Immune System - Antigen Specific Transfer Factor

Transfer Factor is a component of Colostrum that is beneficial to the immune system. Transfer Factor can boost the immune system's ability to recognize antigens (foreign substances or bugs) it has never been exposed to and destroy them. This "messenger molecule" is not destroyed in the stomach as a protein antibody would be. Thus, the immunity of the cow if this is the source of the transfer factor, is transferred to the human. Transfer Factor is also said to be an immune modulator, boosting Natural Killer Cell function and activity significantly while either boosting or suppressing T-cell activity as needed.

Antigen specific transfer factor is tageted to specific human antigens such as various viruses or candida. As many children with autism are suffering with one or more low grade, chronic infections, and their immune system either does not recognize it, or does not have the antibodies sufficient to destroy it, antigen specific transfer factor may be beneficial.

Dr. Fudenberg did a pilot study in 1996 describing the results of administering dialysable lymphocyte extract (DLyE) in infantile onset autism. He took forty autistic children from 6 to 15 years old. Twenty two of these children were diagmosed with "classical infantile autism" while the other eighteen did not meet all the criteria. When the twenty two classical autistic children received threatment all but one responded. Ten of them "became normal in that they were main-streamed into school and clinical characteristics were fully normalized." Of the eighteen that were not formally diagnosed with "classical infantile autism" four responded to treatment. It is also interesting that after the treatments were stopped five of the classical autistics regressed and three of the pseudo-autistic group but they did not regress below their original baseline levels.

References

• Fudenberg, H. Dialysable lymphocyte extract (DLyE) in infantile onset autism: a pilot study. Biotherapy 19:144, 1996
• Fudenberg, H. and Wilson G. Dialyzable transfer factor: clinical uses and studies on purification of the activity. In Clinical Immunochemistry. The American Association of Clinical Chemistry Press, Washington, DC pgs 228-250, 1978
• Masi M et al. Transfer factor in chronic mucocutaneous cabdidiasis Biotherapy 9:97-103, 1996
• Kirkpatrick C. Activities and characteristcs of transfer factor. Biotherapy 9:13-16, 1996