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Gut Microbes Linked to Autism-Like Symptoms in Mice
sciencehabit writes "Many physicians and parents report that their autistic children have unusually severe gastrointestinal problems, such as chronic constipation or diarrhea. These observations have led some researchers to speculate that an ailing gut contributes to the disorder in some cases, but scientific data has been lacking. Now, a provocative study claims that a probiotic treatment for gastrointestinal issues can reduce autismlike symptoms in mice and suggests that this treatment could work for humans, too."
Nonsense, it's obviously the vaccines! That chick that appeared on Playboy said so!
They may need to find some other disorder to explain their anti-social behaviour and make them feel special.
vitamin and supplement megacorps, how can we loose in this battle?
Two hyperprofitable concerns vying for the last few dollars of desperate parents.
I feel a shit coming on right now...
Reminds me of when illness/death comes from some bad source of food and impacts a swath of people. It's always interested me to know how quickly and by what process the source is discovered. I know that when I feel weird and suspect bad food it's a bit of a challenge to think absolutely thoroughly back through every last thing I ate over the past X hours/days. I wonder if there are many other common threads such as this that might yield clues if researchers had more complete knowledge of every person with a particular condition including things that people may never mention thinking it isn't relevant or important.
Does it want to watch Wapner? Can it count cards? We need to come up with a better way of testing stuff out than on mice.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Autism is genetic and is also influenced / is a function of the environment they are brought up in, The real disease is the need for parents to label it as a disease in order to blame it on something other than themselves, always has been and always will be generally speaking, I have it, so I speak from experience, Same goes for ADHD, which I have as well. Autism from my mum's side of the family and severe ADHD from my dad's side.
Firstly, they discovered that the autistic-model mouse had very different gut biota and suffered from digestive tract issues. The new bacterium didn't establish itself, but it did perturb the gut bacteria community to be closer to control mice, and reduced digestive tract issues.
Secondly, they discovered that this perturbation reduced the autism-model symptoms in the autism-model mice quite markedly.
Thirdly, they discovered a gut metabolite that was elevated in untreated autism-model mice versus control mice or treated autism-model mice. However providing that metabolite to control mice only caused an increase in anxiety behaviours, and not the specific autistic ones. So it's not just the metabolite which is responsible for the behaviours.
I wonder if there's some underlying difference in the neurology of the autism-model mice such that the metabolite "sets off" the autism-model behaviours rather than anxiety. Or perhaps the metabolite causes anxiety in both communities but the anxiety only then "sets off" the autism-model behaviours in the autism-model mice.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
A book/diet that was, and still is to some extent, far far ahead of its time is the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (http://www.breakingtheviciouscycle.info/) by Elaine Gottschall. It not only addresses the role bacteria plays in autism, downs, etc but also in a whole range of Irritable Bowl Diseases, of which one I suffer from (ulcerative colitis).
buying this book and following the instructions saved my life (well, at least my colon). the key is to stay on the diet 100% of the time. after a month or so on the diet i was able to ditch the immune suppresant drug medication cold turkey (much to the dismay of Big Pharma I suppose). Imuran and the like (Prograf, humura, remicade) are really toxic shit.
the biggest battle, believe it or not, was with the doctors who insisted i stay on the medication. they did not understand that an imbalance in gut bacteria can trigger an immune response and also be responsible for a whole host of other problems. they know there is a connection between the brain and gut but they categorize it as some sort of voodoo science and leave it up to homeopathy to address. they didnt even mention a diet once.
so it appears a giant re-education effort is needed in the medical community as well. but this will take some time. doctors can be breathtaking assholes when they dont know or understand something. of course a doctor would rather prescribe meds then telling a patient to stop eating foods bad for them.
unfortunately, the patient would rather take the meds as well.
link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flowers_for_Algernon
"Probiotic" is the little Shibboleth that makes this smell like woo.
I'm reminded of a whole mountain of crackpottery peddled by violently unethical shysters and borderline criminal pseudoscientists, for private profit.
@Clive Robinson
A lot of people are wondering why dragosr was the only one to run across this malware. In fact, he wasn't. The people who were before him were mocked and most threads closed and either deleted or shuffled to areas of message boards where Joe Q public couldn't see it and question this for themselves. [some] Major Anti-Virus companies included.
