Dr. Newmark Hits the Bookstands!

Dr. Newmark has published a chapter in a new textbook called Integrative Pediatrics, part of the Weil Integrative Medicine Library series. He wrote the chapter on Developmental behavior Pediatrics, which includes autism, ADHD, and sleep disorders. It is mainly aimed at physicians and other health professionals and is available on Amazon.com here.

Dr. Newmark was also one of a group of authors who published 2 articles in a journal called BMC Clinical Pharmacology. These both stemmed from a research study he helped perform in Arizona concerning the safety and effectiveness of DMSA chelation therapy for autism. 65 children were given 1 dose of DMSA, and toxic metal (mercury and others) excretion was measured. Those children who had high toxic metals went on to a “placebo-controlled trial” in which half were given DMSA chelation for 3 months and half were given a placebo or “fake” medicine. They hoped to show that the ones given the real thing showed more improvement than the ones given the placebo.

What they found was very interesting. Both groups improved, but there wasn’t much difference between the groups. However, the initial round of DMSA appeared to normalize glutathione levels and help significantly with heavy metal excretion. This may have accounted for the improvement in both groups. They also monitored carefully for lab abnormalities and side-effects and both were quite minimal. Clearly, this is an area that needs a lot more research.

Here are links to the full articles and references for those who are interested:

Safety and Efficacy of Oral DMSA Therapy for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders: Part A - Medical Results
J. B. Adams, M. Baral, E. Geis, J. Mitchell, J. Ingram, A. Hensley, I. Zappia, S. Newmark, E. Gehn, R.A. Rubin, K. Mitchell, J. Bradstreet, J.M. El-Dahr Safety and Efficacy of Oral DMSA Therapy for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders: Part A - Medical Results BMC Clinical Pharmacology 2009, 9:16

Safety and efficacy of oral DMSA therapy for children with autism spectrum disorders: Part B - Behavioral results
J. B. Adams, M. Baral, E. Geis, J. Mitchell, J. Ingram, A. Hensley, I. Zappia, S. Newmark, E. Gehn, R.A. Rubin, K. Mitchell, J. Bradstreet, J.M. El-Dahr Safety and Efficacy of Oral DMSA Therapy for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders: Part B - Behavioral Results BMC Clinical Pharmacology 2009, 9:17