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Gut–brain axis study shows autism-associated molecular, microbial profiles
- hammock 3y agoSurprisingly, researchers identified a strong microbial signature for autism spectrum disorder, challenging the idea that autism is a primarily genetic condition and suggesting that environmental factors may be behind the sharp rise in ASD
- hanniabu 3y agoAnyone with serious microbiome issues will tell you it's pretty obvious most diseases/conditions are due to your microbiome. The research just hasn't caught up yet and it's difficult to analyze since it's pretty much a black box that varies wildly between people.
- callalex 3y agoReally? _Most_ diseases seams like a gross overstatement.
- alphazard 3y agoIt's really not. The gut contains most of the immune system, and is most of the surface area in contact with the outside. The microbiome controls how much contact the immune system has with the gut lumen (intestinal permeability) and the chemical products it has to neutralize (like LPS). Through cytokines or movement through the lymphatic system, immune cells in the gut set the tone for the immune system systemically. When you consider how many diseases are related to a dysfunctional immune system, "most" isn't really an exaggeration. It's especially not an exaggeration if you weight diseases by how common they are.
- mwbajor 3y agoIt has long been noticed that many people with mental issues also have digestive issues. Imagine if the prescription for alot of health problems was to "eat a good diet and no amount of alcohol is beneficial"? People don't want to make lifestyle changes, they want a pill and the pharmaceutical industry is happy to supply it.
- justin_kempton 3y agoOne of the issues with Autism is a total refusal to eat certain healthy foods. The argument for a pill, or better, gut flora transplant, would be for people unable to make informed decisions for themselves. Once the flora were in place, theoretically, repulsion of healthy food would be reduced, allowing the child to feed his gut naturally, and hopefully improve mental health over time. This would be the holy grail, I hope more research is done in this area.
- mwbajor 3y ago"One of the issues with Autism is a total refusal to eat certain healthy foods" I have to disagree because "total refusal to eat healthy foods" is another one of the many subjective observations that muddies the definition of autism, which is as loose of a definition as you can get in my opinion. Are they autistic because they don't eat right or do they not eat right because they are autistic?
- justin_kempton 3y agoNot all autistic kids have food intolerance. But food intolerance is such a common thing in kids on the spectrum that it's part of the evaluation. Autism is a loose definition! My wife and I have had this discussion many times, with therapists, teachers, etc. If you look into it, being diagnosed with ASD, means that you answered yes to enough questions on a long list. That's basically it. The fact that the definition is so broad leads you to conclude they don't know why it is, or how to change it, or even cause it. Even the definitions of ASD, and or Aspergers has changed. Many who would not have qualified for the diagnosis 30 years ago would qualify now. Money is involved, at the schools, and the schools are the ones doing the testing. But, there is a real need for it. These kids are smart, but the environment is blocking them from learning or expressing. What is needed is some kind of scientific, measurable, and conclusive understanding of the condition. Until then we are all just grasping in the dark, without even a brain scan. I think we are the early days of Neuroscience.
- MonaroVXR 3y ago> One of the issues with Autism is a total refusal to eat certain healthy foods Not me, oh and do sports, but ive hidden it very well.
- smohare 3y ago[dead]
- go_elmo 3y agoThats how homophobia develops too Ive heard, and cancer too, people in hiroshima died because thw radiation destroyed their biome which killed them, not their dna!
- j16sdiz 3y agoIt can be reverse: People with ASD prefer some food that promotes a specific biome
- zeroCalories 3y agoi sure love my tendies
- Jacky4Chan 3y agoYeah, researchers are so dumb they haven't thought of this possibility. Thank you for being a genius.
- h4l 3y agoMaybe take a break if you feel like making toxic comments like this.
- justin_kempton 3y agoExactly what I was thinking. In my own sons case, 8, his food preferences are extremely limited. We've pushed to expand this, even slipping many things undetected into his oatmeal. I've even wondered, were it possible to do a gut flora transplant, easily, what would be the result. Since early intervention is the name of the game, if the root cause were as trivial as the biome of your gut, every parent in the world would be signing up. Sadly, these results do not seem game changing. Keep going!
- scottyah 3y ago> were it possible to do a gut flora transplant, easily There is a way to do this, it's been tried before and had dramatic results but is a bit unorthodox. You basically take the fecal matter of a person with a healthy gut biome, blend it up and put it in pills for the other to swallow.
- dragonwriter 3y ago> Surprisingly, researchers identified a strong microbial signature for autism spectrum disorder, challenging the idea that autism is a primarily genetic condition and suggesting that environmental factors may be behind the sharp rise in ASD It doesn't really challenge anything without some evidence for causation from microbiome to ASD beyond correlation, since causation from ASD (or its genetic determinants) to microbiome is also consistent with a correlation.
- epcoa 3y agoCorrelation is not causation.
