Urine Test For Autism

An anonymous reader writes "Defining and diagnosing autism has been a controversial process — but may be a little less so now. Children with autism have a different chemical fingerprint in their urine than non-autistic children, according to new research. The difference stems from a previously documented difference in gut bacteria found in autistic individuals. The possibility of a simple pee test matters because currently, children are assessed for autism through a lengthy testing process that explores a child's social interaction, communication, and imaginative skills. Being able to identify the condition earlier and at a lower cost could leave more time and money for treatment."

Re:Labeling

[Ephemeriis]

I can't see this being of any benefit in the long term. The problem is, even if they -have- autism or other defects, labeling them will do nothing to have them overcome it and will lead the majority of them to make excuses to why they aren't productive members of society.

I really don't understand the western mentality of labeling everyone to try to "help". Which is going to make people want to get ahead in life? Being told "hey you have -insert mental disability here-" or "hey, your not doing to great in -insert school subject here-". One has people making excuses and the other just has them either not focus on that and focus on what they are good at or try harder.

Autism is a physical, biological disorder. It is a disease, not a mood. It isn't like you'll suddenly stop being autistic because you forgot you had it.

Early diagnosis gives you more time for treatment, which will actually help people become more functional individuals.

Are you suggesting that we shouldn't perform mammograms or colonoscopy because you don't actually have any ill effects from the cancer until after you've been labelled?

By that logic, we should just stop running tests all-together, because we'd all be far healthier if we didn't have any labels.

Re:screening for young engineers

[IANAAC]

Geek and engineer are not synonymous.

Re:screening for young engineers

[Kozz]

We already have Ritalin (or alcohol) for that. Most of the really good engineers (of many stripes) I know are functionally autistic, ADD/ADDHD or high-functioning alcoholics.

Just to clarify... Ritalin=stimulant. Alcohol=depressant. They don't do the same kinds of things.

Re:screening for young engineers

[$RANDOMLUSER]

Just to clarify... Ritalin = medication by doctors. Alcohol = self-medication. Meanwhile, the effect of Ritalin on an overactive child is as a depressant, not a stimulant.

What I'm saying is that we're using more and more labels to enforce a kind of chemical conformity. It's easier to medicate an imaginative and unruly child than it is to channel that energy. I'll bet if Richard Feynman (as an example) were a third-grader today, they'd be medicating him.

We need to avoid flouride and protect our precious bodily fluids!

Re:Labeling

[blackraven14250]

Good thing proper sanitation came about because of advances in medicine, then.

Re:Labeling

[RichDiesal]

You clearly don't have or know anyone with an actual mental disorder. There is certainly harm done by false diagnosis/labeling, and some people certainly milk their diagnoses, but the majority of people with mental disorders find it somewhat of a relief when they discover that they have a condition that 1) is not their fault and 2) has treatment options.

Think of it this way - if you grew up, and throughout your elementary and even high school experience, you had skills and abilities that other people thought were bizarre, people always looked at you weird and you didn't know why, you had uncontrollable tics that other people just didn't, you were frustrated daily because you had a very difficult time controlling your own behaviors, and you constantly got in trouble because these behaviors were judged to be "bad."

Finding out "other people have this problem too, and here's what you can try to alleviate the symptoms" is important to help these people become "normal, productive members of society." Your assertion that diagnosis will "lead the majority of them to make excuses" is completely unfounded.

Re:screening for young engineers

[Freedom Bug]

Which just goes to show you how useless those little boxes are.

Sure, Ritalin is a stimulant, if you don't have ADHD. But if you do have ADHD, Ritalin acts more like a depressant. That's one of the differentiators between true ADHD and normal hyperactivity.

And yes, alcohol is technically a depressant, but unless you're living in a cave you know that alcohol can have effects that are very similar to those of stimulants.

Re:No link between gut bacteria and autism

[gruntled]

Look harder: The story is about a test that can identify autism based on urine, because autistic kids have different bacteria in their gut than non-autistic kids. The link is to a summary of the retraction of the entire theory that autistic kids have different bacteria in the gut than non-autistic kids; the scientist who submitted that paper fabricated his results (as the link states).

Re:Cause or Effect or Clue?

[icebike]

Again, as mentioned upthread, this has nothing to do with a MEASURABLE difference in gut flora.

You are confusing two totally different stories.

Re:Cause or Effect or Clue?

[arb phd slp]

That refers specifically to the link to vaccines, and Wakefield faked the intestinal data in his subjects, but there are still others who think that there is something to the gut symptom correlation.
Erikson et al (2005) http://www.springerlink.com/content/l13786n2151314t6/ [springerlink.com] looked at all the evidence and found lots of people looking at it, but the stuff that was published has a wide range in the level of scientific rigor.
If there is a correlation (and there really might be one), it's a whole lot more complicated than a simple cause-effect one.

Re:No link between gut bacteria and autism

[icebike]

But Wakefield has NOTHING at all to do with the fact that there is measurable differences in gut Flora.

