Gut–brain axis study shows autism-associated molecular, microbial profiles
nature.com
nature.com
If it's reasonable to expect diet and activity levels to have microbial effects, and it is reasonable to expect the psychopathology in question to have an effect on activity levels and diet; then whatever microbial differences you find between sufferers and non-sufferers could just as easily be the consequence as the cause of the pathology.
Almost like your brain goes, "I'm smiling so I must be happy right now."
If you kick a ball, it begins to roll not only because it was kicked, but because it was round, solid, not made out of lead, etc. Further the presence of the ball may have induced you to kick it. Surely you don't go around kicking empty air.
But we tend to have a sort of simplified view where there is an active cause acting on a passive world to have an effect.
When you consider how many diseases are related to a dysfunctional immune system, "most" isn't really an exaggeration. It's especially not an exaggeration if you weight diseases by how common they are.
People don't want to make lifestyle changes, they want a pill and the pharmaceutical industry is happy to supply it.
I have to disagree because "total refusal to eat healthy foods" is another one of the many subjective observations that muddies the definition of autism, which is as loose of a definition as you can get in my opinion.
Are they autistic because they don't eat right or do they not eat right because they are autistic?
The fact that the definition is so broad leads you to conclude they don't know why it is, or how to change it, or even cause it. Even the definitions of ASD, and or Aspergers has changed. Many who would not have qualified for the diagnosis 30 years ago would qualify now. Money is involved, at the schools, and the schools are the ones doing the testing. But, there is a real need for it. These kids are smart, but the environment is blocking them from learning or expressing.
What is needed is some kind of scientific, measurable, and conclusive understanding of the condition. Until then we are all just grasping in the dark, without even a brain scan.
I think we are the early days of Neuroscience.
Not me, oh and do sports, but ive hidden it very well.
Sadly, these results do not seem game changing. Keep going!
It doesn't really challenge anything without some evidence for causation from microbiome to ASD beyond correlation, since causation from ASD (or its genetic determinants) to microbiome is also consistent with a correlation.
https://www.statnews.com/2023/03/23/autism-epidemic-cdc-numb....
I’m both hopeful and doubtful of studies like this. I tend to think these help narrow the search space, but are missing whatever underlying issue is causing the thing they see. My sons diet is hugely restricted due to his intolerance of many things (chemo changes to taste hurt that significantly as well) so I’d imagine his gut biome is an issue at this time. It likely was NOT prior to his chemo (though we can’t know for sure) as he ate the same diet my daughter did (and we tend towards quite healthy). We’ve investigated other possible environmental factors, including PFAS/PFOS testing, heavy metals testing, etc. (my career exposed me to those but he was never exposed that we can tell). Everything inconclusive.
As I said, I’m hopeful we can figure this out. Each step helps, even if it’s not the final one to finding the cause.
Also, I'm guessing that after someone's brain has developed it's going to become much harder to change.
That said, I'd be asking the alternative question, can we use this to give people high-functioning autism?
It’s mainly used with c diff people who have had their gut micro biome wiped out by treatment.
> Technically, a colonoscopy is a type of endoscopy. An endoscopy is a nonsurgical procedure
Also it can be done via nasal/oral tube to the guts.
They don't release in the stomach [1]:
> The oral capsule tested in this study was specifically designed to open and release its content at the end of human small intestine only.
There are many pills that release at different points, and speeds, through the digestion. This is why some pills are labelled "do not cut". See enteric coating [2].
[1] At least the early ones didn't. I doubt there would be a point in putting fecal matter in the stomach. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7918368/
> Fecal transplantation is usually performed by colonoscopy. A gastroenterologist guides the colonoscope through the entire length of the colon, and, as it is withdrawn, the solution containing donor feces is deposited into the colon.
> Less commonly, the transplant is delivered through a tube inserted through the nose that reaches into the duodenum, the area where the stomach connects with the small intestine. This method does not require bowel prep, but is associated with a higher risk of side effects such as aspiration pneumonia.