- Gupie 3y agoIt is doubtful there is any rise in ASD, just more awareness and diagnosis: https://www.statnews.com/2023/03/23/autism-epidemic-cdc-numbers/#:~:text=In%20a%20pair%20of%20new,This%20increase%20may%20sound%20scary https://www.statnews.com/2023/03/23/autism-epidemic-cdc-numb....
- concordDance 3y agoThat's not a good article, doesn't seem to link to studies making the case that it's changing diagnoses.
- MagicMoonlight 3y agoThat's true to a degree but I don't think we had the level of moronity we currently have. You get children that are just mindless creatures who only know tiktok and biting. That doesn't feel like something that was underdiagnosed or unnoticed before
- proee 3y agoDoes anyone have experience in doing a massive change to their gut and seeing long term results? Specifically, is it possible to "cure" autism through your gut microbiome?
- kypro 3y agoIs it even possible to change your gut microbiome significantly without doing something extreme like a fecal transplant? Also, I'm guessing that after someone's brain has developed it's going to become much harder to change. That said, I'd be asking the alternative question, can we use this to give people high-functioning autism?
- hammock 3y agoWhat’s extreme about a fecal transplant, aside from the ick factor? It doesn’t strike me as that different from taking a probiotic or a suppository
- kypro 3y agoDoesn't it require a surgical procedure? I meant it's extreme in contrast to something more mundane like diet augmentation.
- jakear 3y agoNot at all. You just swallow fecal matter. Usually in a pill.
- jamiek88 3y agoNo. You eat a shit pellet. That’s it. It’s mainly used with c diff people who have had their gut micro biome wiped out by treatment.
- Ygg2 3y agoNot really. Usually it's inserted in your colon. It's no more invasive than colonoscopy.
- go_elmo 3y agoSaying autism depends on your microbiome is like saying your sexuality depends on it. Sure, might make sense, yet there is no single Person that changed its preferences after a change in diet or microbiome death through antibiotics. That sounds like a pile of crap to me - Im autistic myself btw
- edgyquant 3y ago> there is no single Person that changed its preferences after a change in diet or microbiome death through antibiotics Seems like a huge claim you can’t backup due it being a negative.
- Teever 3y agoYeah in a world where dogs can smell cancer and people with relatively mild brain injury can wake up permanently speaking in a different accent I think it's entirely possible that a radical change in microbiome due to freak accident or experimental treatment has resulted in a change in sexual preferences.
- hammock 3y agoInteresting because people also used to say sexual preference was genetic
- clipsy 3y ago> people Who?
- valvar 3y agoIt certainly has a heritable component. When people say "the way you're born", do they mean something non-genetic? What would that be?
- dragonwriter 3y agoThere are lots of pre-natal environmental influences on “the way you’re born”, its not just genetics.
- pphysch 3y agoSo is there a possible correlation or causation between "helicopter parenting" -> "not letting kids play in the dirt" -> "weak microbiome" -> "autism" / developmental difficulties? Definitely could be other factors too, like non-diverse diets.
- klyrs 3y agoI'd say the worse thing is iPad parenting -> kids don't want to play in the dirt
- hammock 3y agoWhat are all the factors that impact gut microbiome? Is it just things that go into your mouth like dirt and food? Or are there other pathways as well?
- orangepurple 3y agoGlyphosate
- TedDoesntTalk 3y agobreast milk and vaginal births are large contributors to the gut microbiome of infants.
- mantas 3y agoInteresting thought. I was raised in a rather hygienic house. I started mountain biking a lot. Part of which is regularly eating a banana covered with all sorts of filth from a backpocket. IMO I got much more social and less awkward in my late 20s. Could this be improved microbioma?
- Terr_ 3y ago> "not letting kids play in the dirt" -> "weak microbiome" I'd caution that there are at least two variations of this, with rather different treatment implications: 1. ("Hygiene Hypothesis") Modern immune systems are coddled degenerate weaklings that should be toughened up with exposure to survivable levels of hostile microbes. 2. ("Old Friends") Your immune system is complex and its ideal tuning is reliant on normal exposure to benign, commensal, or symbiotic microbes which help it calibrate or even serve as outsourced components.
- orangepurple 3y agoGlyphosate use vs autism prevalence overlay https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Correlation-between-children-with-autism-and-glyphosate-applications_fig2_283462716 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Correlation-between-chil...
- Ygg2 3y agoCorrelation isn't causation (Wet streets cause rain). Unless you have some kind of mechanism to explain it.
- orangepurple 3y agoMore than one-half of human microbiome are intrinsically sensitive to glyphosate https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9145961/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9145961/
- zug_zug 3y agoWell glyphosate accumulates on wheat products and ends up in your food (e.g. breakfast cereal) [1]. So it's not impossible glyphosate is affecting us negatively, but there just isn't any real evidence yet. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8622992/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8622992/
- marginalia_nu 3y agoWouldn't we expect to see sharply reduced incidences of ASD in gluten intolerant population if this if grain is the primary vector for this?
- svnt 3y agoUnless glyphosate is involved with the development and presentation of gluten intolerance as well.
