Autism also mitochondrial disease – something can be done about it: PD Dr Ralf Herwig Interview

Summary and key points of the interview

 

1. Professional career:

– Dr. Ralf Herwig, originally an emergency surgeon, has developed many inventions and patents, inspired by his father’s practice of giving him disassembled bicycles instead of finished ones. This led to his curiosity and enthusiasm for innovation.

– He came to biochemistry through further training in molecular biology and began with DNA sequencing. His academic career has led him to become a professor for a master’s degree in mental disabilities at Alster University in Birmingham, specializing in autism.

2. Research and interest in autism:

– Dr. Herwig’s interest in autism arose from his vitamin D research, which shows that a lack of vitamin D can exacerbate neuronal development problems. He is part of a group of experts who work intensively with autistic children and conducts semi-annual training courses, mainly in the Balkans.

3. Innovative treatment methods:

– Dr. Herwig developed infusion solutions for stage 4 tumor patients with few side effects. This research led to an approved study in Innsbruck that showed significant improvements in prostate cancer patients.

– He recognized the role of a certain substance, alpha-ketoglutarate, which also occurs in two forms and plays an important role in the citric acid cycle. He used this substance in further clinical studies.

4. New approaches to autism:

– Metabolic pathways affected by gene mutations could potentially be bypassed through biochemical adaptations. A mutation in the SLC25A12 gene, which affects ATP production, has been studied in studies that led to improved communication skills and other advances in autistic children.

5. Foundation of a pharmaceutical company:

– In order to commercialize his research results and make them available to more patients, Dr. Herwig founded a pharmaceutical company and developed various preparations under the brand Alpha H.

6. Current and future projects:

– In addition to his ongoing work in cancer therapy and autism research, Dr. Herwig is working on the integration of vitamin D into dental implants and is planning a standardized study with autistic children to further confirm his hypotheses.

 

 

the transport protein SLC25A12, which is important for autism

The gene SLC25A12 encodes an important transport protein in mitochondria, known as Aralar or calcium-binding carrier protein 1 (CAC1). This protein is a member of the SLC25 family, which includes a variety of solute carrier proteins, and plays a specific role in the mitochondrial transport of aspartate and glutamate across the mitochondrial membrane.

 

Functions and Significance:

– Metabolic Pathway: SLC25A12 is critical for the malate-aspartate shuttle, which is important for efficient energy metabolism and the transfer of reducing equivalents between the cytosol and mitochondria.

– Neural Function: In neurons, this protein helps provide the necessary energy and metabolic intermediates required to maintain neuronal activity and function.

 

Clinical Significance:

– Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD): Mutations or dysfunction in the SLC25A12 gene have been associated with autism spectrum disorders. Research suggests that changes in the expression or function of this protein may affect neuronal energy homeostasis and related neurological functions, which may contribute to the pathology of ASD.

– Neurological disorders: Aside from autism, there is evidence that SLC25A12 may also play a role in other neurological and psychiatric conditions, including those involving mitochondrial dysfunction.

 

Research approaches:

Current research approaches are focused on understanding the precise mechanisms by which changes in SLC25A12 contribute to neuronal dysfunction and developing strategies to potentially modulate these effects, which may open up new therapeutic opportunities for related disorders.

Currently, the “gold rush” phase in oncology is at its peak, where almost a new biological, kinase inhibitor or antibody comes onto the market every day with monthly therapy costs of 5,000 – 15,000 euros and yet relatively moderate overall success

In a JAMA -Article dated November 10, 2020, titled “Clinical Trial Evidence Supporting US Food and Drug Administration Approval of Novel Cancer Therapies” compared the efficacy of 92 FDA-approved novel cancer therapies for 100 different tumor indications over a period of 17 years.
The data showed that the median absolute Increase in overall survival was only 2.4 months.
These included hormone therapies such as fulvestrant and immunotherapies such as Ibrance (palbociclib), Opdivo (nivolumab) and Yervoy (ipilimumab).

Due to the shift of all health insurance funds into this super-expensive Oncology – or even cystic fibrosis (with therapy costs of > 300,000,- per year) breaks our “normal care -medical system” because there is no more money.

“Cancer” allows “no stopping” and “no limits” in terms of costs – always nor is it the case that economic guidelines are not applicable to cancer. An additional lifenswoche can easily cost 100,000 euros (especially in Graz), which are used for new biologicals.

But with “cancer” there is also a strict celibacy: only what comes from BIG_5 can be used, everything that could have a negative impact is neutralized in advance: methadone, g-c-MAF, KARAL, …. – numerous books show this:

Heli Retzek (HR)

so I would like to start a series of interviews here to give my YouTube channel a little bit of a boost.

