[HN Gopher] Autism affects the microbiome, not the other way around
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Autism affects the microbiome, not the other way around
Author : wyrm
Score : 78 points
Date : 2021-11-20 14:23 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (arstechnica.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com)
| zackmorris wrote:
| After going through the worst burnout of my life from 2018 to
| 2020, I have proof in my own life that diet and digestive issues
| are hugely correlated with cognition and mood.
|
| Personally, I don't expect these kinds of studies to find a
| smoking gun. The chemical interactions between foods and the
| immune system are far too complex to be understood at this time.
| The immune system is the second most complex biological system
| after the brain. But we can still get clues. I highly recommend
| the everlywell comprehensive test (no affiliation) of 200+ foods,
| which I took that confirmed my suspicions about certain foods:
|
| https://www.everlywell.com/products/food-sensitivity-compreh...
|
| There's also a regular test of 100 foods for about half that
| price. And yes, these tests have their flaws, but can still
| inform us.
|
| I've also been taking ashwagandha for a few months for ADHD
| symptoms (still undiagnosed, but I'll get to it, I swear!) after
| hearing good things about it online. I'm an INFP with 78% on
| intuition, so I'm somewhat cursed with knowing the solutions to
| problems before people finish explaining them to me. Which is
| great for programming, but debilitating when living in a sick
| society healing from recent events in these times. My "deficits"
| (should really be differences) are around dissociation because
| it's too easy for me to slip down interesting rabbit holes.
| Living and working in the malignant mundanity of The Matrix while
| knowing a better world is just beyond our reach due to dogma,
| takes everything I got, every single day.
|
| Attempting to keep this brief, I believe that ashwagandha may
| desensitize the immune system to nightshades, which are pretty
| much all of the fun foods. I also suspect that it raises the
| proportion of good bacteria in our gut that live on roots. Humans
| evolved as scavengers eating icky things, but our surroundings
| and food are too sanitized today, so autoimmune issues and
| inflammation will eventually come to dominate our medical system.
|
| Which was the plot of a 1990s sci fi series called Earth 2, where
| a billionaire's kid gets "the syndrome" from living in too
| sterile of an environment:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_2_(TV_series)
|
| So people have known about this stuff for a long time.
|
| For anyone curious, the way I got out of burnout (severe anxiety,
| I learned) was by completely shutting down for a few months and
| taking care of the chores I had put off for years/decades. I had
| to relearn how to break overwhelming tasks down into simpler
| steps on my todo list and just do what I could each day, even if
| it was only one thing or getting out of bed. But more
| importantly, service. I let my ego finally die and gave myself
| over to helping others. That was the missing piece we don't hear
| about in a capitalistic/patriarchal "me" culture.
|
| Kids are very bright, often just as capable as you and me (you
| remember) but forced to endure eons of slow growth before they
| are free. I think we'll find that most developmental "disorders"
| are clues as to what's wrong with our society, and that as we all
| heal and ascend, they'll begin to subside.
| lightweb wrote:
| There's a lot of research that contradicts these notions, and
| also practical advice on how to remedy through food choices, if
| one is inclined to look into it. As with anything, it's a
| controversial subject, probably due to the severity of autism and
| the real difficulties of changing one's diet radically.
|
| http://www.doctor-natasha.com/gaps-book.php
|
| https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/325046
|
| https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/978904.Gut_and_Psycho...
| molyss wrote:
| those 3 links are effectively from a single source, Dr Natasha
| Campbell-McBride, who hasn't practiced as an MD for what looks
| like 20 years. She makes a living out of that miracle diet.
| She's anti-vax and hasn't published any research about GAPS.
|
| I think her whole scheme is dangerous and would recommend
| everyone who's considering this diet to look at the negative
| press around the diet and its proponent. You'll have to look
| pretty deep into google results to find those, but they're
| there. I'm not linking them because I'm not qualified to judge
| their quality besides superficially.
| nateabele wrote:
| My son has autism. I'd say he's slightly below 'moderate' on
| the spectrum. We first started him on the GAPS protocol ~5
| years ago. We've since evolved our approach and moved onto
| other dietary protocols (of which there are _many_ --part of
| the difficulty with studying or treating autism is that it's
| a diagnosis of a set of behaviors, not of an underlying
| condition: the underlying conditions are many and varied),
| but that was the first time we tried something that resulted
| in observable, material improvements in his quality of life,
| across a number of different vectors.
