We are a multidisciplinary team that for the past two years has applied the Integrative Functional Medicine model to the treatment of chronic diseases. During the past few years, many fathers in Portugal have requested that we apply some of our Integrative Medicine therapeutic strategies (including nutrition, orthomolecular medicine, clinical metal toxicology, and chelation therapy) to the treatment of their sons with autism spectrum disorders.

We have become more and more aware of how the medical approach (from the diagnosis of biochemical, metabolic, endocrine, immunologic and neurologic changes to the therapeutic approach) to this complex pathology should be as wide as possible.

Therefore, in 2009, we decided to create a specific nucleus on our team directed towards treating children with autism spectrum disease. We attended Defeat Autism Now! (DAN!) Formation in Arizona (USA), and at the end of that year, we started to apply the DAN! biomedical treatment protocol to the treatment of our patients with autism symptoms. Our DAN! nucleus is compromised of the following professionals: Cristina Sales, MD, Susana Reis, MD, nutritionist Daniela Seabra, and psychologist Sofia Baptista. Our appointment is multidisciplinary and follows the steps structured in an organigram. The website of Medicina Funcional Integrativa contains various information in Portuguese.

Aware of the critical importance of wide and credible information about this biomedical approach to autism, we have created an up-to-date blog and regularly send newsletters to our patients. To encourage communication, interaction and support within the Portuguese community of parents of sons with autism, we have created a space for open discussion on our website.

To ground our clinical work using this biomedical approach to autism, we use clinical analyses from both American and European international laboratories. The clinical results which we have achieved during this first year are very encouraging and suggest that these evidence-based strategies used to improve the physical and cognitive competences of these autistic children are worthwhile.

Cristina Sales, MD
2010