A few days ago I spoke to my private lecturer Dr Ralf Herwig on the phone and he told me sensational news again, like every time. Ralf is now a professor at Alster University in Birmingham and works here, teaches a master’s degree in mental disabilities.

Professor, and this is a course that mainly deals with autism. And can you tell us a little bit about how you got into this.

I can also say that you are actually a trained surgeon, actually an emergency surgeon. As a surgeon you have also developed many inventions and patents because your father had you build bicycles. He didn’t give you a bicycle, but rather dismantled bicycles. And that’s why you are very innovative and you ended up in urology.

In urology, your boss at the time simply sent you on courses in molecular biology and so you started doing biochemistry and molecular biology.

And then you did sequencing and we can talk about that another time.

That’s a very, very, very interesting biography yes and uh so you came into contact with autism in some way or other can you tell us about it briefly very briefly

Ralf Herwig (RH)

yes firstly it happened through our vitamin D research vitamin D definitely has something to do with neuronal development and if there are deficits then it can be that a genetic predisposition is expressed much more than if there is enough vitamin D or if the vitamin D intake is good and I got in touch with several colleagues who have been working with autistic children for 20, 25, 30 years we have come together to form a group of experts, a gang of experts who carry out semi-annual training mainly in the Balkans next uh the next Biak series will take place in Turkey then in December in Cyprus and yes more and more experts have joined and of course we have continued our research and development and the second aspect is unfortunately

I am also affected through my family so my grandson has autism spectrum disorder or problems and the SPT only encourages me even more to look at several different areas and to try to make the situation as good and as optimal as possible and

[HR] in our preliminary discussion we came to the realization of what it is actually about it is about a substance that plays an enormous role in the basic biochemical metabolism and I was totally astonished to learn in one of your last lectures that this substance has two different names one name is zweoxogluterate yes and as zoxogluterate it is in which metabolism it is in the cytosol mainly in oil exactly that and the same substance has a different name called alpha ketogluterate and as alpha ketogluterate I believe it is two or even three places in the citric acid cycle just very important right exactly and you worked with this substance 20 years ago is that right 20 years 20 years yes year 2000 around the year 2000 yes that is 25 years because you met a retired Fresenius researcher and he had revealed his secret recipe so to speak which somehow never came onto the market and you then carried out the first experiments with it in the hospital you can tell that do you want to tell that we have

[RH] We just had this infusion solution produced and treated stage 4 tumor patients off-label and saw that there were wonderful successes with absolutely low side effect rates, so basically hardly any side effects and with the good results I then went to the Innsbruck Ethics Committee and presented it and got a double-blind randomized placebo-controlled study approved, so I got an ethics vote for it and started to treat prostate cancer patients who had exhausted all treatment options in a standardized way at the University of Innsbruck and the results have already been published already in the DS, within a relatively short time the PSA value dropped and the PSA doubling time increased significantly, which is a clear sign that tumor growth is significantly reduced and yes, that is just the appropriate combination of substances and yes, we then continued to work with it accordingly, then the next study in Graz was arranged, yes, yes, uh and then you have what you were involved in this study or was that then just the Company zült yes, unfortunately I was not involved in this study and then let’s say both for financial reasons nIt was not enough to carry out both studies, mine was somewhat postponed and the Graz study was somewhat pushed forward, unfortunately the good results from Graz were not published in the way that was published,

[HR] I read up on your entire career in studies a few years ago, of course it is clear what was published and what is known is that Bralkatzin and his patients had a much better course postoperatively,

they left the hospital 6 days earlier and they were in the intensive care unit for an even shorter time, so the entire postoperative course for these Bralkatzin and his patients was drastically better, what was not published,

[RH] what was not published was the good outcome, namely that a response rate of over 60% was achieved in patients who had exhausted all treatment options and with basically zero side effects, so that was also carried out in a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled manner and as far as I know the study had to be redesigned, the design had to be redesigned because the patients who received the placebo realized relatively quickly that they had received the placebo. and the neighbor in the next bed got the whum because he got up and rode his bike home while everyone else was lying in the hospital for ten days and that’s why the whole thing had to be converted into a crossover study so that the placebo patients were offered the placebo that they would then receive the defense afterwards it was no longer ethically justifiable that in principle the placebo is not offered without subsequent wum therapy this result was actually so phenomenal, so interesting, so good and it is actually such a simple substance produced by the body why wasn’t it published, maybe there were administrative or political reasons but I can’t say because I was simply not involved in the study myself ultimately we all understand how it works

yes if the results are particularly good with very simple, very cheap substances then it is simply not disseminated widely ultimately that led to you basically doing all this research completely unpaid and selflessly that in 2016 you said yes if I’m doing all this research we should also pass it on to the People bring

