Treatment for Down Syndrome

When people ask me about my resume I think and reflect, I have obtained post grade diplomas like Phd in afasiology, master in voice and laringetonized, B.A. in language therapy and problems in learning, these studies were done in Mexico and the United States, we also did courses in Rumania, India, Spain, Cuba and in the Dominican Republic.

But now my biggest titles are those obtained with our professional work for more than 25 years with cases of children and adults. God has helped me to teach them how to talk, think, read, write, to organize and to be able to carry a productive life, also is the work done as a university teacher in different universities and institutions in Mexico, Rumania, Dominican Republic, Latin America and the Caribbean.

This joy, along with natural medicine and the help that we have provided to thousands of people is the greatest joy of my life. Secretin and the treatment of amino acids and DMSO is another joy that helps those human beings that suffer from autism, condition that we are familiar with scientificly and by practice by having a daughter with this condition. DMSO also helps children with down's syndrome, it also helps patients with cerebral palsy and mental retardation. We hope that the Lord will continue guiding us to be able to help these cases.

With Love,

Dr. Yris Lara
(RESUME)

Realizing that one out of every 700 children born in the United States of America is born with down syndrome; this porcentage is increasing world wide because not only women of avanced age are the most vulnerable to give birth children with down syndrome, according to the expirience that we have obtained by treating children with down syndrome we can confirm that young women are also giving birth to children with this condition. Yris Lara`s Therapy Center has decided to make available a solution to this critical problem. Yris Lara`s Therapy Center in the past extensively worked with cancer patients using amino acids and with arthritis patients using DMSO. Doctors and hospitals both in Santiago, Chile and in Argentina have fully developed protocols, using amino acids and DMSO, to successfully treat Down Syndrome patients. With our seventeen years of direct experience with amino acids and DMSO we were able to readily acquire the expertise to treat Down Syndrome patients. Remarkably all the really significant and vital information on Down Syndrome research initiates from Santiago, Chile and from Buenos Aires, Argentina. Doctors in Santiago, Chile found that their therapy helped:

1. Visomanual Coordination, 2. Dynamic coordination, 3. Postural control, 4. Control of the body itself, 5. Perceptive coordination, 6. Language age, 7. Dynamic coordination of the hand, 8. General dynamic coordination, 9. Static coordination, 10. Speed, 11. Space organization, 12. Temporal structure.


Seen here is Sabrina, age one year, before receiving the Mirenex DMSO-amino acid therapy.	Viewed one year later, after receiving injections of the Mirenex DMSO-amino acid therapy, Sabrina has became more normal-looking in his facial structure and seems to show a rise in his intelligence quotient.	Sabrina, seeing here in November 1998. Here facial looks have improved and sheis more alert thanks to the amino acids-DMSO therapy.

If the therapy is done before age 6, the structure of the face and upper body often changes remarkably from down syndrome to normal. No doctor to date knows why this happens. Our research staff while in Santiago, Chile, received valuable help from the family of Dr. Nicholas Weinstein, the pioneer of amino acid-DMSO therapy. Treatment consists of five fourty day sessions of inter-muscular injections(every other day) with 30 day intervals in between at all times. Only the first five days of treatment need to be done at the clinic under the direct supervision of our medical staff. Good results are seen very, very rapidly with "Merinex".

The medical treatment and supervision as well as a one year supply of injectables and oral medication costs US$5,500. During the initial period of outpatient treatment patients stay and eat wherever they wish. Treatments are painless and there are no side-effects or after-effects of any kind. Patients that fly in will be met at the Las Americas Airport by clinic staff and driven to the hotel with treatment starting the next day.

Medical teams working in clinical and pharmacological research from Canada, the United States, Mexico, Argentina, and Chile use DMSO aminoacid therapy in ongoing search for new means to fight mental retardation. The combination of ingredients is not yet approved by the Federal Food and Drug Administration and any physician who employs the compound in this country risks a lot personally and professionally. Parents don't risk much because the medicine has been proved safe after years of clinical trials, and the parents have hardly any other hope of restoring their trisomy children to near normality.

An experiment was carried out with a group of 18 children suffering from trisomy 21. While they showed marked differences on an intellectual level, they were pathogenically homogeneous, as they all had the typical symptoms. The results obtained with this experimental group were checked against those of a control group of 91 children of similar physical and mental ages who had Down's syndrome.

