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More evidence that autism is linked to gut bacteria
- neonate 7y agohttp://archive.is/ykDqk http://archive.is/ykDqk https://web.archive.org/web/20190530230118/https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2019/05/30/more-evidence-that-autism-is-linked-to-gut-bacteria https://web.archive.org/web/20190530230118/https://www.econo...
- onemoresoop 7y agohttps://outline.com/BkAwaE https://outline.com/BkAwaE
- hprotagonist 7y agoDerek Lowe is extremely skeptical of this result. the hypothesis might be Ok, but this work in particular isn’t especially convincing: https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2019/05/31/autism-mouse-models-for-the-microbiome https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2019/05/31/au... more criticism: https://twitter.com/WiringTheBrain/status/1134129415456264193 https://twitter.com/WiringTheBrain/status/113412941545626419... https://twitter.com/DrBrocktagon/status/1134339288907206656 https://twitter.com/DrBrocktagon/status/1134339288907206656
- jcranmer 7y agoDerek Lowe just had a blog post out today which is quite skeptical of the mice study: https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2019/05/31/autism-mouse-models-for-the-microbiome https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2019/05/31/au.... The salient points are: * Very small N. * Behavioral studies of mice can be very subjective in their own right, so you can definitely get bias, particularly with small N. * There's no generally accepted model of autism in mice. In other words, mice might not even be capable of getting autism in the first place, so saying that "these behaviors in mice correlate with autism in humans" is a bit of a limb. * No measurement of the microbiome in the descendants-of-the-implanted-microbiome (the ones that were actually tested) was demonstrated. So you can come away from the paper with the feeling that they set out to test a hypothesis, interpreted subjective results in the way that best matches the hypothesis, and failed to (or perhaps even purposefully excluded) test for alternate hypotheses that might explain the evidence better.
- ljiljana 7y ago_sigh_ this feeling again when you read about some great "paradigm-shift" advancement and then go to HN comments and find out the study has bunch of holes. :(
- OldSchoolJohnny 7y agoNo the research is getting pretty definitive in this area, don't count it out and the article also specifically talks about another study not the mouse one where they had real world success (over 50%) treating autism in people via bacteria transplant.
- ljiljana 7y agothe very small N part still applies here though, the study was done on 18 children only, given the prevalence of ASD and the complexity of it I think we just need more proof. I won't count it out but I think the conclusions should've just been: this looks promising but we need to study it more. (tbf, i think i'm complaining more about the tone of the article.)
- beenBoutIT 7y agoThe sad thing is that in America today you can't get access to the two big 'miracle cures' (fecal transplants or MDMA) for any reason outside of clinical trials. Anyone with a non-verbal loved one should be able to legally try the fecal transplant and anyone with PTSD should be allowed to legally try MDMA. Scientifically proving that treatments work isn't nearly as important as proving that treatments are safe.
- Semiapies 7y agoI'm just grimly amused that this is the third completely different "real cause of autism" post on the front page in about the last week.
- sytelus 7y ago
- tsherr 7y agoIs there a way to get good guy bacteria? I've read probiotics are useless.
- gukov 7y ago- Sauerkraut - Kefir
- 000dry 7y agoSecond that for sauerkraut and basically any pickled food. For probiotic foods to have any meaningful effect, though, make sure your gut is healthy first. Probiotics foods are good for one type of bacteria but you also need to neutralise the bad types. Stop eating sugars, saturated fats etc. Your stomach is an ecosystem that will suffer any changes quite badly at first, but will thank you in the long term.
- ng12 7y agoKefir is absolutely magical. I highly recommend it to anyone experiencing digestive issues.
- joeldg 7y agoand add: -lacto-fermented pickles -kimchi
- gnode 7y agoThe most robust way to deliver new bacteria to your gut is with a gastro-resistant capsule (so it bypasses your stomach acid). Food will introduce it too; fermented foods contain more. Introducing the bacteria is only part of the problem though. If you want to have a diverse community of gut flora, you need to have a nutritionally balanced diet.
- lioeters 7y agoI'd recommend reading up on fermented foods and drinks to incorporate into your daily diet. There's also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fecal_microbiota_transplant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fecal_microbiota_transplant
- 7y ago
- gubbrora 7y agoAre we at the peak of the hype cycle for gut bacteria now?
- stronglikedan 7y agoPerhaps, perhaps. I'll ponder that question further while sipping my kombucha.
- will_brown 7y agoNo, we are at peak “gut bacteria” science denial. On the other hand study of the microbiome is still in its infancy and looking very promising vis-a-vis human health.
