[HN Gopher] Metabolism of autism reveals developmental origins
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Metabolism of autism reveals developmental origins
Author : wglb
Score : 93 points
Date : 2024-05-11 15:18 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (medicalxpress.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (medicalxpress.com)
| faeriechangling wrote:
| > The researchers discovered that a small number of biochemical
| pathways are responsible for the majority of these changes, which
| could help inform new early detection and prevention strategies
| for autism.
|
| It won't. Autism is a socioculturally bound diagnosis, not a
| single disease that exists in biology. It's a label for those
| perceived by others in a certain light, defined in such a way
| that two with the same label can have remarkably little overlap
| in terms of observed behaviour. You diagnose autism based on how
| people act, not who they are. Any biological markers for autism
| are politically suspect as it would imply those without those
| markers are invalid, while also raising the spectre of eugenics
| for those with the markers.
|
| More likely and productivity it might eventually REPLACE autism
| as a diagnosis with something scientifically valid and treatable,
| as if somebody displays no autistic behaviours as a result of
| treatment of a metabolic disorder, why diagnose them with autism?
| furyofantares wrote:
| > defined in such a way that two with the same label can have
| remarkably little overlap in terms of observed behaviour
|
| I believed this until my daughter was diagnosed and then I was
| later diagnosed. My experience with (some) professionals was a
| surprise to me; a much wider variety of "observed behaviors"
| than I expected seem to stem from sensory issues for example.
| And I think it makes sense that humans might adopt a wide
| variety of ways to deal with for a much smaller variety of
| processing issues.
|
| (Unrelated to the professional experience) Have you looked into
| monotropism? It's a fairly compact theory that ties a lot of
| behaviors together that might look like they have no overlap
| from the outside.
|
| Also:
|
| > It's a label for those perceived by others in a certain light
|
| Lots of people self-diagnose.
| faeriechangling wrote:
| If you ask the majority of people if somebody who they do not
| perceive as engaging in autisitic behaviours, and was not
| diagnosed as autistic, but considers themselves autistic, is
| autistic, they will say no. Scientifically (which how it's
| defined in the OP), it's not defined by psychiatrist
| appraisal and self-assessment plays no necessary role in the
| process and alone holds no diagnostic validity. We can also
| invert this: self-denial doesn't make one non-autistic if
| they're seen as engaging in autistic behaviours and are
| diagnosed as autistic by a professional.
|
| I'll concede that a minority believe that autism is self-
| definable though. I'd prefer things that way myself, but the
| among other things it would make it impossible to gatekeep
| services for the autistic if self-diagnosis were held in the
| same esteem as physician diagnosis, so it won't catch on
| anytime soon.
| flatline wrote:
| I'm not sure what point you are making with this reply. I'm
| late/adult self-identifying autistic. I've done this with
| some of the standard tests that psychiatrists use, attended
| workgroups related to the topic, and studied extensively.
| Self-diagnosis is highly accurate for autism, both for
| positive and negative evaluations.
|
| I am also pursuing a formal diagnosis because so many
| people downplay it when I tell them I'm autistic. I don't
| have the affect at first glance, but it does come out in my
| behaviors if you get to know me a bit. I've also had the
| luxury of therapy, eduction, etc.
|
| I also agree that the categorization is overly broad and
| your original post resonates. There are various non-
| overlapping clusters of traits that fall under autism.
|
| I do think, however, that at the core of it is a common
| difference in information and sensory processing.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| Adults that get diagnosed later typically have developed
| very good ability to mask so casual acquaintances
| probably don't suspect they are autistic. So it's not
| surprising they would downplay it.
| faeriechangling wrote:
| >Self-diagnosis is highly accurate for autism, both for
| positive and negative evaluations.
|
| I've also gone into autism communities before and
| declared that I had self-undiagnosed myself with autism,
| which is something I've desired recently, to re-diagnose
| myself as not being autistic and either having nothing or
| ADHD. This was totally rejected, and repeatedly brought
| up was my admittance to a lengthy period of diagnosis,
| overseen my multiple doctors, from a very young age,
| which all were seen as evidence of the validity of my
| diagnosis (conversely, I'd presume, they treat the
| opposite as more less valid or invalid). Interestingly
| the same people generally accepted diagnosis, but to
| reject a diagnosis, well that was beyond the pale and
| denialism. I brought up the same to a psychiatrist,
| saying I wanted to be treated by a psychiatrist for ADHD
| and NOT autism because I believe it will lead to superior
| outcomes. They blew me off, exasperated, saying that any
| psychiatrist would simply observe my symptoms and deem me
| autistic and treat me that way no matter what I did,
| denying that I even had the capability or possibility to
| receive treatment which was not based on the premise that
| I was autistic. Metabolic testing and self-diagnosis be
| damned.