|
| When the healthcare establishment shrugs its collective
| shoulders and tells you that your son is condemned to a life
| of physical suffering, and being trapped in his own head, you
| don't wait for the 'experts' to publish studies. You go to
| work.
| smt88 wrote:
| The linked article addresses research like this directly.
|
| The subjects of the article did the first high-quality research
| on this topic in humans.
| strogonoff wrote:
| Would this be the beginning of a trend? I have an intuition that
| reversing the causal relationship between high-level (psychology,
| mind, behaviors) and low-level (physiology, disease
| manifestations) matters can significantly advance medicine.
| netizen-936824 wrote:
| So if our behavior is the result of neuronal networks
| processing information, what is the 'causal relationship'
|
| 'Higher level' stuff like behavior is the result of our cells
| communicating, there's no magic 'soul' that act on our
| biological systems. It generally goes from low->high but there
| is some feedback that occurs at 'high' and induces changes at
| 'low'
|
| The reality is a combination and thinking it just goes one way
| is flawed reasoning. Nothing is unidirectional and nothing is
| binary
| strogonoff wrote:
| What makes you think consciousness arises from matter? Is it
| a verifiable hypothesis?
| zajio1am wrote:
| Does computation in computers arise from matter?
| strogonoff wrote:
| If matter arises from consciousness, then by extension so
| does computation.
|
| I'm not saying it as a fact, as it is neither refutable
| no verifiable--but neither is the conventional view.
| netizen-936824 wrote:
| The explanation that I offer is note plausible than the
| conventional view (magic souls)
|
| Perhaps I'm wrong, but it at least seems like a step in
| the right direction where the hypothesis is based on
| already verified behavior of neurons and their networks
| kaba0 wrote:
| I don't think that it would be verifiable, but it is a
| default hypothesis that we don't assume some yet unseen way
| of interaction between something and our material bodies.
|
| Also, I don't think that it is unreasonable to imagine
| "consciousness" happening as an emerging feature of
| sufficient complexity. Remember, we have 3 billion neurons
| with orders of magnitudes more connections between them.
| strogonoff wrote:
| I don't mean some third thing interacting with our
| material bodies. What I mean is consciousness as the
| territory, and perceived matter and time-space
| representation as a simplified map.
| netizen-936824 wrote:
| Do you have evidence for this? Because it sounds like a
| larger leap of faith than I have assumed in my post.
| strogonoff wrote:
| No, but neither do I have evidence for consciousness
| arising from matter. If you can point me to some, I'd
| welcome that.
| netizen-936824 wrote:
| First I would like you to define consciousness
| strogonoff wrote:
| Perhaps you could give an example by defining "matter" or
| "reality" or whatever you believe is the underlying
| territory?
|
| (Without circular definitions or those involving
| consciousness, of course.)
| Madmallard wrote:
| It's far simpler to say it does based on the entire body of
| our research up until this point than it doesn't so the
| burden of proof is on those saying that it doesn't.
| strogonoff wrote:
| I don't think there is much existing research that
| directly tackles this question, is there any? Meanwhile,
| there is research[0] that appears to be investigating the
| potential of such reversed causality or at least
| something adjacent.
|
| [0] https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.20
| 14.0057...
| Bobylonian wrote:
| The problem with the consciousness is that by default it is
| limited to ability perceive senses and bacteria clearly is
| beyound our limits of consciousness, but that does not make
| them less real. Our brains collect and process information
| subconsciously - the layer of our consciousness is not
| responsible for all the background work, that our brains
| are doing. There can't exist hypothesis in regards of gut
| processes affecting very thin layer of consciousness.
|
| So, but can you disprove that gut bacteria can't impact
| brain processes? They can deliver signals to the brain, so
| what is exatly the obstacle that it makes it impossible
| task?
| Bobylonian wrote:
| Well, if I remember, then there was an article about that some
| bacteria that was present in brains was also present in gut.
|
| The very quick stupid idea was that bacteria from guts was
| invading brains, but there might be other explanations to that
| - bacterias are also living outside gut and if some of them
| somehow are finding a way into the brains, that does not mean
| that they came directly from guts. Might be - might be not and
| brains might have other canals that allows bacteria to enter
| and once they are in brains, they might be able to get control
| over things and condition brains in favouring specific gut
| bacteria, by requesting - craving specific food. So, I don't
| see that this research has nullified those ideas about
| bacterias affecting brains and helping their species of
| bacterias without knowing about them. But what this article is
| proposing is not illogical - not getting into demands of
| zombified controlled brains hold hostage of bacterias, or
| actually - developing healthy dietary habbits, by favouring
| diversity of gut bacterias in first place.
| im3w1l wrote:
| I remember when I heard people saying a better gut flora could
| treat autism alarm bells started ringing about microbiome stuff
| being way overhyped for me.
|
| This causal direction makes sense though.
| pstuart wrote:
| I dunno, we're making a lot of discoveries about how our gut
| influences our health, e.g.,
| https://www.science.org/content/article/your-gut-directly-co...
