Gut Bacteria May Contribute To Autism Symptoms, Mouse Study Finds (sciencemag.org) 105
Suren Enfiajyan shared this story from Science magazine:
Genes are a powerful driver of risk for autism, but some researchers suspect another factor is also at play: the set of bacteria that inhabits the gut. That idea has been controversial, but a new study offers support for this gut-brain link. It reveals that mice develop autismlike behaviors when they are colonized by microbes from the feces of people with autism. The result doesn't prove that gut bacteria can cause autism. But it suggests that, at least in mice, the makeup of the gut can contribute to some hallmark features of the disorder.
"It's quite an encouraging paper," says John Cryan, a neuroscientist at University College Cork in Ireland who was not involved in the research. The idea that metabolites -- the molecules produced by bacterial digestion -- can influence brain activity "is plausible, it makes sense, and it will help push the field forward..." Compared with mice colonized with bacteria from children without autism, the mice that inherited a microbiome from a child with autism were less social and showed more repetitive behavior, the authors report today in Cell. Mice with the autism-derived microbiome also had lower levels of several bacterial species that the researchers suspect could be beneficial...
"There's still a lot of missing links," says Jun Huh, an immunologist at Harvard University who studies the relationship between bacteria and brain function. "But I think the real importance of this study is to show -- for the first time -- that there's a causal relationship between the bacterial community and [autismlike] behavior."
UPDATE (6/21/2019): Some online criticism of the study suggests that the data may have been misinterpreted.
"It's quite an encouraging paper," says John Cryan, a neuroscientist at University College Cork in Ireland who was not involved in the research. The idea that metabolites -- the molecules produced by bacterial digestion -- can influence brain activity "is plausible, it makes sense, and it will help push the field forward..." Compared with mice colonized with bacteria from children without autism, the mice that inherited a microbiome from a child with autism were less social and showed more repetitive behavior, the authors report today in Cell. Mice with the autism-derived microbiome also had lower levels of several bacterial species that the researchers suspect could be beneficial...
"There's still a lot of missing links," says Jun Huh, an immunologist at Harvard University who studies the relationship between bacteria and brain function. "But I think the real importance of this study is to show -- for the first time -- that there's a causal relationship between the bacterial community and [autismlike] behavior."
UPDATE (6/21/2019): Some online criticism of the study suggests that the data may have been misinterpreted.
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...then wouldn't THAT be the norm? Being a mutant would be normal, and no one would be special.
Everyone would be normal in their own special way. It's the leftists dream come true.
Fecal Transplants (Score:5, Interesting)
That implies that fecal transplants could be used to (at least partially) treat autism. That's cheap enough to do that I'm sure a study could be done on that; or at least some desperate parents will try it.
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ur not putting some one else poop up my butt
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Oh yes we are.
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I want top-of-the-line: Pope poop, i.e. "Holy Shit".
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Nah, fecal transplants involve swallowing poop in capsules. It has to reach the long intestine. Sticking poop in your rectum won't do it.
But back to the topic, while it's helpful that this info is being found out I worry that it'll just reinforce those anti-vax moms' beliefs that giving their autistic kids bleach enemas is actually good. I can see it now, Facebook posts linking to this and saying, "See, it's backed by SCIENCE!"
Re: Fecal Transplants (Score:1)
Having parents with the autism bacteria is the problem... the effing parents tend to be the carriers of the bacteria the kids get and previous mice studies on autism showed that the fat-parents lacked the diversity of bacteria to prevent the autism bacteria from being dominant... soooo sad, same goes for all the antibiotics people take these days, they kill diversity and people donâ(TM)t eat enough fiber to keep their diversity of bacteria strains high enough to prevent these health issues.
In other wor
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Famous last words
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fecal transplants
Yeah, that would be already disgusting for many autistic people because of their sensory overload.
This article doesn't imply that bacterias are the main cause, but they might worsen the symptoms in some people.
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It at least suggests the possibility strongly enough that it should be tried.
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That implies that fecal transplants could be used to (at least partially) treat autism.