Nobody, certainly not the story linked, or Lancet, challenges that finding.

The only part discredited is that vaccines caused the gut infections.

Two TOTALLY different findings, totally unrelated except for the word Autism, which cause the short attention span crowd to assume its the same thing.

Re:Diet?

[takowl]

Happily my access does cover it (link [acs.org] for anyone else who wants to try).

The statistics look...mediocre. There's enough there, I think, to make it an interesting avenue for research, but it's definitely not a 'urine test for autism' (to be fair, the paper doesn't claim that, the blog and the summary exaggerate it).

What differences there are are pretty minor, and only some of them are apparently significant between the autistic children and their siblings (as opposed to the unrelated controls). I'm not altogether happy that some of the controls are from a different location, although they have found that there is no significant difference between the two control subgroups, but it's still a bit dodgy. They're also using statistical methods I don't know ("Projection to latent structure discriminant analysis"). Finally, I don't see any evidence that they've done corrections for multiple tests, although some of their results are P < 0.001, which would probably withstand that.

All in all, it strikes me as a case of the Science News Cycle [phdcomics.com].

Disclaimer: I am a biologist, but in a very different field.

Re:screening for young engineers

[smidget2k4]

Nope, you're wrong. Alcohol is a depressant. Just because you may "feel stimulated" because of the effect it is having on your brain does not mean that your body is actually treating it like a stimulant, it is just targeting your inhibitions so you "feel more stimulated". Anything that depresses areas of the brain is a depressant.

Re:3 fluid ounces

[cjcela]

RTFA. It is a journal, not a science magazine. From the first paragraph, "Children with autism have a different chemical fingerprint in their urine than non-autistic children, according to new research published tomorrow in the print edition of the Journal of Proteome Research."

Full Text

[sharky611aol.com]

Because government funded information belongs to the people (sorry, I'm too lazy to format it): Introduction Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) represent a series of related highly complex socio-psychological and neurodevelopmental problems with associated metabolic and gastrointestinal abnormalities of poorly defined etiology. ASD typically develop during the first 3 years of life and are characterized by a myriad of deficits in language/communication skills, social detachment as well as repetitive and stereotypic behaviors.(1, 2) The etiopathology of ASD is multifactorial and has been linked to genetic abnormalities(3, 4) and inborn errors of metabolism but there are many postulated, largely ill-defined, triggers including infectious agents and environmental toxins.(5) Autism has been shown to have strong associations with various metabolic abnormalities, immunological function and gastrointestinal disturbances, although their mechanistic significance is unknown.(5-8) In addition to the panel of neurodevelopmental problems associated with ASD, a range of gastrointestinal disorders have been reported, and recent studies have found that the condition is associated with abnormal gut microbiota.(9) There is also the possibility of previously unrecognized etiologic connections between microbiome disorder and childhood developmental problems, given the importance of the microbiome in mammalian metabolism, for example, bile acid metabolism.(10) Individuals with ASD are commonly exposed to repeated courses of multiple antibiotic therapies and this may contribute to the complex relationships between gastrointestinal dysbiosis and ASD by altering the composition or stability of their microbiota.(11-13) Abnormal sulfur metabolism has also been shown to typify individuals with ASD.(14) Waring et al. showed that individuals with autism have lower levels of plasma sulfate but considerably elevated levels of urinary sulfate, as compared to non-autistic individuals. These data suggest that autistic individuals may have impaired detoxification potential involving sulfation, as evidenced by their inability to sulfate the widely used drug acetaminophen.(14) The prevalence of autism has increased from 4 in 10000 children before 1980(2, 15) to 99 in 10000 in 2009 in the United Kingdom(15) and 53 in 10000 in 2006 in the United States(16) alone, but this varies regionally and with ethnicity, and also some geographically localized areas have much higher incidences of ASD.(17) However, it is not clear whether the global increase is due to higher prevalence of the disorder, and/or improved early detection/diagnosis. Current diagnosis of ASD is subjective and depends on observations of a cluster of behaviors and fulfillment of multiple criteria set out in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders fourth edition (DSM-IV-TR)(18) by a trained clinician. At present, there are no reliable biochemical- or genetic-screening tests for the disorder, and in some cases, particularly in late onset autism, childhood development can switch from being normal to showing a delay in acquisition of new skills, thus adding to the difficulty for diagnosing ASD. Thus, there is a pressing need for new diagnostic tools for ASD that are both sensitive and reliable, since early diagnosis can lead to timely interventions and optimized clinical management. Metabonomic approaches offer the possibility of measuring metabolic end points (metabolic profiles) that are determined by genetic and environmental factors.(19, 20) The application of high throughput metabolic profiling methods using high resolution analytical platforms (nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy and/or mass spectrometry (MS)) with subsequent multivariate statistical analyses now provides a well-established strategy for differential metabolic pathway profiling and disease diagnosis.(10, 20-22) Here we apply a metabolic profiling approach to capture the global biochemical signature of autistic individuals using NMR spectroscopy with multivariate statistical modeling to characterize indiv