- gubbrora 7y agoReplying to you since this is the top response but aimed at y'all really. At the risk of stating the obvious. Gut bacteria are bacteria... in the gut. Like if you tell me they affect the absorption of nutrients - I can see that. Maybe they make something more bioavailable or maybe they break something else down. If you tell me their involved in deficiencies and over/underweight that kinda makes sense. Tell me they affect appetite through manipulating our signals ok. Not as obvious but not implausible either. Tell me they cause highly complex behavioral differences... it just seems implausible. But maybe gaba can indeed explain it.
- johnmaguire2013 7y agoPeople used to say the same thing about washing hands -- "little organisms on my hand are making me sick? I don't buy it." Nowadays, the gut is sometimes referred to as the "second brain" because of your enteric nervous system which is located inside the gut. It probably has more influence over you than you're aware of, as it operates independently of your CNS.
- YeGoblynQueenne 7y ago>> People used to say the same thing about washing hands -- "little organisms on my hand are making me sick? I don't buy it." If you're talking about the time before there was strong evidence for pathogenic bacteria- then that would have been the only rational and justified behaviour. Why should anyone believe something that sounds implausible given current knowledge, before strong evidence is presented to support it?
- gnode 7y agoI think something which should be considered, is that gut bacterial abnormality is very plausibly a consequence of autism, rather than a cause. Selective eating and food refusal occurs in about three quarters of children with ASD, and has been used as a diagnostic criteria (which reinforces the correlation). Poor diversity in nutrition leads to poor biodiversity in the gut flora. That said, poor gut biodiversity could in turn lead to exacerbated presentation of symptoms, due to gut flora's involvement in neurotransmitter systems, interactions with the gut's nervous system, or simply painful intestinal distress.
- ordinaryradical 7y agoPossibly, but consider this from the article: > Crucially, these changes in gut bacteria have translated into behavioural changes. Even 18 weeks after treatment started the children had begun showing reduced symptoms of autism. After two years, only three of them still rated as severe, while eight fell below the diagnostic cut-off point for asd altogether. These eight thus now count as neurotypical.
- sambroner 7y agoWow. That is incredible.
- klipt 7y agoIf it works both directions - almost makes me wonder if there are bacteria that can manipulate our brains (causing picky eating) to get their preferred food and keep themselves in the majority in the gut. Regulatory capture for bacteria. I mean, look at what Toxoplasma gondii does to mice...
- gww 7y agoI am not a microbiome expert but I have always wondered how dynamic is the gut microbiome? For example, maybe I travel for a week and consume a bunch of fast food and drink a bunch of alcohol or I contracted food poisoning. Would my gut microbiome be substantially different than if I followed my regular diet of relatively healthy home made foods? and how long would it take to go back to its default state before I travelled (if ever).
- berdon 7y agoI've been told (by someone who has had C. diff and dealt with a number of gastro issues) that it can take up to 7 years for your gut to stabilize after simply taking antibiotics. With that being said, some googling just now to make sure I'm not just spouting nonsense hasn't turned up a 7 year figure. But it has returned a bunch of articles pointing to studies that suggest it takes a long time. [1] says after 10 months there's still a disturbance. [1] https://health.howstuffworks.com/medicine/medication/long-does-it-take-gut-flora-to-recover-from-antibiotics.htm https://health.howstuffworks.com/medicine/medication/long-do...
- akozak 7y agoI recall reading some news recently about studies of the microbiome in immigrants that suggest it can be a relatively quick shift. e.g. see: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2018/11/how-immigration-affects-microbiome/574585/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2018/11/how-immig...
- zmmmmm 7y agoI have seen fairly convincing evidence presented quite recently that for the vast majority of people it may take months but after that period the intestinal microbiome is nearly indistinguishable from how it was before administering antibiotics.
- tsomctl 7y agoYes. There's a long list of different starches and other molecules (e.g. connective tissue in joints) that your gut bacteria feed off of, and different strains of bacteria prefer different types of food. In the FODMAP diet, you avoid certain starches in a deliberate attempt to shift your biome diversity.
- vl 7y agoIf it's true, it will be one of the biggest medical breakthroughs! Shifts like this happen and lead to huge difference in people's lives. Now mostly forgotten, but it was believed that ulcers are caused by stress and food and not bacteria. I have a family member that didn't survive surgery for mistreated ulcer. Then, for me it was a simple matter of taking antibiotics for few weeks.
- ManuelKiessling 7y agoCall me old-school, but from my perspective, if we are talking about actual evidence, you need exactly one piece of actual evidence, and a case is settled. Maybe this is about hints, not evidence?