Users didn't want to know, companies didn't want to know. Unless you were "known" in the field, like dragosr, and even then, you are handled like you may be retarded or just need a vacation.
Here is one of dozens of reports:
LCD Monitor Broadcasts Noise To Radio! Why? (FRS)
http://forums.radioreference.com/computer/255488-lcd-monitor-broadcasts-noise-radio-why.html
Final post in that thread:
"BOTTOM LINE: No matter WHAT you do, all devices that use electricity will emit some sort of interference in the air and there's nothing you can do about it without unplugging/turning it off. "
including:
"Have you noticed any nondescript white vans or black helicopters in your neighborhood?
What do you do or have you done to make "them" take such an interest in you that "they" have to bug you?
You need a bigger tinfoil hat, perhaps a full body suit."
Another thread:
Gpu based paravirtualization rootkit, all os vulne
http://forum.sysinternals.com/gpu-based-paravirtualization-rootkit-all-os-vulne_topic26706.html
This:
U.N. report reveals secret law enforcement techniques
"Point 201: Mentions a new covert communications technique using software defined high frequency radio receivers routed through the computer creating no logs, using no central server and extremely difficult for law enforcement to intercept."
http://www.unodc.org/documents/frontpage/Use_of_Internet_for_Terrorist_Purposes.pdf
http://www.hacker10.com/other-computing/u-n-report-reveals-secret-law-enforcement-techniques/
I think this is something which has been brewing for years, but "forces" beyond our sight have managed to stifle any serious investigation into the technology. Some have announced they are retreating to ancient technology of the 70's and 80's, others are looking towards open source hardware and software combinations.
Is it time Wireshark included audio monitoring as well? Off to play with a recording device and Audacity.
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/11/friday_squid_bl_402.html#c2751193
Isn't this the same thing Wakefield was trying to prove before he committed research fraud and started the whole "vaccines cause autism" nonsense?
TLR
A man no more knows his destiny than a tea leaf knows the history of the East India Company
If zis is vot zey call gut bacteria I'd hate to see bat bacteria
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
I read this book 4 years ago that made the same connections. Recommended reading Dr. Hyman the Ultramind Solution.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CpHwZR6k20
Color me skeptical. Chronic constipation/diarrhea in children - they're virtually the same thing, look up encopresis, seriously, do it - is a behavioral problem. The young child finds bowel movements unpleasant and avoids them, setting off a cycle of repeated unpleasant bowel movements and perpetuated avoidance that results in long term deliterious changes to the large instine, sphincter and gut microbiome. In short, I strongly suspect that the chain of causation goes the other way and this evidence is insufficient to establish otherwise at this juncture.
Of course gut microbe play a role. Some aggressive species are able to attack the gut's cells, which cause the leaky gut syndrome, where food proteins not completely digested can enter the bloodstream. The immune system will seek and destroy them, every day, on every meal. That can trigger allergies and autoimmune diseases.
Moreover proteins from milk and wheat contains sequences that are hard to break down, and that can activate morphine receptors in the brain. They are called caseomorphins and gliadomorphins. Some (but not all) autists have success in reducing their symptoms by adopting a diet without diary product and gluten, and it is suspected this is for that reason.
now i'm stealing the upholstery out of my furniture & building nests. winter must be coming,,, it's bugs after all, what a relief, i thought i was imagining...
free the innocent stem cells
Maybe anti bacterial coating on toys or ingesting anti bacterial soap is a cause?
Clinical tests have proved that so-called "probiotic" additives, orally-administered "enzyme" treatments, and other such methods do not survive passage through the stomach. That is why they cannot make any specific health claims with respect to probiotics.
Commercials use weasel words and leave it to the consumer to leap to the conclusion that eating probiotics will help them.
I know people who have made great strides is the symptoms of their autistic children by changing their diet and especially cutting out gluten. I thought there was already a known connection between the gut bacteria and autism. Oh, well. Sometimes it takes the mainstream a while to catch up on what some people are figuring out.
-- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
How did they make the mice autistic in the first place?
... about the gut, you always wonder if scientists are giving you the straight shit.
