Treating Autism with Faeces. Does it get any worse?

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The thinking behind this treatment is understandable if a little uncomfortable.

There's a number of "funded" projects around the world looking at the link between gut bacteria and neurological changes in the brain. There is a theory that children genetically predisposed to autism who take antibiotics as babies lose a lot of their normal flora which is disproportionately replaced by antibiotic resistance bugs in their gut. These new bacteria produce chemicals which interfere with brain function during crucial developmental stages resulting in autistic brain function (so the theory goes).

Therefore the stool treatment envisages that stool from a "healthy" person without autism contains normal flora which when consumed will reinoculate the gut replacing the bad bacteria and reducing the production of these brain altering chemicals.

Why are people in so much panic about autism? You don't seem to see nearly as much panic going on about Down Syndrome. Yet autism gets all this panic.

Autism is being diagnosed more. It's not becoming more common. It's just we have less autistic people that are not diagnosed than we used to.

...Ay yi yi !

"faecal transplants" are actually a promising potential treatment for all sorts of things, from the obvious inflammatory bowel diseases to morbid obesity, diabetes, high triglycerides and so on. But the gut-host connection has been sort of ignored entirely until only ten years ago, so now people are trying to see what happens on every disease of unclear etiology.

and, there are some unexplained anecdotal cases, in which faecal transplantation cured things like MS.
http://www.radiolab.org/story/263526-poop-magic-gut-cure/

though autism-associated enteritis has been gotten rid of as an exclusive category, there still is an elevated incidence of gut issues in ASD population.

However, ONE autistic child treated with faecal transplant, and subsequent improved condition just proves nothing.
From a medical standpoint, we can't tell what would have happend, if the kid had not been treated like this.

However, DO NOT RIDICULE faecal transplants, they are still promising for a handfull of crippling chronic conditions, yet unlikely for some others. Like autism.
I'd rather eat s**t once than have, say, Crohn's disease for the rest of my life.

^^^
Well, you wouldn't exactly be eating it - - rather, it would be sent into your digestive tract by means of a tube introuduced through the mouth, and down the esophagus and stomach.

^^^ I understand that. I used this wording for the purpose of hyperbole.

I don't quite understand why people think autism is caused by gut issues. Is it based on some sort of research?

It shows the astonishing ability of the human mind to bend its perception of reality to suit what it wants to believe.

People come up with strange ideas to treat autism.