- kszxgz 7y agoIn empirical studies, there can be both strong evidence and weak evidence. evidence noun The available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid. ‘the study finds little evidence of overt discrimination’ https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/evidence https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/evidence
- Chazprime 7y agoThis seems to be a trend: a study finds correlation between X and Y in mice, no evidence that X is linked to Y in humans.
- Jedd 7y ago> This seems to be a trend: a study finds correlation between X and Y in mice, no evidence that X is linked to Y in humans. There are lots of regrettable trends. The story posted is primarily about the results of experiments with 18 humans between the ages 7-16, over two years, and a section at the end describing some earlier studies involving mice. The results of the human experiments are astonishingly positive. I mention this just in case you breezed too rapidly over those large parts of the article.
- Chazprime 7y agoI read it, my response was intended for the Derek Lowe comment.
- ThrustVectoring 7y agoThe biggest issue with a lot of autism research is in how they measure the symptoms of autism. Autistics will often "melt down" or engage in other stereotypical behaviors when the environmental stressors are more severe than what they can deal with through behavior that appears "normal". The more severe the stressors, the more severe and frequent the behavioral deviations. In short, most scientific approaches will often conflate reducing autism with helping people handle their autism better. It's a pretty chronic problem for understanding the disease, but much less impactful for generating practical treatments. Mental healthcare in general doesn't care much whether it reduces the severity of neurodivergence or the distress and socially problematic behavior caused by neurodivergence.
- gjs278 7y agothis is why online communities than ban instead of suspend are throwing away otherwise helpful users
- dang 7y agoWould you like to say more? I have a feeling that we should introduce that to HN.
- gjs278 7y agowell I think the parent sums it up best but basically there's going to be temporary meltdowns that eventually go away. jekyll and hyde type scenario. jekyll is helpful most of the time but sometimes outside factors (irl) bring out mr hyde more often. obviously no community has to tolerate mr hyde and they shouldn't, but permanently banning mr hyde also bans jekyll when the transformation (outside stress factors) wears off. if you don't suspend mr hyde he won't take a second to look back and reflect. you have to kick him out for a bit for the sake of the site and to warn the user. a warning + ban is taken literally though. it's like when your mom tells you that you can't go to the dance because you didn't clean your room. the dance is no longer an option. then you call her a name and she says "now you really can't go to the dance." which implies there was still a chance but you didn't understand the nuances about it. it makes no logical sense. even in the most extreme scenarios I can't see how a 1 year suspension from a site outside of doing something illegal would be worse for everyone involved than a ban. if they actually wait 1 year and come back without evading, they're probably going to be a lot more careful and whatever was going on may be resolved without forcing the user to have to disclose to online moderators that they were upset because of x at the time. the automated system takes care of it.
- syntaxing 7y agoThis might sound naive, but isn't the easiest method to reject the hypothesis is to gather data on gut bacteria in people with ASD and those that don't? Wouldn't that be much more direct and explain much more? Or is there some sort of technological or cost limitation to this method?
- TheAceOfHearts 7y agoThere appears to be an increasing amount of evidence linking an unhealthy gut microbiome with various conditions (mostly psychiatric), including a few big ones like Alzheimer's and depression. This has gotten me wondering: how many people might be sick as a consequence of their poor diet? It's probably a good idea to carefully scrutinize your diet as a potential influencing factor if you have a medical condition. Maybe making a few tweaks could end up helping you feel better? In any case, always discuss things with your doctor! Anecdotally, I began to regularly consume more fermented foods (e.g. plain Greek yogurt, kimchi, kombucha, kefir) about 8 or 9 months ago, which helped trigger a cascade of other positive changes and led to gradual but marked improvements to my health.
- moosey 7y ago> This has gotten me wondering: how many people might be sick as a consequence of their poor diet? It's probably a good idea to carefully scrutinize your diet as a potential influencing factor if you have a medical condition. If we separate microbiome from diet a little here, then it's quite easy to say that many people are sick because of their poor diet. Heart disease and cancer are by a large margin the largest killers of people in the United States, both of which have obesity as a major factor. Type 2 Diabetes, high blood pressure, and a host of other diseases also result from poor diets. I'm practically certain it's one of the primary causes of premature death.
- tzs 7y agoI hope this doesn't provide ammunition for the people pushing making autistic children drink bleach or giving them bleach enemas as a "cure" for autism. Yes, there are such people, and yes, there are parents stupid enough to take their advice and do that to their kids. Since killing bacteria is one of the legitimate functions of bleach, I can see them claiming that their bleach therapy will work by killing off that bad, autism-linked gut bacteria.
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