> Sometimes, FMT can be delivered by a capsule that you swallow or through an enema.
tldr: tube inserted somewhere to deposit, pill, or enema.
It's unlikely that gluten itself has anything to do with ASD, it just exacerbates an existing predisposition to intestinal permeability. And so restricting Gluten is a reasonable intervention. The underlying cause is almost certainly dysbiosis, the microbiome continually modulating permeability in a way that is damaging to the host.
“To test this, we re-analyzed data from a 2-year, open-label fecal matter transplant (FMT) study with 18 children with ASD52. In this study, the children were subjected to a 2-week antibiotic treatment and a bowel cleanse, followed by 2 d of high-dose FMT treatment and 8 weeks of daily maintenance FMT doses. Based on one of the most common evaluation scales for ASD, the Childhood Autism Rating Scale (CARS), significant improvements were achieved after the 10-week course of treatment. Two months later, the initial gains were largely maintained, and a 2-year follow-up showed signs of further improvement in most of the patients. The results are consistent with a potential role of the microbiome in improving autism symptoms, but how the underlying changes in microbiome composition related to those seen in other studies remains unknown.”
>> related thread from two years ago...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26038638
>> also searching on hn.algolia yields this...
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateEnd=1690998813&dateRange=all&dat...
[1] https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.07.28.550993v1 [2] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2095-1
Seems like a huge claim you can’t backup due it being a negative.
Who?
> Biochemical evidence for this hypothesis was identified in 2017, finding mothers with a gay son, particularly those with older brothers, had heightened levels of antibodies to the NLGN4Y Y-protein than mothers with heterosexual sons.[1][2]
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraternal_birth_order_and_ma...
I'm not saying your sexuality can change, but I thought there was fairly conclusive evidence that microbiome changes do impact people neurologically?
What I am trying to say is the analogy of wiring is wrong. Our brains are not static, like the wiring in the walls of a house. New connections are formed all of the time, old connections are forgotten. Perhaps we should be more inspired by mycelium connections then wires. Research might open up new ways of thinking, for Autistics and Neurotypicals alike. Imagine, thinking like a child.
How do you feel about the analogy of Hardware / software. Like the hardware is the same, but the software is written different. Good talking with you. Would love to know more. Any types are welcome!
For example, you might have a particular way of thinking that is different from other people which is both important to you and often associated with ASD. That doesn’t feel like something likely to change qualitatively from say a diet change.
On the other hand, there might be aspects like being overwhelmed by particular kinds of stimuli, that feel less personal and may feel more likely to be impacted be something like a diet change.
Finally, consider that you might be holding too tightly to some aspects of who you are “right now”, to be able to see and accept how some of these things might change. I know I do sp sometimes (regardless of whether I might be on the spectrum, or not). At the very least a relatively fixed (as opposed to growth) mindset is also often associated with ASD.
Anyone who says that autism can be cured, would therefore have to change my being fundamentally, which I personally would oppose, as it is this exact difference, that allowed me to get to points intelectualy where others were not before.
If anyone wants to eradicate autism, sure, go for it, just dont expext any dirac, newton, einstein, and many others to ever get Born again.
Yes, this topic releases a lot of emotions Im aware of that. Whats important to me is that being autistic means being different - not worse. "a relatively fixed mindset" sounds soo pathological.
Autistics hold onto their constructs and routines, because their minds are too flexible and boundry less. I could frame that NT "rigidness" as a pathology just as well.
Thanks for being that open and non black/white thinking to let that sink in and accept it because it comes from an autistic person who does know better about them than someone who is not.
And Im aware of not targeting the main subject of gut bacteria here, and apologize for that. Im sure with your mental fitness youll be able to separate the two aspects and still value the insights shared, thanks!
