New Study Strengthens Gut Bacteria-Autism Link

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/2 ... ir=Parents

Nice to read that researchers are looking at this from all possible angles & conducting more and more detailed biological tests.

I also agree!
this is one of those 'breakthrough moments',,,,

it's happy and it's sad
there going to figure out what caused us
and then 'WE' will never happen again

I think that the greatest loss will be to humanity as a whole

Still a preliminary study. It will be a complicated matter to figure out all the links between genetics, brain and gut. If anybody bothers, the link between stress of living in a NT world and gut issues needs to be taken into account. Never say never so autism might be "cured" this way but not for awhile. The research that scares me the most ATM is behavioral modification of infants and toddlers to deflect or intercept autism at the time in life brains rapidly form. It will be 10, 20 years after the pronouncement of "success" before any long term affects can be noted. If long term negative effects do occur I doubt it will be acknowledged because most will just see it has been "cured" and say "Why fix what is not broken"

This study is a year old...

Makes me wonder what else has been observed & documented about it over the last 12 months. Likely more than they knew then.

Yes pro-biotics will become the cure all for everyone's autism...autism has nothing to do with the brain or neurology....its all in the gut . Meh sorry I do remain a skeptic about this theory, and I think its possible the gut bacteria thing could cause autism like symptoms or worsen some autism symptoms like irritability but a gut problem doesn't change your neurology, and autism is a different neurology. So I strongly doubt gut bacteria is the single cause of autism and thus eradicating it is as simple as controlling gut bacteria.....so don't hold your breath just yet they are still a long way away from finding the cause let alone any complete cure.

Also the term link or correlation does not equal causation....so even if gut bacteria and autism are linked it still does not imply it is the cause, the autism could be the cause of differences in the guts of autistic and non-autistic children and adults.....The article really only suggests a link or correlation, not a cause anyways.

Uhh, this study is even worse...they are going to administer fecal matter from healthy children into autistic children to essentially 'see what happens'? so their solution for autism is sh*t transplants? count me out...I wonder if they'd do things like this to study neurotypical children, this is just disgusting I wonder what the potential side effects are.

I don't see why anyone would want to volunteer them-self or their child for this. Also the article it links too is wrong autism does not cause mental retardation, for one that term isn't even used diagnostically anymore and secondly it would be co-morbid.

Maybe not for everyone's Autism, but I suspect for a lot of people - especially since it's said that 90% of Autistics have GI problems and 70% are sensitive to salicylate acids.

Um, this does have to do with neurology. The enteric nervous system that stretches from the oesophagus to the anus. Modern medicine doesn't know too terribly much about it yet. What we do know is that there are more signals sent from the gut to the brain than from the brain to the gut, which is why the gut is now being called "the second brain." From my own experience, it's as if probiotics behave like neurotransmitters within the enteric nervous system and when they're absent, signals don't fire properly nor get sent to the brain for it to function properly.

You're correct in that Autistics do have different brain wiring/connectivity, as per research articles out last year that showed brain scans of Autistics vs. NT's. I can't possibly know, but I do wonder if the different connections are due to imbalance gut bacteria from birth causing the brain to "trip" while forming. That's something I'd research if it were my place to do so. I hope some ASD researcher is looking into things like that and in a few years we'll know more.

Different bacteria in the gut DO in fact alter brain functions. I've done it myself. So long as I maintain the probiotics I do, both orally & as suppositories/enemas, my brain functions much more NT-like. If I don't maintain it, or take certain antibiotics that kill off the trillions of good little soldiers fighting my battles, then ASD & comorbid symptoms return/are amplified.

I wouldn't say it eradicates it. But it certainly does treat it successfully. Like I've said many times: I'm living a second life for it.

No, correlation does not equal causation. I do believe, in time, that further proof of causation will be discovered and released and we'll all know more about it.

Nah, even better.

It's called a fecal transplant. It's most commonly done with elderly patients who have such severe gut dysbiosis that it's life threatening.

A local hospital (Royal Columbian in New Westminster, British Columbia, Canada) was in the news a year or two ago because they were told to stop doing fecal transplants until they had further medical study results and information about them.. but the doctors denied the order and went ahead and did them anyways rather than watch their patients die. It's gross science, but completely harmless & potentially life saving.

I haven't done it, but if I had the ideal donor candidate (ie a highly successful very social NT) I would volunteer to do it just to see what happens for myself.

I believe we'll hear more about this in ASD research over the next few years or so to come, too.

The brain gut connection and the many convoluted, involuted, intricate and highly complicated associations they share will obviously take many scientists many years to understand,

But there are some things that the lay public can immediately grok :

a concussion to the head of a child is one of the single most dangerous things that can happen to a child

The average dietary fibre intake of a hunter-gatherer is 200 grams of fibre
The average dietary fibre of the average 20th century citizen is 20 grams

Fibre and gut bacteria realease anti inflamatories into the human nervous system

The absence of these two things create a dangerous and lethal spike in brain inflamation!

A lot of people a lot smarter that me are already SERIOUSLY looking at this...

You do not need to worry.
There is an alternative explanation which is many times more likely.

Physical clumsiness - a characteristic common on the ASD spectrum - is associated with the gut microbes.
I do NOT know the link - nobody does. But there are links to movement.
Look up the things associate with carpal tunnel - a long term outcome of bad posture.
One of them is gluten sensitivity. Or in more severe cases, Celiac's disease.

I do not know how back conditions effects gut bacteria - or diabetes - or even my own BP.
I can only say it does.
I am lucky that my poor doctor is able to see the physical changes to my own back and reduce medication as my condition improves as my back improves. We do not understand it. Then again - it really does not make much difference.