[HR] yes and then you basically founded a business company, a pharmaceutical company and then came up with a corresponding mixture of preparations that we holistic cancer therapists essentially all prescribe and use with Alpha h

[RH] yes, that’s exactly how it is and at some point you probably thought about your grandchild or something else that this could actually improve the metabolism in the autism brains or well, in autism children it is known that, in addition to many other genetic mutations that are associated with autism, there is one that is very exciting because it is currently not possible to treat all gene mutations with gene therapy only if I already know about a certain mutation and know what effect it has then it could be that this metabolic pathway that is blocked can be bypassed with a biochemical trick specifically there is a mutation that is very often associated with autism it is a mutation of the so-called gene SLC 25 A12 this gene section is responsible for a protein called arala 1 and arala 1 is a transport protein for glutamine in the mitochondrion. If too little of it ends up in the mitochondrion, then too little ATP is produced and the organ in our body that draws the most ATP is just the brain and our neurons, they need the most material, which means there is always an energy deficit.

If I can’t start the citrate cycle right at the beginning with the acetylcoa because there is too little substrate, then we thought it was quite possible by working with the alpha h that you start it at two places lower, namely instead of the alpha ketogluter, then I only lose one in DPH but then I still have the rest of the citrate cycle that I can go through and can then at least provide more energy to help with it.

And we actually just tried it out, created it and tried it out. We carried out studies in Kosovo and Bosnia-Herzegovina and just now in Kosovo 100% of the autistic children that we tested were affected by this mutation and they have we then provided our new Alfi des Kids energy and lo and behold the children suddenly started to speak they started withto communicate with their siblings, they started to paint pictures, some were able to dress themselves, they could say, I want to wear this today and I want to wear this, their ability to communicate has improved significantly and I have also heard this many times from my patients who I have treated in the United Emirates, they are very happy and if you look at the Google rating, it just makes me really happy because then it is from the hypothesis to the testing that we can carry out in our laboratory to the corresponding substitution, a completely sensible addition

as I said, we cannot cure autism with it, but it is about putting the children in an optimal state so that they have the maximum benefit from additional treatment such as behavioral therapy, speech therapy, occupational therapy, in order to support these children as much as possible, hey, if I try to summarize, the brain cells produce little energy because a certain transport protein that is supposed to pull the energy source substance into the mitochondria doesn’t work, exactly,

that’s why there is not enough available to burn and you are now providing a alternative fuel available the mitochondria can now produce energy and this has an immediate, noticeable effect in improved attention and improved communication skills you told me in the preliminary discussion that the kids as a rule is it the rule or are there exceptions yes let’s put it this way if the kids have this defect this SLC 25 A12 then the probability is very high that they will react very well to it and there are two mutations one at position one, one at position two and one at position 13 where an amino acid is exchanged and if that is present then the probability that the kids will react and respond very well to it is very high

[HR] you can measure it in your lab

yes that is relatively simple all I need is a maximum of a swab blood sample is of course much better but you can also do it with a swab like a covid swab you need cell material for that yes this swab is from the mouth you just rub a bit more intensively so that you have obtained cell material people could theoretically take the old expired covid test ands in a way, yes, let’s say you could use the sample kit, but it’s better of course if I have a corresponding kit, which means you can order it from me and then you would do it through hgfarma,

yes, you would do it through hgfarma, they’ll kindly take over the logistics for me because we have them there,

yes, of course, and that will then be done in your laboratory, you have several sequencing machines and so on, yes, that will then be precisely used in your laboratory and you can then say whether these kits then work, yes, there is a price for the test, which costs around €150, okay,

alternatively, because the therapy for two months will cost around €100, you could actually do the proof of concept, so to speak, simply with the substance yourself, you can order the substance from you, HG Pharma, it’s called Alpi or Alpha h Kids energy

and it’s a concentrate and the children then take a little bit of this substance dissolved, so to speak, and you can then do that accordingly, then the parents will see that, yes, that’s important

it’s just that you have to observe yourself critically, yes, is it the case that when you stop again, everything disappears again, that would actually make the concept seem closer,

[HR] I’m a bit skeptical about the genetics of autism, because if I want to find that within 30 years, almost 20% of children in America, or well, isn’t 20%, 5% of children in America, have autism genetically, that’s somehow strange,