|
| Just this moment I'm in the process of seeking
| accommodations. I self reported autistic symptoms to my
| employer. In the past, during interviews they have
| accepted my diagnosis and pledged to "accommodate" me
| accordingly, and I was ticked off as a diversity hire.
| They asked me to verify such symptoms with a doctor. They
| subsequently said they reserve the right to an
| independent psychological assessment of myself or my
| records. This is very pleasing to me, as either I shall
| receive accommodations and an affirmation that I am
| autistic, or my undiagnosis, which is truly a win-win.
|
| If I was in family court, and it was argued that I was
| unable to say take care of children because I'm autistic,
| I could not successfully object on the grounds that "I'm
| not autistic".
|
| Yet my observation is what is considered the true measure
| of somebodies autisticness, the validity of their
| diagnosis and their symptoms, is independent
| psychological assessments by an examiner not beholden to
| your own self-assessment. I theorise this is both because
| of a lack of faith in the competence of either of us to
| assess an autism diagnosis, as well as a lack of faith in
| our objectivity. I've met a number of self-diagnosed
| people who are shy about disclosure or asking for
| accommodation BECAUSE they are self-diagnosed, and while
| obviously believing in the reality of their autism, are
| either self-sceptical or believe in others scepticism to
| a degree not commonly seen in those medically diagnosed.
|
| I don't mean to be exclusionary or gatekeeping, just
| descriptive of what I believe to be
| social/political/legal/scientific reality. I don't like
| that things are this way, I'm aware that hilariously I've
| never seen ANY evidence that suggests physician diagnosis
| is more accurate than self-diagnosis, I'm aware of the
| many historical problems with physician diagnosis, I
| merely believe that they ARE this way.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| I've never met anyone that self identifies as autistic that
| didn't have some obvious behaviors (in the tech world there
| are a lot). This seems like a strawman.
| somenameforme wrote:
| Here [1] is the DSM diagnostic criteria for autism. It's
| broad to the point of absurdity. The reason many people think
| autism is a faux disorder is because it includes everything
| from an individual who simply sits in the corner endlessly
| flapping his hands, completely unable to function as a human
| being, to Bill Gates or Elon Musk. The weaker diagnoses,
| which is an increasingly large chunk of all of them, often
| seem like an effect to pathologize normal behavioral
| differences within people. This is, IMO, one of those things
| people are definitely going to look back at think 'wtf were
| they even thinking?'
|
| [1] - https://a4.org.au/dsm5-asd
| whimsicalism wrote:
| frankly, this will continue as long as performance-
| enhancing drugs and accommodations are gated behind
| diagnoses
| pseudalopex wrote:
| What performance enhancing drugs are prescribed for
| autism?
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > It's broad to the point of absurdity.
|
| It's called "autism spectrum" for a reason, partially
| because a lot of the symptoms overlap with each other, and
| can appear in every possible permutation.
|
| > The reason many people think autism is a faux disorder is
| because it includes everything from an individual who
| simply sits in the corner endlessly flapping his hands,
| completely unable to function as a human being, to Bill
| Gates or Elon Musk.
|
| At least for the latter, it's undeniable he's presenting
| quite a few symptoms, and that even before he went off the
| rocker in 2018 with the "pedo" comments. He's lucky to be
| as rich and successful as he is.
| ants_everywhere wrote:
| > The reason many people think autism is a faux disorder is
| because it includes everything from an individual who
| simply sits in the corner endlessly flapping his hands,
| completely unable to function as a human being, to Bill
| Gates or Elon Musk.
|
| Autism and intellectual disability are different things.
| Successful people like Bill Gates can also be depressed, as
| can somebody who sits in a corner. That doesn't say
| anything interesting about depression, nor does it say
| anything interesting about autism. Same with cancer or male
| pattern baldness or really just about any condition you
| care to think of.