Chief of research was Lydia F. De Corint, M.D., Assistant Head of the Neurological Service of the Municipal Pediatric Hospital, Buenos Aires, Argentina, who is also President of the Argentine Association for the Scientific Study of Mental Retardation. Dr De Coriat used an evaluation technique on the children that covered four levels:

For psychometric control of the development of the Down's syndrome babies, the Gesell test for child development was used. The Therman-Merril test was used for older subjects. The neurological maturity of the 109 children of both sexes, aged between two months and five years, was recorded. They had been subjected to early stimulation since babyhood. Each child was studied and examined for six consecutive months. Only the 18 children of the group received treatment with DMSO aminoacid therapy. It included the intramuscular injection into each child of five series of twelve ampoules of the Dmso aminoacid compound every other day. Additionally, the rhythm of stimulation and specialized learning for all babies and children were maintained at previously determined levels. The diet was kept at an optimum, and psychopharmacological and aminoacid oral treatments were continued where necessary. The 91 children in the control group received only basic treatment, no DMSO aminoacid therapy. The injections for Down's syndrome children in the experiment were supplemented by daily oral administration of one to three capsules containing the DMSO compound for 180 days.

Analysis of the results demonstrated a tendency towards accelerated maturity in the children treated, with marked progress in language integration; this could be established in statistically significant degrees in the children treated, reported Dr. DeCoriat. The side effects observed were minimal and did not make it necessary to suspend treatment, save in the case of one child, with probable allergic exanthema (Exanthema is a skin eruption.)

The researchers considered the results of this experiment positive and pointed to the DMSO aminoacid therapy as a useful addition to conventional treatments of Down's syndrome.

The DMSO aminoacid therapy used in this research in commencially available under the name "AKRON" in Argentina and "MERINEX" in Chile. The amino acids in these products are agents for the resupply of the nervous cells and are considered indispensable for the biochemical process that controls the cerebral metabolism. The products have been used for the treatment of depressive neurosis, anxiety, psychic disorders connected with menopause, apathy and fatigue of geriatrics, and poor intellectual performance in children. With assistance from DMSO, the amino acids penetrate the brain and activate the neuronal function, which is suppressed in many syndromes of mental retardation. The earlier this DMSO therapy is begun, the greater the possibility of achieving patient improvement, since the neuronal change is then in full development.

Neurologists and pediatricians in various Latin American and European countries have taken advantage of the Chilean and Argentine investigations and now use the products in mentally retarded and mentally deficient patients. The amino acids comprising the DMSO formula are gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), gamma-amino-betahydroxybutyric acid (GABOB) and acetylglutamine. Five milliliter ampoules are supplied for intramuscular injection, and there are capsules manufactured for oral administration.

The pharmaceutical researchers involved with DMSO aminoacid therapy seem unable to entirely explain how it actually works to alter complications connected with the patient's extra chromosome. All they know is what they've observed in one clinical trial after another.

In a paper presented at the third international conference on dimethyl sulfoxide held in New York City under the auspices of the New York Academy of Sciences, five prominent physicians, representing the disciplines of neuropsychiatry, pediatrics, and genetics, from universities and hospitals in Chile, told of another study of DMSO aminoacid therapy in severe mental retardation.

They took a group of fifty-five children with trisomy 21 and divided them into twenty-four patients as controls and thirty-one patients who received treatment. Examinations were conducted by a team of additional specialists, including several pediatricians, a neurologist, a psychologist, a cardiologist, and an ophthalmologist, before the test began and every six months during it, with the exception of the pediatricians, who performed monthly examinations.

All the patients-controls and experimentees-were separated into two age groups. Group one was twenty-eight children less than three-and-a-half years old, and Group Two was twenty-seven children whose ages varied from three-and-a-half to fourteen. The DMSO aminoacid therapy was administered by intramuscular injections with different time rhythms in each group.

Children in Group One were given injections every other day in a series of 90 days alternating with a month's rest. All received a minimum of three series. The dosage was adjusted to their body weight.