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| I think obviously it's a two-way street. There are many factors
| here. They seem to be oversimplifying the issue, which is perhaps
| understandable but will lead to erroneous conclusions rooted in
| bad mental models.
| Bobylonian wrote:
| Maybe. Humans developed their brains mainly because primate
| ancestors ~3 million years ago started to hunt other
| animals(including other primates) for meat and eat cooked
| protein rich meat, which allowed to develop and maintain bigger
| brains. That affected more diverse gut bacteria of primates -
| they lost ability to process raw meat more efficiently, because
| there was no more need for that.
|
| My take is that in overall ASD is next evolutionary change in
| brain development, where things that were coming from natural
| animal world are given away - that includes easy and intiutive
| social interaction that monkeys have, filtering of visual and
| sensory information that is bombarding our brains, where
| normally humans ignore 80-90% of information that brain
| receives and that includes gut behaviour as well. Apparently
| this brain development change can come together only with
| prolonged life.
| smt88 wrote:
| I would wager that autistic people are less likely to have
| children, which means that humans are evolving _away_ from
| autism (assuming a large enough hereditary factor).
| lupire wrote:
| That assumes autism is an isolated binary trait, which it
| is not.
| akiselev wrote:
| The evolutionary benefits of a dominant allele can vastly
| outweigh the negative consequences of a recessive one,
| keeping it alive even though it reduces fitness of some
| individuals. With a spectrum disorder like autism that's
| likely caused by many factors, we can't even hazard a wild
| guess.
| Jeff_Brown wrote:
| While demonstrating that autism influence the microbiome seems
| not especially tricky, demonstrating that the microbiome does not
| also influence autism seems next to impossible.
| acd wrote:
| Try hacking Microbiome with different kinds of Probiotics. The
| gut brain axis is two way. Thus you may be able to lessen autism
| spectrum dissorder symptoms via Probiotics.
|
| Research articles https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28686541/
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34062986/
|
| https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fendo.2019.0050...
| adolph wrote:
| > lessen autism spectrum dissorder symptoms via Probiotics
|
| Parts of the HFA experience can be advantageous. I wonder if
| certain aspects could be enhanced in this manner.
| podgaj wrote:
| It is also probable that both autism and altered micro biome are
| co-arising conditions with an underlying genetic link. Many genes
| implicated in ASD are also genes that can effect the mucrobiome.
|
| If you want me to explain this more let me kmow.
| lthornberry wrote:
| This is an interesting study, but it's far from the conclusive
| answer to the question of how the gut microbiome relates to
| neurological conditions. Given the heterogeneity and complex
| etiology of autism, a study of this size is not sufficiently
| powered to pick up all plausible correlations. If there is a
| causative connection between the microbiome and autism, it's
| likely only true of a subset (perhaps a small one) of autistic
| people.
| kennywinker wrote:
| I'd be shocked if the researchers doing this study didn't slice
| up the study participants by various traits and look for
| correlations. I.e. find the similar individuals (wrt gut
| microbiome) and group them, then check for shared traits (wrt
| asd).
|
| > it's far from the conclusive answer
|
| Idk it feels conclusive to me. The variance in asd gut
| microbiome is much more than the variance between asd and non
| asd gut microbiomes. Whatever we call autism is not "caused" by
| your microbiome. If there is a single trait or "variant" of asd
| that IS caused by gut biome that doesn't actually change the
| truth of the first conclusion.
| peter303 wrote:
| This talk at MIT a few days ago measured nervous system
| disruption in rident guts with autism analogs.
|
| http://calendar.mit.edu/event/exploring_gut-brain_signaling_...
|
| The conclusion is both the gut and brain may be affected by
| whatever causes autism. But the study didnt attempt to establish
| whether the gut affected the brain, or the brain affected the
| gut, or were they simultaneous.
| armchairhacker wrote:
| > So this study concludes that kids with ASD have reduced dietary
| diversity because of their behaviors, and this alters the
| taxonomic composition of their microbiome
|
| This sounds reasonable. Anecdotally autism and OCD can cause
| strange eating habits.
