Autism symptoms almost halved 2 years after fecal transplant

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https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-04-autism-symptoms-percent-years-fecal.html

Do you think this looks promising?

It really depends upon the results of the "halving."

And the effect the fecal transplant has on other parts of the body.

Uh oh gut health. This board’s favourite topic!

I think it looks disgusting!

But seriously, reading the article, it seemed like the actual claim was that the GI symptoms were lessened, which are not core autistic symptoms; this may generalize to coping better generally and less sensory overload, but not necessarily by changing the autistic brain. And I think there are other ways to restore gut flora than fecal transplants, such as probiotics.

I don't think fecal transplantation----or probiotics-----or anything else-----is going to turn out to be a panacea for "victims" of autism.

There's just too many causes of it. And a certain treatment for one autistic person---might be a disaster for that person---even if it turns out to be a panacea for another person.

There is no "one size fits all" in autism treatment.

I pretty sure that treatment will only work if you have your head up your a#$.

How fecal microbial transplants work is actually poorly understood. Companies like Seres therapeutics have tried to recreate the results of fecal transplants in a controlled fashion with mixed results.

By far the most successful application of FMT is in the treatment of Clostridioides (formerly Clostridium) dificile infection. While transfer from a healthy donor resulted in a 91% cure rate, in a double blind controlled study where the control group was transplanted with their own fecal matter they showed a 64% cure rate. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5909820/

Gut microbial science is incredibly complicated and any hard claims should be viewed skeptically.

I may be way out in left field here (would be nothing new) but wouldn't consuming yogurt with active cultures to promote the growth of intestinal flora accomplish the same thing? Without the expense, the risk of infection and whatever else? I have been eating yogurt since the 1980s and while I cannot say with certainty that it has helped my AS symptoms, it has definitely helped my overall health and whatever signals my gut is sending my brain have to be positive.

Yes, yogurt with active cultures or a probiotic pill are just about the same thing.

I don't fancy taking in someone else's poo, myself.

Respectfully they are not even close to the same thing. A probiotic pill can have as few as one species of bacteria, see mutaflor selling a single probiotic https://www.mutaflor.com/index.html. Yogurt cultures are more complex, but they are different bacteria than normally reside in the human gut. A fecal microbial transplant is literally taking thousands of different species of bacteria from a healthy donor and transplanting them to your colon.

Probiotics probably don't hurt, and may help, but the scientific efficacy of most is shaky at best.

I meant yogurt and probiotics are about the same as each other, not the same as a fecal transplant.

I still don't want anyone else's poo!

Ah forgiven. The yogurt is probably better than the probiotic pill anyways.

I think you've got that right. Some of my friends have endosymbiont labs. They refer to the gut microbiome as "an entire ecosystem in a flesh sac".
IMO if we want to get a better handle on how fecal transplants work, we need more ecologists. FWIW.

Interesting but it's like many medical treatments they're researching for autism: they look promising but are nowhere near the stage of being implemented on a mass scale. I've yet to find something that helps me become more social.

Lol. You got me rolling about laughing with that one

I don't like yogurt, not sure why just never have....but I do like some of the pro-biotic drinks and it does seem like they kind of help a little with feeling more centered and such. Like that kombucha stuff, I mean I certainly don't feel gross after drinking one of those vs drinking a soda. I mean actually at this point not sure when I last had a soda, I mean anytime in the past year I have had one It just seems disgusting like I don't even want to finish it, they're so gross and sugary. I'd rather have a seltzer water...it has bubbles but its not sickly sweet. But sometimes I come across bubbly pro-biotic drinks and I like those but soda and even energy drinks anymore just seem so gross.