And if you can accept these different facets being more fluid, I’d propose that rather than curing autism (something I don’t believe in and would never champion), one might be able to moderate specific facets of ASD that people on the spectrum themselves find a hindrance by changing the microbiome. Say some kinds of stimuli-caused overwhelm. Similar to somebody changing their diet to limit hangriness or blood sugar drops.
Note that at no point am I suggesting somebody with ASD needs treatment, just that they might see some improvements in their well-being if they wanted.
Finally, I derailed my comment by mixing it with a well-intended comment about mindset. I mean no judgement w.r.t. a fixed mindset, just that I found it a hindrance myself and have been happier since I started working on changing it.
For example being able to write down some things I may have held as axiomatic in the past (e.g. ideals or standards of behavior) and being able to consider how they may not be so fixed and deciding to change them or ignore them entirely is very liberating.
Among other things it lets me view my identity as separate from my feelings and behaviors.
P.S. I don’t appreciate the ad hominem at the end of your comment. Even if I unintentionally offended you don’t think I deserve that.
And I did not lie. There are people who claim that. That they die weeks later is another part of the story.
Point Im wanting to make: claims dont prove anything.
Let's see what Tao Lin has to say for himself about being "cured":
>Through nutrition, detoxification, exercise, writing (and other autism-friendly forms of self-expression), reading (allowing me to alleviate loneliness in private, without distress), cannabis, change-catalyzing psychedelics, meditation, and practice, I’ve become much less autistic since high school and college. I estimate I now range from 30 to 98 percent more autistic than my peers, depending on the hour, day, week, and month; every symptom varies, I’ve learned, depending on sleep, situation, inflammation levels, cultural consumption, mindset, and hundreds of other factors.
see: https://www.reddit.com/r/redscarepod/comments/xl952r/tao_lin...
Note he didn't say he was cured at all, he said he's "30 to 98 percent more autistic than my peers," and also said that a lot of his treatment wasn't dietary.
You might want to reflect on this a while. You introduced the idea of "lying" which isn't a generous way to interact with anyone. I'd suggest you consider giving others more of the benefit of the doubt. You're very wrong on multiple levels here, but I would never accuse you of lying, I believe you were just mistaken.
I'd also suggest you spend a while doing more investigation into the claim that there's a "cure" for autism. No experts believe this, and the reason is because not only is there no reason to believe such an thing exists (and no evidence), but the idea of a "cure" probably fundamentally misunderstands what autism is to the best of our current knowledge.
Imagine the horrors of not being taken seriously, people saying we need to be cured - i cannot not compare it to conversion therapies for lgbtq+. There are actually institutions promoting this, called ABA therapies.
We need people like you to thrive as part of this society, thanks a lot! :D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWRniMqhr00 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inedia
To me it seems uncalled for to accuse go_elmo of lying about knowing some of these people.
It was more than eggs an honey. Also looking into him a bit, he still seems very autistic despite being "cured."
It does however not change the "neurodivergent" thinking and processing. There still is a clear distinction from non-adhd ers - in all aspects of being, including communication.
Many issues that make these things a "malfunction" are due to todays system of work and society. Not judging anything, but simply pointing out the huge diff between that and e.g. hunter-gatherer societies where we lived in at least 100x longer - the genotypes of adhd & asd established themselves over that periods in humans, compared to "disease" like trisomy 21 the rates are much higher too - its not a disease but a neurotype and most research agrees today.
Humanity Profits from diversity in all forms, like all biological systems - it makes them more resilient (thats also used in ML btw).
Trying to cure such things by making them dissapear is sick by design and often results in eugenics theories.
I use this opportunity to say that "help" organizations like autism speaks that promote finding "cures" do a lot of harm - similar to conversion therapies for lgbtq people.
Autistics should self advocate as much as possible, thats also the safest organisations to support.
I must say that thats solely my opinion - many autistics also suffer a lot and would love to be healed - even if it means losing their personality, sufferings are real. I just dont think its realistic to implement such things until we understand tvmhe brain fully and could also e.g. change psychopaths, color blind people etc (not easy "fixes")
Thanks a lot for asking and reading this!