Children in Group Two received daily intramuscular injections of 5cc each over 20 days alternating with pauses of 20 days. During the entire period they were given the same amino acids in the form of one or two capsules per day but without DMSO as an ingredient of the capsule. The total treatment for this second group consisted of five series of 20 injections each- in all 100 injections of 5cc over thirty weeks.

Comparison of the psychometric and motor changes observed in children treated in Group One, under three-and-a-half-years old, with those of the control group reveals the following differences:

In children of Group two who were older than three-and-a-half years, the following results were obtained:

Manuel Aspillaga, M.D., Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Diretor of the Department of Genetics at the University of Chile, Calvo MacKenna Children's Hospital, led the research team consisting of pediatrician Mila Sanchez, M.D., geneticist Isabel Avendano, M.D., neuropsychiatrist Lucila Capdeville, M.D., and geneticist Chislaine Morizon, M.D., who were with the same institution.

These five pioneering physicians stated:"It seems to us that DMSO aminoacid therapy in trisomic children and children with severe mental retardation offers an evident advance in the therapy of this syndrome. Fundamentally, it can be observed that children aged less than three-and-a-half years react in the psychic sphere with greater receptiveness to stimulation, showing a major interest in their environment; there is an increase in their activity, and muscular tonus. A notable improvement is also noted in the adaptive and social phase. Besides, muscular coordination and statics also show a significant improvement.

"We have not observed a correlation between the physical signs and the development coefficient. We are of the opinion that the progress must be credited to the treatment," the five physicians emphasized. "At the moment we dare not make a prognosis relative to future intellectual levels. However, if the parameters approach normality with this treatment, this is already a positive result and may well be the starting point for future progress with this therapy.

"In some of our patients treated later, not related with this work, we administered higher doses, obtaining up to this moment more favorable results," said the researchers. "Finally, we wish to emphasize the fact that, although we have not yet arrived at the ideal treatment, we have reached a new important stage on our road in this difficult medical field, where no progress had been made in the course of various decades."

Dr. Nicholas Weinstein was a famous German pediatrician who emmigrated to Chile during Hitler's regime. The Chilean government embraced his therapy and opened the McKenna Hospital which became famous all over South America for successfully treating Down Syndrome children. His success there led pediatricians from all over the world to travel to Santiago to learn about the therapy.

If you have used a variety of treatments with your child, none of which worked - do not become discouraged because "Merinex" WORKS, and is probably the only known treatment that always seems to work. Various treatments including vitamins, minerals, herbs etc. Do not work partly because amino acids are what are essential to benefit Down Syndrome patients when done with DMSO.

For the last three decad learning disorders have been viewed prirnarily from the perspective of special education problems. During early investigations into the causes of "brain-injured" children, a variety of labels have been leveled at these yongsters. The more common names for their behavioral characteristics include brain injury, brain damage, minirnal brain damage, minimal brain dysfunction, hyperkinesis, perceptual defects, dyslexia, hyperactivity, and many more. Still, no single cause has conclusively been found, and treatment has differed with the training and course of study of the diagnosing doctor, depending on whether the doctor is a neurologist, psychologistpsychiatrist, internist, educator, or nutritiorust.

But positive neurological findings have been reported in up to 85 percent of the children with learning disabilities. In one study, 97 percent of the patients showed evidence of brain dysfunction. In another study, a genetic component was considered the cause and, in fact, at least five times more boys than girls have learning disorders, which suggests that some are genetically sex-linked. Of the 51.5 million school-aged children in the United States, an estimated 10 percent have some type of learning disability.

The therapy for these disorders may be pharmacological, nutritional, or environmentall. Pharmacologically, learning disorders that are, in general, considered brain damage are treated with cell-building substances such as amino acids, phosphates, and potassium. They are administered in combirnation with "carrying" solvents such as DMSO so as to actively interfere with the language disorder, which may have a bearing on the recovery and/or development of speech. The addition of amino acids to DMSO develops and activates the functional activity of the brain.

A clinical research project was conducted by the Department of Abandoned Children of the National Health Service of Chile, in 1969, under the direction of the department head, Carlos Nassar, M.D. on a total of forty-four children of school age with learning and develop mental problems caused by low intellectual capacity, Dr. Nassar used DMSO aminoacid therapy (Merinex) by injection and by mouth.

