Can you treat autism without medication? Here are four areas you need to know

There is no cure for autism. I want to say that clearly right at the start. Nothing I share in this video is a cure, and anyone who promises one, you probably should walk away. But here's what I have learned. There's so much we can do for people with ASD. We can help with the gut problems, the fatigue that never lifts, the sensory overload, the anxiety, the depression, and the OCD tendencies. These things travel with autism, and these things we can treat. The goal is simple, not to cure, not even to diagnose. The goal is really to help you feel better, and function better, and live better. I'm Dr. Yang, a psychiatrist, board certified in the United States. I'm also an integrated medicine physician. I trained through the fellowship in integrated medicine at the University of Arizona, and I'm a fifth generation traditional Chinese medicine practitioner. So I see the body from both western science and eastern medicine. Over the years, I have helped many patients with autism, not by chasing one's symptoms, but by looking at the whole person. I do this with a model I created called ACES, four letters, four dimensions. A represents anatomy, the structure of the body. C is about chemistry, what is happening inside at the level of the cells. E, energy, the nerve system, and how it flows. S, the soul, or identity, or meaning, or inner life. Today I will show you all four through a real patient. Stay with me. Each story will show you something different. Let me tell you about Marcus. He was eight years old. His parent brought him to me. He was first diagnosed at age three. By eight, he was on three medications just for his behavior. He was aggressive at school. He had been constipated for years, and the family had stopped even mentioning it. Nobody was treating it. His posture leaning forward, he always looked tired. So we started with his body. We looked closely at his gut. He was a C-section baby. We found a real imbalance in the bacteria there, and dysbiosis, where there's imbalance of probiotics. We found a problem with how his gut was moving. We found foods his body could not handle. Then we worked on the tension in his neck and the head, and the therapist worked on his sense and his movements. Six months later, Marcus was different. His gut was working every day. His aggression dropped by more than half. He came off one of his medications. His mother told me something I will never forget. She said, Doctor, he laughs now. He laughs. Now, why did we start with the body? Because autism is not just in the head. It is also in the body. It is structural. The researchers at UC San Diego showed this back in 2003. In many autistic children, the brain grows too fast, too early in the first two years of life. That was a big discovery. It told us autism is not only about behavior. It begins in the brain structure very early, and the gut matters too. Doctors at a major Boston hospital found something clear. Autistic children have a far more stomach and gut problems than other children, about four times more. And here's the key. The gut and the brain are connected. They talk to each other all the time. That connection runs right through the neck and the spine. So the body is not separate from the mind. The body is actually part of the mind. That is anatomy. Next, let me tell you about Sophia. She was 14, diagnosed with autism at six. But it wasn't just autism. She also had anxiety, depression, ADHD, and a tiredness that never went away. She was on four medications. So we look at her chemistry. We ran careful lab tests, and the results told a story. Her body had trouble with basic process called methylation. Think of it as a switch the body uses to run many biochemical reactions. Her vitamin D was very low. Her healthy fats were low. There were signs of inflammation, and there were heavy metals in her system. And her gut, again, was out of balance. We did not start by changing her psychiatric medications. We started with correcting her biochemical imbalance. We gave her the right form of D vitamin. Slowly, we brought her vitamin D up to a healthy level. We changed her diet to calm inflammation. We healed her gut. We gently helped her body clear the metals. Eight months later, her anxiety was done. Her energy was back. And working with her psychiatrist, we carefully reduced two of her four medications. Sophia said something simple and beautiful. She said, I feel like myself for the first time. So why chemistry? Because the research is very strong here. Studies have shown that as a group, autistic children often have that methylation problem and more stress inside their cells. Scientists at Johns Hopkins found real brain inflammation in autism, not a theory. They could see it. Other research found that about one in three autistic people have problems with their cells, energy factories, the mitochondria, and the gut bacteria matter too. A team at Caltech showed in animals that altering gut bacteria actually altered autism-like behavior. So chemistry is not a small thing. It is a foundation. Now, Ethan, he was six. He came to me because of severe meltdowns. He could not handle the grocery store. He could not sit in classroom. Loud sounds made him jump. He slept maybe four hours a night. His nervous system was stuck on high alert all the time, like alarm that would not turn off. So we worked on his energy. We taught him simple breathing. Even a six-year-old can learn to hum and to breathe slowly through the nose. We gave him tools for his sense, a weighted vest, headphones to block noise when things got hard. We used scalp acupuncture twice a week at first, then once a week. We helped him sleep sunlight in the morning, screen off after seven at night. Twelve weeks later, Ethan had changed. His meltdowns dropped from three or four a day to one or two a week. He started sleeping eight hours. His mother cried in my office. She said he is in his body now. He used to live above it. So what is energy, really? It is the nerve system, and we can measure it. There is a famous idea called polyvagal theory. It tells us this. When the nerve system feels unsafe, being social becomes physically harder. It is not a choice. It is wiring. Research has shown that autistic children often have a faster resting heart rate and a nerve system that struggles to calm down. And there is a beautiful way to understand the autistic brain. One scientist called it intense world. The idea is that autistic brain does not feel too little. It's feeling too much. The world comes in too strongly. So when we calm the nerve system, the person can finally settle. They can finally arrive. That's energy. And last, Anna. Anna is 42. She is a successful lawyer. She came to me for depression that would not lift. She had tried three antidepressants, two therapists. Nothing worked. In our first meeting, I asked her one question. I asked, has anyone ever checked you for autism? She went still, and then she cried. She had wondered about it for 10 years. She had never told a single person. We did a proper assessment. It confirmed she was autistic. But here's the most important part. The diagnosis was not the treatment. The treatment was something deeper. For 45 years, she had been told she was too much. So we worked on that. We worked on the old wounds. She reconnected with her brain. She reconnected with her faith. Something she had walked away from, because she felt she wasn't good enough for it. And she found a community of other women also diagnosed later in life. Within a year, Anna's depression lifted. We did not change a single medication. She told me, I stopped trying to be someone I'm not. That was the medicine. This is soul dimension. It's identity, meaning, feeling that you belong, feeling that who you are is not a mistake. When the soul begins to heal, the body often follows. That's soul. So for patients, Marcus needed his anatomy. Sophia needed her chemistry. Ethan needed his energy. Anna needed her soul. But here's what I want you to remember. The deeper we went with each one, the more we saw the same thing. Every single one of them needed all four. Because the four are connected. Always. A heart sensory day strands the chemistry through inflammation. It crushes the soul through hopelessness. But it works the other way too. Heal the gut, and the meltdowns soften. Calm the nerve system, and being social gets easier. Honor the soul, and the body finds the will to heal. That's the ACES model. Now maybe you are watching this, and thinking, okay, but what do you actually do? What are the treatments? That is the next video. In part two, I will show you exactly how we treat at the Young Institute. The therapies for the gut and the brain, the advanced nutrient therapy, the brain modulation tools, the work we do for the soul, and for patients and the family. I would also tell you how to choose your therapy, and what to stay away from. So subscribe, so you don't miss it. Thank you for watching. I will see you in part two.