I want to expand a little more about detoxification. Our bodies are designed to burn fuel for energy production and get rid of waste material through detoxification. We have a wide variety of biochemistry in our body to help us do that. Detoxification occurs through our kidney function, through our liver function and through our digestive tract. When our body is bogged down with toxins, like certain chemicals, those chemicals can be accumulated in our body and can prevent our body from functioning optimally and can hinder detoxification. That may impact our kidney function or our liver function and we can become chronically sick from it. If you are talking about kids on the spectrum we know that certain things like heavy metal toxins can create oxidative stress. Oxidative stress is when those anti toxin chemicals that our body uses to try and keep us healthy become depleted and don’t function properly anymore to aid in detoxification. That causes stress in the cells and stress in the organ systems and eventually our bodies start to breakdown.  We know that a lot of kids on the Autism spectrum have a deficiency in glutathione. Glutathione is a very powerful chemical in our cells that protects our cells from toxins and also aids in detoxification. Digestive function is huge.  We know that our digestive system is the main way of getting food into our system but it also is a major route of detoxification. It is like the physical window of our body, more things enter our body through our digestive system than any other route. So if our digestive tract if unhealthy due to chronic constipation or chronic overgrowth of yeast and bacteria then we may have a problem in detoxifying even our own waste products, let alone any environmental toxins. I always point out to parents that no matter what you are doing for example treating issues like yeast, methyl B-12 therapy, supplementation with B vitamins, probiotics, calcium, magnesium, etc., a gluten and casein free diet, or other special diets, all of those things support detoxification of your child’s body. You may not necessarily be doing something specific to detoxify chemicals or heavy metals but biomedicine in general through all of these treatments, diet, supplements, digestive support, methylation support, it all aids detoxification. That is the key, because detoxification is the foundation for health.  All of those things need to be looked at as far as a comprehensive biomedical approach to improve your child’s health and their wellness and to get them down the road of higher functioning and eventually with the hope of recovery.