Do you know what decreases insulin resistance and changes gut microbiome composition? intermitent fasting.
A review published in Frontiers in Microbiology in 2020 suggested that women with PCOS tend to have less diverse gut bacteria, and the balance of different types of bacteria might also be altered. The causal relationship is obviously not clear.
1. https://www.fertstert.org/article/S0015-0282%2804%2902227-7/...
Not relevant to the to be proven point that change to biome implies change in sexuality, none at all.
Maybe they play a role in insulin resistance which causes higher androgen production in women with PCOS, that impacts brain development.
That's not an alt-right theory.
(No doubt, the alt-right has a very horrible “...and, therefore” for it, but that's a different issue.)
Figuring out if a person has a particular problem is the first thing you need to do before you can correct that problem... and there appears to be no accurate way of doing that for autism.
Definitely could be other factors too, like non-diverse diets.
I'd caution that there are at least two variations of this, with rather different treatment implications:
1. ("Hygiene Hypothesis") Modern immune systems are coddled degenerate weaklings that should be toughened up with exposure to survivable levels of hostile microbes.
2. ("Old Friends") Your immune system is complex and its ideal tuning is reliant on normal exposure to benign, commensal, or symbiotic microbes which help it calibrate or even serve as outsourced components.
And it is further true that in social situations the anxiety level of the autistic child increases, as does the parent, and so people viewing the situation might be biased to see a highly anxious parent with a spoiled kid, and assume the causation.
My kid loves playing in dirt, he also loves to track it into the house, no-matter how many times you tell him. We live with dirt, and autism. My kid is also a genius, so there are good things about it also.
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Correlation-between-chil...
Unless you have some kind of mechanism to explain it.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/24/health/bayer-monsanto-roundup...
The most obvious one would be a six year lag. But it might have variance depending on crop cycles and whether glyphosate is handed off through the placenta and/or mother’s milk, and depending on the proposed mechanism of action and weaning age.
No, if there was just a time lag, than the variations would still be reflected, but with a time lag.
If the population had no awareness of the effect and no ability to observe the impact of grain consumption on their children, then maybe it would proceed like some chemical process. But the population can learn and change behavior.
My point is that your dismissal, in the way you framed it, is possibly just as much a random walk as the correlation in the way it is presented. Neither is conclusive.
Autism isn't a disorder, but a mutation and in this instance can be correlated to the microbiome of the gut. But does not account for the increase in reeln nor changes in rna that cause increased sensitivity to stimuli. And is only treated as a disorder in respect to assembly line predetermined processes typical of today's organizations. That runs counter to the increased stimuli of maintaining said predetermined process, while punishing divergence.
This is also noting that data can be fit to suit a narrative and causation is different than correlation. But seem similar in the general context of today's discourse. And limited by predictability while noting the massive reproduction crisis in science such as this article and others. Including the recent controversy at Stanford with the president stepping down due to enabling the manipulation of data specifically in this domain of science.
Broad brush strokes don’t help. It’s labeled a “spectrum” for a reason.
This obviously isn't the place for said discussions.
We wanted him to be in school with his peers, desperately. The steps involved in getting him re-enrolled were numerous, and exhausting. Once 2nd grade started, the reality quickly became obvious to us. He learns far more at home than in the 'structure' of school. He could be placed in a more severe structure, but we opted to bring him back home to teach him. My thinking is that by developing an ability to read, write, and think, he will have the tools to better cope with the world. Of course, it is a gamble, and social skills are not easy. But anyone who thinks, send him to school to develop social skills is not really looking at the details.
As for Autism being an adaptation, I think that is true, like many adaptations. His math skills, and memory are genius level. He seems highly adapted to computers, ipads, and abstract thinking, like numbers, spelling, birthdays, etc. He would make an excellent QA engineer.
Again, respects to you on your journey through this.