1st World Congress on Tics and Tourettes: What Was Missing? (Premium)
Held in London (June 2015), the First World Congress on Tics and Tourettes was designed to address “hot topics” in the field for treatment and emerging research. In a positive move, some integrative, nondrug approaches were among those topics. Unfortunately, some key areas were not represented and will hopefully be included in the next collaborative effort. See the links at the end of this report for helpful abstracts and a summary article.
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A summary report on the sessions was published a year after the event (June 2016).
Summary report: Current approaches are “unsatisfactory” and the environment is “very important”
A section on therapies from the summary report on the 1st World Congress on Tics and Tourettes began:
Management of Tourette Syndrome is challenging and has remained largely unsatisfactory through the last decade of intensifying clinical and scientific interest in the condition.
We are told in the excerpt below that the environment is about 40% responsible for tics and Tourette’s. A link to the environment is certainly not new to ACN Latitudes readers, yet it is important that it was spelled out in this international report:
Genetic causation accounts for ~60% of Tourette Syndrome risk, suggesting that other, non-genetic (environmental) factors are also very important in the development of this disorder.
Since current treatment approaches are “unsatisfactory” and the role of the environment is “very important,” I immediately searched the summary article on the First World Congress on Tics and Tourettes for key words that I knew would be of interest to our readers. These terms included:
- allergy
- chemical exposures
- toxins
- food intolerance
- nutritional supplements
Each of these falls under the category of an environmental influence, and each is an area explored in research for other movement disorders. Unfortunately, there was nothing included in the summary report about these issues.
Nondrug approaches addressed in the report include an ongoing study on use of a dental appliance as well as cognitive behavior training. Deep brain stimulation was also mentioned, though it is an invasive technique.
Note that a poster presentation for medical marijuana reported success with this therapy. Yet in the summary report, the approach was described as “controversial.” A poster presentation also focused on the use of the modified Atkins diet which is being explored in a preliminary study.
See abstracts of the conference here.
This collaborative effort is a step in the right direction and we look forward to seeing environmental issues included in the future.
Full summary report published June 2016 here.
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