| aleph_minus_one wrote:
| > The weaker diagnoses, which is an increasingly large
| chunk of all of them, often seem like an effect to
| pathologize normal behavioral differences within people.
|
| This is a phenomenon which is known for a long time in the
| hacker community. Relevant quote from the Jargon file
| (http://catb.org/jargon/html/weaknesses.html):
|
| "1994-95's fad behavioral disease was a syndrome called
| Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), supposedly characterized
| by (among other things) a combination of short attention
| span with an ability to 'hyperfocus' imaginatively on
| interesting tasks. In 1998-1999 another syndrome that is
| said to overlap with many hacker traits entered popular
| awareness: Asperger's syndrome (AS). This disorder is also
| sometimes called 'high-function autism', though researchers
| are divided on whether AS is in fact a mild form of autism
| or a distinct syndrome with a different etiology. AS
| patients exhibit mild to severe deficits in interpreting
| facial and body-language cues and in modeling or
| empathizing with others' emotions. Though some AS patients
| exhibit mild retardation, others compensate for their
| deficits with high intelligence and analytical ability, and
| frequently seek out technical fields where problem-solving
| abilities are at a premium and people skills are relatively
| unimportant. Both syndromes are thought to relate to
| abnormalities in neurotransmitter chemistry, especially the
| brain's processing of serotonin.
|
| Many hackers have noticed that mainstream culture has shown
| a tendency to pathologize and medicalize normal variations
| in personality, especially those variations that make life
| more complicated for authority figures and conformists.
| Thus, hackers aware of the issue tend to be among those
| questioning whether ADD and AS actually exist; and if so
| whether they are really 'diseases' rather than extremes of
| a normal genetic variation like having freckles or being
| able to taste DPT. In either case, they have a sneaking
| tendency to wonder if these syndromes are over-diagnosed
| and over-treated. After all, people in authority will
| always be inconvenienced by schoolchildren or workers or
| citizens who are prickly, intelligent individualists --
| thus, any social system that depends on authority
| relationships will tend to helpfully ostracize and
| therapize and drug such 'abnormal' people until they are
| properly docile and stupid and 'well-socialized'.
|
| So hackers tend to believe they have good reason for
| skepticism about clinical explanations of the hacker
| personality."
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| Which in turn becomes the dichotomy between wanting the
| diagnosis and thinking the diagnosis is silly.
|
| You start off with some institution that has a set of
| rules on paper, which nobody actually follows or even
| reads because they discover what they're expected to do
| via social cues. Then someone with autism doesn't pick up
| on the social cues, commits a faux pas, and the
| administration flips through the rule book to find
| whatever rule they can be found to have broken in order
| to punish them.
|
| The autistic individual is then told that they are bad
| and need to learn to follow the rules, so they read the
| rule book cover to cover and follow every rule to the
| letter. But many of the rules are aggressively stupid and
| impractical or even purposely designed to be violated by
| ordinary behavior so the administration always has an
| excuse to punish whoever they want. Strictly following
| them is also a faux pas.
|
| The question then is what to do about it. The autistic
| individual wants some accommodations so they're not
| constantly being punished for not picking up social cues.
| The administration wants them to take some drug that
| makes them stop being atypical, or to be rid of them.
| These are, of course, two very different and incompatible
| things.
| gopher_space wrote:
| Do you have the background and training to parse what
| you're reading and apply it to individuals in the correct
| context?
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| Drug users can include people from a homeless addict who
| can barely stay conscious to Elon Musk. Does that mean the
| concept is absurd?
| neom wrote:
| I mean I was diagnosed with a salad of things. And then
| different doctors tell me different things about how they're
| all related or unrelated. It was honestly a very amusing
| situation. The only sense I got out of the whole long ass
| process was: neurological sensory difference "combo" in the
| roll of the dice, some of it given hereditarily, some this
| that and the other. I really see why this stuff is so
| frustrating for people. I'm super lucky circumstances are
| such for me that I can give less shits about the social
| issues my autism causes, allowing me to explore it.I actually
| just started a blog last week to share as I explore this
| stuff, I'm a bit shy to share it as I've never blogged in
| earnest before, so I have no sense of if this is good, bad,
| silly, lame, boring, etc: https://b.h4x.zip/autism-thinking-
| and-whiteboards/
| ntxy wrote:
| Please keep writing. I'm hooked!