If fecal transplants can do it, AND the relevant bugs can survive a trip through the digestive tract, the administration of pure cultures of said bugs can do it also. So a probiotic containing them would be the logical treatment.
In particular, one of the studies WRT autism showed low levels of Bifidobacterium and A. muciniphila among the afflicted. Presuming these are the good guys, both are suitable for oral dosing.
Bi
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Maybe we should experiment on adults like me, instead of children.
I remember John Elder Robison (he's a famous autistic man) or someone who reminds me of him getting some kind of autism treatment, and it was a calamity, so I don't really want to try it, but I think it would be better off tried on me than on children.
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So now it may be the shit on organic farmed food that people feed their children which causes autism?
Kind of sounds plausible.
Autism rates have climbed as our society has become ultra-hygienic.
So it is more plausible that it is the lack of animal shit on their food that causes the problem.
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A popular correlation to mock the anti-vaxxers was to correlate autism with organic food sales.
I remembered that one and had to think 'organic fertilizer' fro
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Autism rates have climbed because the requirements for that diagnosis were lowered in 1987. That's because the original requirements came from the Nazi's, and they executed all people with mental disabilities. Since the United States does not currently execute such people it's reasonable to include more people in the diagnosis so they can get the help they need.
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Re: Since it's not vaccines. (Score:2)
Also parents are much older. Fewer 17 year old mothers.
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Autism rates have climbed as our society has become ultra-hygienic.
Autism rates have climbed since society has learned to diagnose it. That's like saying rates of Down's Syndrome has climbed since they understood it was a genetic problem. Correlation is not causality.
-- for the first time -- (Score:3)
-- for the first time --
Didn't we already have studies saying that autism was found to have a link to gut bacteria? Or were these correlations, and this study says it's the first to see it as a cause? I seem to recall reading this about gut bacteria a year or so ago I feel like, especially with more and more interest being shown in gut bacteria.
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Yes. Here's an article.
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0024585
By the way, my Autistic son HAD Crohns disease. He even needed surgery for fistulas at the University of Michigan Mott Children's Hospital. We changed his diet drastically since, including a strong pro-biotic, and he is non-symptomatic over 15 years later. I am not a doctor, and these are not medical recommendations.
This is amazing! (Score:2, Funny)
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I had no idea mice could study autism. Incredible, just incredible. All this time I thought they were too absorbed in anti-cat [wikipedia.org] violence. What a fool I've been.
That Tom and Jerry link is to a fake news article intended to mislead people on the true nature of the mouse threat.
You can get the facts from Itchy and Scratchy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Justsaysinmice says (Score:1)
IN MICE....oh, wait, the title was actually honest. Uh, good job, carry on.
Breast feeding and autism (Score:3, Interesting)
It has been known for quite some time that autism is associated with an abnormal microbiome.
When we are born, our guts are largely sterile. Breast feeding aids in the colonization of the infant gut by Bifidobacterium [wikipedia.org] contained in mothers' milk. This bacteria is the primary strain found in our guts during the first couple years of human life. In addition to the Bifidobacterium, mothers' breast milk provides nutrients to aid in the establishment of this micorobiome. These nutrients are exclusive to mothers' milk and are known as Human milk oligosaccharide [wikipedia.org]. There is no substitute for this, and it is practically impossible to extract from other sources.
The rise of autism can be correlated with the decline of breast feeding and rise of formula fed babies. Formula fed babies are not provided with the proper natural gut fauna, nor with the nutrients (human milk oligosaccharides) to nurture the microbiome. It is not vaccines which contribute to autism, but the decline in natural breast feeding, and that decline's deleterious affect on the human microbiome. The rise in aggressive vaccine use is merely coincidental with the decline in breast feeding.
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These days they wash the babies thoroughly.
As the father of a seven-week old, this doesn't match my recent experience. The first thing they did was skin-to-skin contact between mother and child for an hour. It wasn't until nearly a day later that they wiped the child down, and we have plenty of pictures from the second day with dried blood and other stuff still visible.
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The rise of autism can be correlated with the decline of breast feeding and rise of formula fed babies.
