4 ms·

Reading the article, it turns out the one twin who is "more autistic" had a hole in his heart that surgery had to correct. So I suspect the actual issue here is

Reading the article, it turns out the one twin who is "more autistic" had a hole in his heart that surgery had to correct. So I suspect the actual issue here is something simpler like a difference in brain development because of the difference in the amount of blood flow.

eutropia 3y ago
Isn’t it common to be given a lot of antibiotics when you get a surgery?
- Rinzler89 3y ago
  It is.
  - boringg 3y ago
    I think blood flow to the brain >> impacts of antibiotics is the likely order of magnitude of impact - though tough to tell.
- inglor_cz 3y ago
  A friend underwent operation of his aorta. Post-surgery inflammation is an absolutely common complication and they dumped a lot of antibiotics into him precisely to reduce the risk. (If I understand correctly, it wouldn't be probably fatal, but very, very unpleasant.)
- idontknowifican 3y ago
  a lot and a heart artery drip for 30 days are orders of magnitude different in quantity
- jejeyyy77 3y ago
  correlation causation
- Retric 3y ago
  I had a fairly significant surgery at a premiere US hospital including several days of recovery in the hospital and didn’t get any antibiotics after the fact. They could have injected me with something during the actual surgery, but it didn’t show up on the bill. I think this may be specific to Heart surgery.
  - amanaplanacanal 3y ago
    I was given prophylactic antibiotics for prostate surgery. It might depend on the surgeon.
- BrandoElFollito 3y ago
  Whenever I had (minor) surgery in France, I was given antibiotics "as a shield". I obviously do not know if this helped or not. Now, French doctors were always very quick to prescribe antibiotics (as a kid I had plenty of them) and it took quite a lot of effort to change their(and parent's) mind. My children got much less, though they were almost never checked for virus vs bacterial infection.
twobitshifter 3y ago
That’s possible but he did get crazy antibiotics as well. FTA: “The infection was from drug-resistant staph bacteria. So John went back to the hospital and spent a month on powerful antibiotics pumped directly into a vein near his heart.”
- scottlamb 3y ago
  ...or just being in the hospital environment for a month. The older theory they mentioned here: > "The earliest twin studies really helped to debunk this theory that autism was caused by parenting," Morris says. Under this theory, moms took the brunt of the blame, supposedly for being "cold and distant and detached from their child." ...might not be entirely wrong. They've since shown genetics is a factor, and I'll ignore the institutionalized misogyny part, but being in a hospital for a month probably did mean having much less parent/care-giver interaction/touch during a critical period, and who knows how much of an effect that could have.
  - lazyasciiart 3y ago
    This has been studied a lot in child welfare and is not currently believed, afaik. The diagnosis of reactive attachment disorder is acknowledged to have many overlapping symptoms with autism, but expressly differentiated as a condition.
  - jrsdav 3y ago
    > Under this theory, moms took the brunt of the blame, supposedly for being "cold and distant and detached from their child." Before the heredity nature of autism was accepted, this was the school of thought (“refrigerator mothers”). But in truth, it’s neurodivergent parents having neurodivergent children, and society punishing the parents (namely mothers) for their inability at providing the “expected” nurturing conditions.
    - cyanydeez 3y ago
      Tied back, atypical behavior.may create neurodivergent conditions, but one would expect children of aurististics to seek less overall care which doesnt support the hypitheses that antibiotics are causing aitism as this thrwad started
crisply5706 3y ago
My theory is that this causation is flipped. Something about whatever the precursor to autism is causes the body to experience more physical failures or malformed structures. Something like whatever mechanisms decode structure from the genome are faulty and produce slightly wrong structures throughout the brain and body. Anecdotally, I see a higher rate of general illness and physical birth defects in autistic people.
- empressplay 3y ago
  There appears to be some correlation between Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome and autism https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7711487/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7711487/ It makes a certain amount of sense that a collagen / connective tissue disorder is going to have wide-ranging effects, including the nervous system
  - ejstronge 3y ago
    Another way to think of this is that 'autism' is a broad series of disorders where individuals do not follow the social-relational cues we expect. There are many ways to violate unspoken social expectations, so there should be many ways to be autistic. In this setting, it's not unreasonable that any genetic syndrome would be more associated with autism; indeed, it's more interesting to find lesions that have a lower proportion of autistic carriers compared to the general population.
    - crisply5706 3y ago
      Yeah, I suspect it's quite likely that autism is correlated with/caused by genetic disorders in general, rather than being its own thing that just happens to be comorbid with a suspicious number of other disorders. There's too many correlations that aren't common enough, I really think we've got the causality backwards. But then again I don't know anything
  - b800h 3y ago
    Wow, I'm hypermobile and my sons have what appears to be mild autism (see my other comment above). Yet more to unpick!
bitwize 3y ago
This is Hackernews, where all major health issues are traceable to the gut.
- adolph 3y ago
  Does that include mouth/teeth/saliva as part of the extended gut or are you talking stomach down?
  - verall 3y ago
    All of them and also seed oils. (I hope noone is taking this seriously..)
    - adolph 3y ago
      Would you also accept the nose-ear-throat-trachea-lung microbiome as well? Also nose biome interacts with the finger and fingernail biome quite often.

eutropia 3y ago

Isn’t it common to be given a lot of antibiotics when you get a surgery?