[RH] yes, yes, it is actually the case that after stopping, well, it may not have completely regressed, but it is definitely the case that the children then increasingly relapse into the state they had before, that is, it is like super fuel, I can switch the brain on with it,

right, but what the brain has possibly learned doesn’t necessarily have to go away, but then the child has the same problems as before,

[HR] you have now brought out two more Alpha HS,

[RH] the Alpha h is, as I said, the combination of substances that you used 25 years ago in the hospital to treat prostate cancer, Stadum 4 Prost cancer patients have treated and where in Graz actually the advancedittenen bronchial carcinomas have been treated with great success and you have more or less depicted this substance combination as Alpha h,

yes, right, so there is a basic concept, yes, but then there are different recipes that are directed in different directions, such as more focus on reducing oxidative stress and regeneration, more focus on muscle tendon joints, rehabilitation after accidents and trauma or just more energy supply for mitochondria in corresponding children,

okay, so you have the Alpha H2 plus mm, that is the basic substance and the starting substance, so to speak, we like to use it as an additive, practically as an accompaniment in cancer therapy, the patients simply have a lot more energy and the courses are simply correspondingly better and the AKH only that the AKG itself has an anti-tumor effect, that is not even published by me, but many others have, but I would not say that publicly, that it could actually be effective against tumors because otherwise something else will happen again,

then there is the Alpha h Sport, yes, that is that correct that, in contrast to Alpha H2 plus, Sport has a sugar content that athletes can use and utilize in their muscles. Alpha H2 plus is also relatively new [music], it is now completely sugar-free, which means that we no longer have any sugar or sugar substitutes in Alpha H2 plus, which of course makes it much more interesting for accompanying therapy because I can then use a purely ketogenic diet without having to supply the corresponding glucose hidden somewhere, so it is now completely sugar-free and we have,

thank God, we have been able to win over a very large company, the world’s largest company for natural flavors, the company Döler, and together with their research department we have developed a corresponding new recipe and I think the taste is great and the advantage is that it does not contain any sugar or sugar content, great and then

[RH]you have something new, that is Alpha Motion, which has andograapis in it,

[HR] we have Motion, Motion forte, these are capsules, we were able to win over the American company that has the [music] corresponding IP Heldt, um, and we have with them, it’s a cooperation. Andrographis is a wonderful plant which, in addition to its properties that it works like a KX 2 hammer and has an immune modulating effect, is also particularly good at the regeneration of muscles, joints and tendons. K 2 is like Voltarin, practically.

Cox 2 is like Zellebrex, like Celebrex, yes, of course. Voltaren is Voltaren is a non-selective Cox 2 is a one and two hammers, good. Celebrex is a selective Cox two hammers and Andrographis is a selective Cox2 inhibitor, yes, it is a selective one.

[HR]  We use Celebrex it in cancer therapy, basically because it blocks the expression of GP 120, yes, and thus actually a chemoresistance.

[RH] Prostaglandines intervenes in the prostaglandin cycle, which is the KX 2 hammer, yes, and just as you say, but that would just be the natural pondon for the Celebreck, which means that we could then actually use the Motion with the Andogis even better than the Alpha HW.

Plus in the KBS therapy because we have the natural KZ inhibitor and with that we have the metastasis inhibition and at the same time the inhibition of chemoresistance yes that is definitely a combination it is complementary yes that is I mean in my brain I am always looking for things or things that can be combined in a complementary way yes yes yes yes yes one does not have to exclude the other yes so that is definitely a wonderful combination yes yes great okay

I think you want to say something else about that current research projects current research projects yes we are currently working on it with the dentists but that is also it is again in the area of ​​vitamin D with the dentists so that we can find a way to actually transfer vitamin D into implants and basically do it directly on site with either a biofilm or simply insert the implant into the immunod well

it is not that simple but you also need something that the immunod sticks to but we have that we already have and the other is with the Alfi we would actually really like um actually yes with 20 uh children that we would select in a relatively standardized way uh do a corresponding a corresponding examination that takes a little longer than a month and then uh before and after is checked with a questionnaire has it actually improved has it changed uh and ideally of course with children who have a corresponding a corresponding mutation in the gene then they would of course we can also use this to prove these hypotheses okay that means you are looking for autistic children that is really autistic children we would first carry out a survey in order to keep the starting point for the study as consistent as possible it would be best if we also had a corresponding genetic test and then we would equip 20 children with it and then after a month or two months we would check again with the same standardized questionnaire whether there has been any improvement well well we already know that

yes it is but you have to know it but still you have to know it again

okay well dear you are here because you are basically attending an event there

yes I thank you very much for practically letting yourself be interviewed on your vacation

okay always happy to you know we will stay in touch we will stay in touch okay thank you bye CIA ciao