The surprising body part that could be causing Autism

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It has been around for 20+ years on the fringes but it was not gaining currency. Until Autism Speaks involvement it had been lost a lot of currency due to guilt by association with Wakefield.




Personal observation: Bolding by me. The "identity" and "I want the diagnoses" ideas are new so the backlash against it is to be expected. And I do understand the negative reaction by LFA. What has taken me by surprise is how people seem to be personally annoyed and offended by the concept. Feeling good and not bad about oneself is a proven treatment to a lot of things.

As for big pharma I am sure the brain trust at these companies are trying to figure how to take control of this as we speak. The anti gut bacteria diets will remain fringe, If this is the cure or a significant treatment it will be administered by pill or ironically vaccine. This is how it always seems to happen with change. Companies industry yell, scream, lobby against it then figure out how to control it.

How do you know that?

Colonoscopy? Stool samples cultured in a lab?

Routine ultrasound may detect autism in utero

Modification of the gut biome won't impact all aspects of every ASD, but it may well play an important role for some

I discovered this myself before I knew I had autism. I thought I had a candida overgrowth in my gut (I may or may not have, it is unclear) and went on an elimination diet as a part of treating myself. The diet was strict but I felt MILES better... I no longer felt ill in the morning, my brain fog eased up majorly, I was able to get out of bed and do things to look after myself that I could not before, like cleaning my mess for the first time in months, having a shower etc. My depression and depersonalisation eased up a lot too, I gained some motivation to move forward in life... Upon reintroducing foods I noticed that gluten and dairy both made my symptoms come back strong. I tested lactose-free milk, I still had a bad reaction. I tested a whey protein isolate powder, I had no negative reaction... From this I concluded that casein was my problem with dairy.

Later I started making coconut milk kefir for it's probiotic content, also to help with the candida overgrowth I may have had... And something I had not expected happened. My head felt clearer and my depersonalisation disappeared almost entirely, I still could not usually make eye contact with people while I spoke to them but I now made eye contact with them automatically while listening. I became even less depressed, my brain fog let up even more and became very manageable.

After learning I had autism suddenly all of this clicked into place and I understood why these changes had such an effect. I am now making sure I get the recommended amounts of vitamins and minerals it is recommended people consume daily and incorporating exercise and it is doing amazing things for my wellbeing. I would encourage anyone to experiment - this is not about "curing" or "fixing" your autism, it will still be there... it's about being able to better manage negative symptoms and improving your quality of life.

Here's a link w/ a youtube video explaining what a coffee enema actually does to detoxify the body & in particularly the liver:

http://www.chrisbeatcancer.com/dr-vicke ... ng-cancer/

He says it's because the coffee enema increases the production of glutathione transferase. But so does just drinking coffee.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1 ... 429.x/full

that's a link to a study showing that drinking coffee increases production of glutathione transferase. So apparently from whichever orifice the coffee enters, it can increase production of glutathione transferase. I'll stick to drinking it.

Iirc, the doc in the vid said that glutathione transferase is increased many times more via enema than ingestion.

And as a personal anecdote, as someone who used to drink a lot of coffee back when I drank coffee (up to 4-5 pots a day back about 12 or so years ago) and has done the coffee enema thing.. I can tell you that I feel a whole lot better after the latter than the former, especially since the caffeine effects from drinking that much coffee are not so good. Also as they pointed out in that video.. the amount you'd have to drink to get the same detox effect would be quite unhealthy for you.

FWIW, there was an article in the Economist a while ago about the microbiome. In it was discussion of clostridium difficile, which they allege produces an acid that the body removes with an enzyme that depends on sulfur. The suggestion was that a high level of the bug could deplete the body's supply of sulfur and that that would harm nervous development.

I have no idea, and I wasn't able to find papers elaborating on that. I do know that the Economist has been surprisingly good at reporting engineering news, so they may have savvy sources in medicine as well.

The only thing that I can personally say for the theory is that I feel better after eating foods that have very little dietary value, but do have high sulfur content. (Onions, garlic and a few others.) That isn't placebo, since I'd noticed before I read the article. I also felt worse when I became a vegetarian, and meats are one of the main sources of sulfur. All of this could be a complete illusion, but it's easy, cheap and (I assume) safe to try.

You didn't. Only the severely immunocompromised (mostly those with AIDS) will have a candida overgrowth. If you did, then it would be the least of your worries because you'd be constantly be near-death from routine infections.

Put candida in a box with "detox", "naturopath", "vaccine injury" and "natural food", and run away when someone starts talking about them as serious concepts.

I read through the whole thread, seems to me the 'real' born autistic brain vs chemical/diet altered normal brains is just a theory too so not a strong basis to argue against this diet theory (not saying that means the diet theory it is right, but to say it isn't true based on another unproved theory doesn't make sense to me).

i'm willing to give this diet approach a shot, as the links between diet, general and mental wellbeing, seem quiet well established outside of the realm of autism so it couldn't hurt.