| 1-6 wrote:
| I'd also like to see a microbiome study done on more
| neurodivergent individuals to see if this pattern sticks.
|
| Anecdotally, we also have a family where we have to cook
| separate meals at times because certain foods cause the gag
| reflex while they eat and they don't like exploring new foods.
| Bobylonian wrote:
| Yes, but let's be reasonable - not everything that is available
| as a food can be classified as food(in the sense of healthy
| food). I, for one, as an omnivore, that shuns extreme food
| preferences, have a very diverse diet(which includes meat,
| fish, vegetables) and prepare and cook food myself and my
| strange habbit is not getting the same food every day, because
| it gets too boring. Even because of this diverse diet, I still
| can easily develop some problems, that other people seems to
| not have eating the same food.
|
| Also, if you think about that - not only smell, but taste and
| texture can cause sensory overload and if you have eaten
| something that feels funny, that means that your gut also is
| sending signals. I have vomited food, that others did not had
| problems eating, even if that food was probably slighly spoiled
| - apparently this is something that my gut tolerates less than
| others.
|
| Let's also think on whom this paper is aimed at - in general
| people are stupid, like the parent that succumbed to childs
| demands of food(though, pear is fruit, smoked chicken is meat,
| waffle is providing hydrocarbonates). So, there are people out
| there, that has to be taught, that varied diet has to be taught
| in chhildhood - that knowledge will stay for the rest of your
| life. If my parents were allowing me to eat only candies, that
| I was happy to consume in large quantities and not introduced
| to fish and other foods, that I found repulsive as a kid, then
| I would be similar to other people, who were not exposed to
| some foods and still find them repulsive, like in childhood.
| Some things have to be taught in childhood - like immunity - if
| children are not exposed to countryside, or exposure to danger
| - of open flame, etc.
|
| Koalas that are feeding upon specific Eucaliptic trees are not
| born with those gut bacterias, that are allowing to eat those
| leaves - they have to receive that gut bacteria via consuming
| fecal matter of their koala mother - if they are not receiving
| that bacteria, they are for sure having problems with their
| diet.
| supperburg wrote:
| The micro biome is lauded everywhere and considered as the last
| great frontier of medicine which will solve all human ailments.
| There is barely any disease that is not regarded as being
| potentially caused by the micro biome. It's all complete horse
| shit.
| eluusive wrote:
| I doubt that. It's likely both; as with most things in nature.
| kennywinker wrote:
| > They also "failed to replicate previously reported ASD-gut
| microbiome associations," identifying only one species (out of
| 607 examined) that significantly differed in abundance between
| kids with and without ASD.
|
| Not everything is a two way street. Cancer doesn't cause
| smoking.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| _Cancer doesn't cause smoking._
|
| At the risk of sounding nuts: We don't know that.
|
| There are various infections (often parasites) that mind
| control their victims and get them to engage in bizarre
| behavior that serves the goal of the parasite to reproduce.
|
| I think ants infected with a particular fungus or parasite
| crawl to the top of grass stalks, making it more likely they
| will get eaten by cows which serves the reproductive needs of
| the infection.
|
| Rats infected with a particular parasite are more aggressive
| and less likely to avoid cats. Getting eaten by a cat kills
| the rat but serves the reproductive needs of the parasite.
|
| If cancer is caused by some infective agent that alters the
| right things in the body, maybe that makes it more likely
| that you will smoke, thus promoting the kind of environment
| that serves the infective agent so it can pass some threshold
| and become "cancer" when it's not recognized as such below
| that threshold.
| kennywinker wrote:
| Lotta mental gymnastics there, but ok, so some infectious
| agent causes cancer and smoking. That's still not cancer
| causing smoking, that's toxoplasmosis (or whatever) causing
| both.
|
| You're, of course, right in one sense - I can't prove a
| negative. Cancer might cause smoking but we haven't found
| the link yet. But the lack of evidence is suspiciously
| large at this point.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| It's not a lot of mental gymnastics. We know some cancers
| are, in fact, caused by viruses. For example, human
| papillomavirus causes cervical cancer, so (iirc) women
| with fewer than 20 sexual partners are less likely to get
| cervical cancer because they are less likely to have
| contracted human papillomavirus.
|
| _But the lack of evidence is suspiciously large at this
| point._
|
| Such evidence will not be found if we never look because
| we already assumed the conclusion and dismiss those
| thinking out loud as nutters engaging in a lot of mental
| gymnastics.