Considering that most of the cells "inside" the body (if you don't think of the human system as a torus)
are non-human and form an entire ecosystem that digests nutrients out of the substances we ingest,
it makes sense that good digestion is as fundamental to us as it is to a tree (which also relies on an exterior soil ecosystem).
This would also coincide with the apparent disease-like spread of autism thru the population.
The spread of autism also displays a flavor of inheritance and we aren't completely sure how gut bacteria spread
but it's likely that you get it from the people you spend the most time around.
Playboy: Entertainment for Men is a monthly magazine that's essentially The New Yorker with more pictures of naked women. Nintendo would never allow that sort of nudity on its platform. I just checked App World, and Playboy doesn't appear in the magazines section, nor does Playboy appear to have a Kindle edition. Feel free to prove me wrong though.
My daughter and I are aspies, and I see no reason for a "cure."
Other than perhaps widespread discrimination by interviewers against people who show symptoms during the interview?
This comes at the same time that the European Food Safety Administration is prohibiting foods from using the words "probiotics" on their packaging. Because as they have rigorously studied and found there is no correlation between ingested foods and any discernible health benefits.
With nearly none of the claims for benefits being found in studies related to specific bacterium being repeatable, and additionally any "probiotic" supplements being taken appear in fecal testing, but when you stop taking the supplements they likewise disappear from fecal samples. Meaning you can't "seed" your gut bacteria with supplements.
I will remain being EXTREMELY skeptical that they can even remotely remove the effects of autism with a gut bacteria.
"All I know is my gut says 'maybe'."
'Maybe' onto something here.
I have just calculated that in my head. Am I safe?
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
One used to be able to make the "office harmony" argument against hiring people of the wrong skin color until the enactment of civil rights legislation. It's just harder to prove autism discrimination than racial discrimination in court.
There is a strict diet called the GAPS Diet that both of these families followed and they began to see substantive changes within months, and ongoing improvements over a couple of years that have really allowed these kids to blossom.
This is not hearsay. I knew these kids before and I know them after, and they have improved dramatically.
And what is damaging the gut bacteria in greater numbers? RoundUp Ready crops! Every time you eat GMO foods you are eating glyphosate (RoundUp) and that poisons the bacteria in your gut. The shikimate pathway that allows glyphosate to destroy plants also exists in the bacteria in your gut and the soil.
http://people.csail.mit.edu/seneff/glyphosate/glyphosate.html
Now Dr.s Seneff and Samsell are the first to say "correlation doesn't mean causation" but it is a great place to start looking. They have identified the ways in which a whole host of problems occur in humans when they consume glyphosate. Keep in mind their research focused on glyphosate which is part of RoundUp and other companies clone products. The other parts boost the effect so their study can be considered "best case" which is horrible on its own.
Anthony Samsel and Stephanie Seneff, "Glyphosate's Suppression of Cytochrome P450 Enzymes and Amino Acid Biosynthesis by the Gut Microbiome: Pathways to Modern Diseases" Entropy 2013, 15(4), 1416-1463; doi:10.3390/e15041416
You can download the paper from her home page (no paywall): http://people.csail.mit.edu/seneff/
You might want to read Gut and Psychology Syndrome | GAPS Diet by Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride. Some doctors in the UK and US are using this approach to treat autism with good results, but there no published studies that I'm aware of. The main focus points of the book are probiotics (like kefir) and eliminating artificial additives (e.g preservatives, colours & flavours), gluten and casein.
Friends with autistic children have noticed improvement by following the book, but as others have said autism is complex and not fully understood. We've noticed significant behavioural improvements, eczema cured and disappearnce of mystery ankle pains in our own non-autistic kids by eliminating presevatives, especially 282 found in many bread products. I wouldn't consider it scientifically proven but since the cost is minimal and risks (almost) non-existant, I would recommend trialing a GAPS diet.
Probiotics are now recommended by some doctors to restore gut health after a course of antibiotics.
Reminds me of a story from a friend about a cousin who was autistic, and due to gastrointestinal issues, carbohydrate processing was somewhat broken, leading to incomplete intermediary chemicals. One of which was something akin to a narcotic allegedly, which when discovered after years of testing regarding health issues, finally explained why the poor boy tore into bread loaves like a heroin fiend...