The personal histories of the children showed high percentages of retardation in learning to walk, speak, in psychomotor development,and other actions. They had unmotivated aggressiveness, rebellion and irritability, convulsive attacks, and convulsive pathologies of the brain. Intellectual examinations before the experimental trials indicated that they had IQs of between thirty to eighty-five. This IQ examination was repeated at three, six, and ten months during the course of treatment with DMSO aminoacid therapy.

A series of twenty intramuscular DMSO aminoacid injections, alternating with the oral administration of capsules, proceeded. Almost all the children were treated during periods ranging from six to ten rnonths, except for six chidren in which treatrnent was extended a year.

In contrast with the poor results obtained using other rnethods of therapy, the progress is mental capacity observed by Dr. Nassar for these DMSO treated children was extraordinary. He accomplished a heightened capacity for learning in them in a relatively short time. More than 70 percent were classified "favorable" responses. He saw an " increase of the lQ, an evident and accelerated progress in basic achievements, an overall improvement of intellectual capacity, evident progress in reading, writing, and mathematics, better coordination of movernents and improved manual skill, and a decrease of behavioral problems. "The doctor also saw his patients gain better psychomotor control, and observed the elimination of anger for no reason, a general reduction of irritability,and a lessening of disobedience.

Nassar stated unequivocally, "When analyzing the cases treated and evaluating the clinical and psychornetric tests, wich were performed with the greatest care and conscientiousness, we can conclude that Merinex is undoubtedly beneficial and useful in the treatment of obligophrenic [rnentally deficient] children; an increase in their intellectual faculties and progress in basic achievements were registered in a high percentage of the cases. During the clinical research, we observed that the treatment not only increased the IQ but also has a beneficial influence on behavior problems, improves psychomotor coordination, and eliminates irritability, nervous erethism [abnormal excitement] unmotivated aggressiveness, and rebelliousness".

Additional investigations supported the Nassar study. For instance, at the Department of Psychiatry, the University of Chile, neuropsychiatrist Azael Paz, M.D., did research on fifty learning disabled children between the ages of five and fifteen. They did not suffer from organic brain trouble, brain paralysis, congenital brain damage, epilepsy, or pseudone�rotic mental retardation. Their problems were only language disorders.

DMSO aminoacid therapy (Merinex) was administrated to a part of the group -thirty patients- exclusively by mouth, in dosages of two or three capsules a day during a period of six months. In the other twenty children injection treatment was given intramuscularly, with 5 cc doses of three ampoules per week, until twenty injections, alternating with a rest period of fifteen days, were completed. The injections were then resumed with the same time rhythm and duration as the first cycle until an average of six months of treatment was reached. During the rest periods, the DMSO aminoacid oral treatment was also given in daily doses of two or three capsules, according to the age of the child.

Dr. Paz reported that there are excellent possibilities for stimulating and accentuating the development, the psychic evolution, and learning of children with the help of this therapy, which activates and stimulates the energetic oxidative metabolism of the brain. The neuropsychiatrist noted a gradual development of the faculty of greater awareness, changes and progress in the moral attitude of the child, the unfolding of the personality, the dawning of self-criticism, and the satisfaction of establishing his own personal identity.

The favorable results reported in this clinical study of DMSO for learning disabilities were summed up by the researcher in the following way:

Paz concluded: "The therapy with Merinex, injections and capsules has led to a rapid biopsychological development and to the evolution of the intellectual faculties of the children, making them capable for school leaming." The therapeutic response was quicker and more efficacious in the group subject to treatment with injections and capsules than in the group treated exclusively with capsules alone.

Added at this extensive and convincing South American study, physicians in Spain confirmed, in late 1982, that children victimized by Down's syndrorne undergo a positive social adjustrnent when they are administered DMSO.

This Center is located in Santo Domingo, the Dominican Republic. It is about two hours flying time from Miami, Florida. The Center is located here rather than in the United States because the therapy has not yet been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. It was felt that it would take at least several years to obtain such approval and that in the meantime many people would travel to Santo Domingo rather than wait those several years.

While many people have significant reservations about visiting countries in Latin America and the Caribbean the patients should not be concerned about visiting the Dominican Republic. With a proud heritage that stretches back to the first visit of Christopher Columbus in the year 1492, the people are hard working, the government is democratically elected and street crime is lower than in most United States cities.