It can also be correlated with the increase in global temperature, the decrease of peg-legged, tricorn wearing pirates and the global production of silicon wafers.
https://tylervigen.com/page?pa... [tylervigen.com]
One has to be quite careful with correlations.
Wrong (Score:2)
Wrong. I'm an American and I know more than some stupid scientists. Facebook and YouTube educated me more than any university ever could. It's vaccines and only vaccines. Anything else is a liberal conspiracy. *mocking laughter*
Full Synthetic (Score:2)
That's why I have for a long time been advocating full synthetic. Not just for ICE automobiles but also for food. I am talking about totally synthesized carbohydrates and proteins, with some of the essential minerals added. With sugar and some flavoring it can taste really good. Better than natural. The dinosaurs ate natural. The dinosaurs went extinct.
You won't believe what the autistic mice did next (Score:2)
A surprising offshoot of the experiment was one band of autistic mice getting a VC funding round for their new social media site, A Maze Of Twisty Burrows. Though their Java code sucked, the site already gets more traffic than Pinterest.
Autism is a gift from the Neanderthals. (Score:1, Interesting)
Europeans and East Asians have Neanderthal-derived genes. These genes gave both racial groups enhanced quantitative reasoning but also gave them some neurological illnesses, including autism.
A report [nih.gov] by the National Institutes of Health states, "In particular, the parts of our brains that enable us to use tools and visualize and locate objects owe some of their lineage to Neanderthal-derived gene variants that are part of our genomes and affect the shape of those structures -- to the extent that an individ
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Just going by the snippet you posted I'd guess that
refers to spatial reasoning, an ability needed by dentists, for example; not to quantitative reasoning.
The problem with Science... (Score:2)
Or rather, the problem with People... not Science, is that there is still a lot of things we do not know, yet people run around like they KNOW so much and want to control how other people live in regards to that. Global Warming is one example. Especially when it comes to diet and health, sugar taxes or outright attempted bans on sugar drinks. Things the work for some but not others. We are still finding new life in just the weirdness of our belly buttons alone.
This study like most others will be latched
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I'm not sure how to tell you this, but studies like this are the results of a lifetime of study by professionals. (I am a science professional) Everything we know about science today will eventually be replaced by something that is more correct. That doesn't make the understanding we have today bad, it justifies our moving forward.
Ok, back to the top and the people running around like they KNOW so much and want to control how other people live. Yes this happens, and it is a big problem. On one hand, there
Contagious diseases (Score:1)
Another clear finding of this research is that autism, as originated in the gut, is a contagious disease. Just like other diseases that were considered genetically related like coeliac disease, a gut related problem that affects the (brain related) behaviour as well. And is also caused by certain bacterias in the gut "activating" it.
If you think about it, aten't zombies about bacterias infecting the body and taking over the brain in the end?
Weak work! (Score:3)
https://blogs.sciencemag.org/p... [sciencemag.org]
It's basically just kind of shoddy work.
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It's basically just kind of shoddy work.
Thank you for sharing that. I had previously read the press release and original research... and I didn't even formulate questions about the work, I simply drew the simple conclusion that they're attempting to extrapolate a condition from a cohort sample count of 2 (yes, 2!) brothers (yes, BROTHERS) who were previously diagnosed with autism ... and find something something in mice ... then rush to publication without having their research being properly vetted, peer reviewed, and reproduced/confirmed.
In
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child could inherit ASD risk from his autistic mother through genes. X-Chromosome
Autism inheritance is much more complicated. There are possibly hundreds of autism risk genes that are distributed over the human genome. X chromosome doesn't explain most of the males' excess. Exposure to androgens (male sex hormones) in uterus explains most of the males' excess since they change expressions of many genes (including risk genes) and making males more vulnerable to genetic and environment factors. On average autistic children have lower 2D:4D ratio [wikipedia.org] compared to general population which is an
Can we please just get on with trying fecal transp (Score:2)
I really want to see it used for MS, but really, you are what you eat. You grow out of your gut.
I truly believe that fecal transplants are the true future of medicine.