I don't have any GI problems, but do have low energy all the time which I've often wondered if is diet related. What would people recommend in terms of foods to increase, food to avoid, supplements etc?

i know that cutting as much prepared, processed food out of my diet as possible has made a big difference in my energy levels, as well as getting more regular exercise. the amount of filler and processed sugars in prepared food messes with your insulin production over time, which has a huge impact on your energy levels day to day, and it's cumulative (with the end complication pathologically speaking being diabetes, if you eat enough of the stuff). just simple things like getting more fresh produce into my diet--snacking on fruits and vegetables, eating more salad--as well as lots of nuts, seeds, and legumes (beans, chick peas, lentils, etc). and i stick to whole grains now, and avoid wheat when possible. i also cut red meat out of my diet several years ago and have no regrets in that regard; i do, however, still eat eggs, fish, and occasionally poultry, as well as some dairy (i love yogurt and cottage cheese).

i think those few things have all contributed to an increase in my energy levels and my general sense of well-being day-to-day. now that i'm several years into this fresh food diet and more active lifestyle i could never go back to eating processed food and being so inactive. making better diet choices and being more active become self-sustaining habits if you stick with them long enough--the results make staying with the behaviour more and more worthwhile over time.

See the link in my signature for the diet/herbal protocol I followed.

I don't know how seriously to take this article.

Firstly, I am curious about the test groups for the different bacteria and how different these different strains are. Bacteria evolve quicker than other living things, so it would not surprising to hear that different people have slightly different bacteria on the genetic level. Considering this, the question I have is whether the bacteria found in Autistic people are more different than those of bacteria found from individual to individual.

Second, if the bacteria in the gut are that different in the tested groups, I would like to know information about the people who were compared. Are they from the same place? How genetically different are the groups of people, ect.

Also, it mentions that 90% of kids with Autism have 'tummy troubles' but it does not mention the comparison to how many children without it have stomach issues.

Finally, even if there is a link, it does not mean that one caused the other. It could be that they are both symptoms caused by some other problem. Then again, perhaps the level of stress that a kid with Autism experiences every day causes the tummy aches, too. I am not saying that it is completely impossible that the intestinal issues don't play a role but I feel that the other possibilities should have been expressed , too.

Also, let us not forget how scientists have been suggesting other possible causal links for years before this was suggested, such as giving children shots.

From another article I posted either in a separate thread or in the link in my sig it said that Autistics tend to have fewer strains of good bacteria in their guts, and that three specific strains were commonly missing. I can't recall the names of them, but if you check the link in my sig or search for threads I've started about probiotics I'm sure you'll find it.

Somehow I doubt the general population's rate of "tummy troubles," is anywhere near 90%.

Correlation does not equal causation, true.. however, it's been my experience - and that of hundreds of others if you lookup other articles I've posted or do a google search - that digestive issues are the cause of neurological issues and that dealing with the physical digestive issues heals the mental/neurological ones.

Yep, there are all kinds of theories.. including vaccines. If any medical theory is worth subscribing to I'd say that overuse of antibiotics is a cause considering it kills off probiotic bacteria and allows for digestive imbalances to happen in the first place.

hmm...
ive been diagnosed with both crohns, and ulcer colitis(and been hospitalize on many accounts (some icu/cdu admits) due to malnutritions and "adult failure to thrive". which was caused by the lack of absorbtion (and the lack of knowing when the last time it was that i ate).

maybe its the autism that causes the g.i. track problems.. because i had been diagnosed with autism many years before any gut issues started arrising).
or another theory could be, maybe autism is an auto immune disorder in one or many different areas in the body.. or maybe an auto immune disorder of the brain. crohns is an auto immune disorder, and so is rheumatoid arthritis(and they are sometimes linked with me. sometimes when my crohns gets really bad, the juvenile rheumatoid arthritis will just show up out of no where. but its not consistant. crohns can be 20% bad when the RA flares up, but then it also wont flare up until 30% or wont flare up at all. but the RA never flares up on its own. (crohns flare up is the only time the RA is likely to show up.)

and like health with crohns, being deathly ill one year, and then with little to no symptoms or problems the next year, then the health varies in how things are going in the body, it can get better or worse at any given moment(i think the same can apply for autism).

EDIT: so maybe if we use the word "flare up" in the way they use that word for crohns or other autoimmune disorders, it could make more sense that it can get worse or better, at any given time, just when the autism "flares up". and like in crohns' terminology, there are special diets, but none are really proven to help(the diet can help one person, and be detrimental to another person), and there are many different diets. but no cure. and what happens to one person in a flare up can be not experienced by another person with the same exact diagnosis of crohns. but a flare up in general (speaking in terms of crohns) is done by the same body responses for every individual with crohns, it just makes it appear and show in different ways (in terms of symptoms). and when its not flared up, things get better.. symptoms ease up... mentally a person can feel better too. so if this can happen in crohns, who decides that it cant happen on the autism spectrum (especially when the two are usually present in an individual. (aka g.i. tract issues is a common symptom/problem for those on the autism spectrum).

Although I agree that certain diets can worsen autistic tendencies, I don't believe any one food or group of foods can claim to be the actual cause. Autism is not a condition like gout or heart disease; it's a condition like blonde hair or long legs. The only reason it's more visible today is societal conditions have changed so as to make it so.