Rinzler89 3y ago
It is.
- boringg 3y ago
  I think blood flow to the brain >> impacts of antibiotics is the likely order of magnitude of impact - though tough to tell.
inglor_cz 3y ago
A friend underwent operation of his aorta. Post-surgery inflammation is an absolutely common complication and they dumped a lot of antibiotics into him precisely to reduce the risk. (If I understand correctly, it wouldn't be probably fatal, but very, very unpleasant.)
idontknowifican 3y ago
a lot and a heart artery drip for 30 days are orders of magnitude different in quantity
jejeyyy77 3y ago
correlation causation
Retric 3y ago
I had a fairly significant surgery at a premiere US hospital including several days of recovery in the hospital and didn’t get any antibiotics after the fact. They could have injected me with something during the actual surgery, but it didn’t show up on the bill. I think this may be specific to Heart surgery.
- amanaplanacanal 3y ago
  I was given prophylactic antibiotics for prostate surgery. It might depend on the surgeon.
BrandoElFollito 3y ago
Whenever I had (minor) surgery in France, I was given antibiotics "as a shield". I obviously do not know if this helped or not. Now, French doctors were always very quick to prescribe antibiotics (as a kid I had plenty of them) and it took quite a lot of effort to change their(and parent's) mind. My children got much less, though they were almost never checked for virus vs bacterial infection.

twobitshifter 3y ago

That’s possible but he did get crazy antibiotics as well. FTA: “The infection was from drug-resistant staph bacteria. So John went back to the hospital and spent a month on powerful antibiotics pumped directly into a vein near his heart.”

scottlamb 3y ago
...or just being in the hospital environment for a month. The older theory they mentioned here: > "The earliest twin studies really helped to debunk this theory that autism was caused by parenting," Morris says. Under this theory, moms took the brunt of the blame, supposedly for being "cold and distant and detached from their child." ...might not be entirely wrong. They've since shown genetics is a factor, and I'll ignore the institutionalized misogyny part, but being in a hospital for a month probably did mean having much less parent/care-giver interaction/touch during a critical period, and who knows how much of an effect that could have.
- lazyasciiart 3y ago
  This has been studied a lot in child welfare and is not currently believed, afaik. The diagnosis of reactive attachment disorder is acknowledged to have many overlapping symptoms with autism, but expressly differentiated as a condition.
- jrsdav 3y ago
  > Under this theory, moms took the brunt of the blame, supposedly for being "cold and distant and detached from their child." Before the heredity nature of autism was accepted, this was the school of thought (“refrigerator mothers”). But in truth, it’s neurodivergent parents having neurodivergent children, and society punishing the parents (namely mothers) for their inability at providing the “expected” nurturing conditions.
  - cyanydeez 3y ago
    Tied back, atypical behavior.may create neurodivergent conditions, but one would expect children of aurististics to seek less overall care which doesnt support the hypitheses that antibiotics are causing aitism as this thrwad started

crisply5706 3y ago

My theory is that this causation is flipped. Something about whatever the precursor to autism is causes the body to experience more physical failures or malformed structures. Something like whatever mechanisms decode structure from the genome are faulty and produce slightly wrong structures throughout the brain and body. Anecdotally, I see a higher rate of general illness and physical birth defects in autistic people.

empressplay 3y ago
There appears to be some correlation between Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome and autism https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7711487/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7711487/ It makes a certain amount of sense that a collagen / connective tissue disorder is going to have wide-ranging effects, including the nervous system
- ejstronge 3y ago
  Another way to think of this is that 'autism' is a broad series of disorders where individuals do not follow the social-relational cues we expect. There are many ways to violate unspoken social expectations, so there should be many ways to be autistic. In this setting, it's not unreasonable that any genetic syndrome would be more associated with autism; indeed, it's more interesting to find lesions that have a lower proportion of autistic carriers compared to the general population.
  - crisply5706 3y ago
    Yeah, I suspect it's quite likely that autism is correlated with/caused by genetic disorders in general, rather than being its own thing that just happens to be comorbid with a suspicious number of other disorders. There's too many correlations that aren't common enough, I really think we've got the causality backwards. But then again I don't know anything
- b800h 3y ago
  Wow, I'm hypermobile and my sons have what appears to be mild autism (see my other comment above). Yet more to unpick!

bitwize 3y ago

This is Hackernews, where all major health issues are traceable to the gut.

adolph 3y ago
Does that include mouth/teeth/saliva as part of the extended gut or are you talking stomach down?
- verall 3y ago
  All of them and also seed oils. (I hope noone is taking this seriously..)
  - adolph 3y ago
    Would you also accept the nose-ear-throat-trachea-lung microbiome as well? Also nose biome interacts with the finger and fingernail biome quite often.