- svnt 3y agoThere is enough evidence that Bayer recently had to set aside $10B to settle current and future lawsuits: https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/24/health/bayer-monsanto-roundup-settlement/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/24/health/bayer-monsanto-roundup...
- evrydayhustling 3y agoWhenever I see these gut biome results, I can't help thinking that there are so many common causes that can explain both biome and diagnosis/behavior: region, ethnography, socioeconomic class, etc. Has anyone gone deep enough into the studies to know if/how that is controlled for?
- thereticent 3y agoI appreciate the scientific question. These posts tend to launch wild takes on HN that confuse correlation with causation and attempt to reduce disease to just one foundational factor. It just doesn't work like that for a lot of illnesses.
- roywiggins 3y agoBy my reading of the paper, they didn't see an effect when they compared siblings...
- mtsr 3y agoFair point. But once you start comparing regions that differ in one way (say food between Western European countries), they most likely differ in so many other ways that the analysis becomes very very hard.
- marginalia_nu 3y agoIt's also worth questioning in which direction the causality flows. If it's reasonable to expect diet and activity levels to have microbial effects, and it is reasonable to expect the psychopathology in question to have an effect on activity levels and diet; then whatever microbial differences you find between sufferers and non-sufferers could just as easily be the consequence as the cause of the pathology.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y agoIs there anything that flows both ways? When it comes to human behavior I've read that faking it and smiling more makes you feel happier, and happier people smile more. Almost like your brain goes, "I'm smiling so I must be happy right now."
- itiswhatitis7 3y ago[flagged]
- luxuryballs 3y agomore like a human shit study :D
- greenflag 3y agoInterestingly, on Monday a preprint [1] was posted calling into question a major Nature paper from 2020 that associated the microbiome with multiple cancer types [2] (though within each tissue sample, not the gut). [1] https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.07.28.550993v1 https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.07.28.550993v1 [2] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2095-1 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2095-1
- mtkhaos 3y agoControversial take. Autism isn't a disorder, but a mutation and in this instance can be correlated to the microbiome of the gut. But does not account for the increase in reeln nor changes in rna that cause increased sensitivity to stimuli. And is only treated as a disorder in respect to assembly line predetermined processes typical of today's organizations. That runs counter to the increased stimuli of maintaining said predetermined process, while punishing divergence. This is also noting that data can be fit to suit a narrative and causation is different than correlation. But seem similar in the general context of today's discourse. And limited by predictability while noting the massive reproduction crisis in science such as this article and others. Including the recent controversy at Stanford with the president stepping down due to enabling the manipulation of data specifically in this domain of science.
- CobaltFire 3y agoThere is a divergence which could offer some advantage (myself perhaps), and then there are some that would just kill the individual (my son). Broad brush strokes don’t help. It’s labeled a “spectrum” for a reason.
- mtkhaos 3y agoIt's not a broad brushstroke and specifically here am an autistic individual surviving neurodegeneration due to the increase of reeln funny enough. This obviously isn't the place for said discussions.
- justin_kempton 3y agoI respect your journey! My son, 8, is not able to cope in school, but is able to read, write, dream, solve math problems, and be extremely friendly to people. Due to the pandemic, we took him out of kindergarten, and homeschooled him, like many. Online classes were a joke for that age, but one on one with Mom worked great. We wanted him to be in school with his peers, desperately. The steps involved in getting him re-enrolled were numerous, and exhausting. Once 2nd grade started, the reality quickly became obvious to us. He learns far more at home than in the 'structure' of school. He could be placed in a more severe structure, but we opted to bring him back home to teach him. My thinking is that by developing an ability to read, write, and think, he will have the tools to better cope with the world. Of course, it is a gamble, and social skills are not easy. But anyone who thinks, send him to school to develop social skills is not really looking at the details. As for Autism being an adaptation, I think that is true, like many adaptations. His math skills, and memory are genius level. He seems highly adapted to computers, ipads, and abstract thinking, like numbers, spelling, birthdays, etc. He would make an excellent QA engineer. Again, respects to you on your journey through this.
- CobaltFire 3y agoAs someone with major dietary issues due to autoimmune conditions (essentially vegan + fish - tree nuts - nightshades - gluten), who was diagnosed as Asperger’s ~20 years ago and has a child with “severe” autism: I’m both hopeful and doubtful of studies like this. I tend to think these help narrow the search space, but are missing whatever underlying issue is causing the thing they see. My sons diet is hugely restricted due to his intolerance of many things (chemo changes to taste hurt that significantly as well) so I’d imagine his gut biome is an issue at this time. It likely was NOT prior to his chemo (though we can’t know for sure) as he ate the same diet my daughter did (and we tend towards quite healthy). We’ve investigated other possible environmental factors, including PFAS/PFOS testing, heavy metals testing, etc. (my career exposed me to those but he was never exposed that we can tell). Everything inconclusive. As I said, I’m hopeful we can figure this out. Each step helps, even if it’s not the final one to finding the cause.