|
| Edit:
| https://www.cdc.gov/cancer/hpv/basic_info/cancers.htm
| kennywinker wrote:
| Again all you're doing is providing a mechanism for how
| some infection could cause cancer AND smoking - not
| smoking causing cancer. That's an easy one to find
| evidence for... just look for the co-occurrence of
| smoking, cancer, and this infection. Sorting out which
| causes which is hard but not impossible after that.
|
| To find smoking causing cancer you'd have to find smoking
| increasing amongst people who get cancer. I don't have
| studies to point to but i'm pretty sure that's been
| looked at. By the tobacco companies if nobody else
| Bobylonian wrote:
| No, you are getting off the rails here - to prove that
| cancer causes smoking you have to provide real life
| example of a non smoker, where after getting cancer, a
| patient starts to smoke. That patient might be some kind
| of exception, but this does not work for cancer patients
| at all. So, cancer akkktually does not cause smoking and
| there is no way to prove that, unless you are thinking of
| developing mutation of cancer that carries some mutagen,
| that as a side effect also causes patients to start
| smoking, but let's be real...
|
| And it is not smoking that causes cancer, but exposure to
| chemicals, that causes cancer. And only if that exposure
| is critical. For the same reason you are able to take
| x-rays, but not often. So if you are smoking peace pipe
| ceremonially once per occassion - this is not going to
| cause you a cancer.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| _to prove that cancer causes smoking you have to provide
| real life example of a non smoker, where after getting
| cancer, a patient starts to smoke._
|
| No, I wouldn't. I would have to prove, for example, that
| someone started smoking after getting human
| papillomavirus and that there was a mechanism plausibly
| linking the infection with the craving for cigarettes.
|
| I don't readily know how to make the linguistic
| distinctions I want to make here. Sure, if you want to
| say "They first have to have a diagnosis of _cancer_... "
| okay, I'm dead in the water.
|
| That's not what I'm suggesting. I'm suggesting that we
| don't fully understand what causes cancer so it's
| possible that whatever living thing is a factor in
| causing cancer may also alter behavior such that it makes
| a diagnosis of cancer more likely.
|
| This is probably not worth discussing further. "You
| cannot solve a problem using the same mental models that
| created it" but those "proven" mental models are a handy
| means to dismiss someone in conversation as _getting off
| the rails_.
| Bobylonian wrote:
| Hey, English is not my native language and "getting off
| the rails" here was meant, that you are leading yourself
| astray and falling off the cliff. I mean you are losing
| track of this debate that smoke is causing a cancer.
|
| But to be fair, I can't see sense of following other
| logic of yours, because I recently lost a relative to a
| cancer and there was absolutelly nothing to blame for,
| except that she got into toxic environment, which killed
| her.
|
| Also, if we come to that - did you know, that in UK there
| were cases, that spouse was poisoned by chemicals, that
| causes cancer - are you aware that there are thousands of
| medical drugs, that has side effect that might cause
| cancer? How are you going to explain those with your
| logic? So, apparently person is developing a disease, and
| in process of treating that disease, person develops a
| cancer... good luck in explaining that with behavioral
| impact, like you are trying to do on fixating on HPV,
| which is only one of thousands viruses that can
| potentially damage cells and eventually damage cell
| programming and cause a cancer.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > No, I wouldn't. I would have to prove, for example,
| that someone started smoking after getting human
| papillomavirus and that there was a mechanism plausibly
| linking the infection with the craving for cigarettes
|
| Thar wouldn't prove cancer causes smoking (or prove
| _anything_ ), but it would suggest the potential of a
| common cause between cancer and smoking.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| Yes, I just said that.
|
| I think I'm done here.
| Bobylonian wrote:
| HPV is causing deformations of human cells. That is
| basically definition of what cancer does, only cancer is
| caused by wrong cell service programming itself - not by
| viruses. HPV itself can't cause cancer upon entering
| human body - there has to be development of mutated cell,
| that starts to spread cancer. If you think, that HPV
| causes behaviour, well... hard luck, you can end up by
| blaming your parents.
|
| Give your kids a vaccine against herpes and HPV and stap
| worrying about something you can't affect and reading
| those articles is not going to help, knowing that
| (constant)stress also causes cancer. Not intended to be
| rude, but women are more affected by hormones and no sex
| also can cause cancer. You don't have to be smoker and
| can eat healthy to get cancer nowadays, but to prevent
| degradation of cell programming is responsibility of
| genes.
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