| ninininino wrote:
| FTA:
|
| "only 10-20% of children diagnosed before 5 years of age able
| to live independently as adults"
|
| ^ the article and the medical treatment is aimed at those so
| severely impacted/compromised that they cannot live
| independently.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| People with high functioning autism make up a majority of the
| "people who died at 25 and didn't know it until they were 80"
| crowd.
| giantg2 wrote:
| I'm not sure I understand the quote.
| normaler wrote:
| There is an increased comorbidity with neuro divergence
| and harmful behaviour.
| IggleSniggle wrote:
| I think they meant "people who _didnt_ die before 25. " I
| don't know much about autism, but I had three friends who
| died before 30 in accidents that were almost certainly
| related to ADHD. Two of them were doing behavioral
| therapy but didn't believe in pharmaceutical treatment.
| One of them was generally medicated but wasn't taking
| their medication on the day they died (due to medication
| shortages for ADHD drugs).
|
| That last one rear-ended a semi-truck at high speed.
| Probably after getting lost in thought after reading a
| "You shouldn't text and drive. If you text and drive, it
| may be the last text you ever read. Remember, don't read
| superfluous text; pay attention to the road, for your own
| safety and the safety of those around you." Obviously I
| don't know that last part; I am just bitter.
| giantg2 wrote:
| I knew someone in high school that had ADHD. He totaled
| many cars when he wasn't on meds for things like game day
| for sports (not sure if that's a performance or health
| thing).
|
| What baffles me, is how someone diagnosed with a
| condition that affects driving is allowed to drive
| without the condition being treated - especially if they
| are under a prescription and just not taking it, and also
| if they have multiple accidents attributed to the
| condition. We already require this for people with
| seizures, for people needing glasses to wear them, etc.
| tgaj wrote:
| I think it's because many important people still think
| that ADHD is some kind of imaginary disease.
| hirvi74 wrote:
| ADHD doesn't affect everyone the same though.
|
| For example, I have ADHD. I learned to drive at 15, got
| my license at 16, and managed to get my first speeding
| ticket at the age of 30, and my first car accident at 31
| (of which I wasn't at fault). I wasn't
| diagnosed/medicated until I was almost 23.I do not think
| I am any better nor worse than the average driver either.
| Perhaps I have been lucky, but who knows?
|
| Also, just because one is medicated does not mean it
| magically reduces all symptoms. IIRC, I think most adults
| only get something like 50% reduction in symptoms at
| best.
|
| In my experiences, I find the efficacy of ADHD medication
| to be _vastly overstated._ I think this is mainly due to
| a strong honeymoon period the medication provides in the
| beginning. What I mean is that, the medications are
| extremely effective for a certain time period, but the
| longer one is one the medications the greater the
| diminishing returns become. There are only so many
| options /formulations and dosages can only be increased
| to an extent.
|
| Also, euphoria is a very common side-effect when first
| starting the medications. So, a lot of life-changing
| anecdotes that people comment on the Internet in the
| beginning of treatment should be taken with a grain of
| salt. After a decade of treatment, most people cannot
| tell if I am medicated or not anymore. As in, most people
| think I am not medicated despite being so.
| giantg2 wrote:
| That's mostly the same for seizures - affects people
| differently (and different effects), medications provide
| various effectiveness, and individual evaluation is
| needed.
| ElFitz wrote:
| It's a quote about how some people stop living their
| lives long before their body dies.
|
| https://quoteinvestigator.com/2021/11/03/not-buried/
| hirvi74 wrote:
| But what does the have to do with Autism? That quote
| seems to be more about people not finding
| fulfillment/confirming to social expectations/wasting
| their lives vs. a neurodevelopmental disorder.
| RobotToaster wrote:
| IMO, it will probably end up like Ehlers Danlos, where you have
| 20 or so subtypes defined by certain genes.
| 2four2 wrote:
| I think most people understand that disease nomenclature
| changes rapidly. Even if the word "autism" is deprecated in the
| future and replaced by a litany of other terms for conditions,
| the research is still useful and interesting.
| jncfhnb wrote:
| Because it's fully possible and commonly understood that a
| medical condition can arise from multiple different
| circumstances
| m00x wrote:
| That's completely incorrect.
|
| Autism has clear physiological differences in the brain. It's
| not just a personality difference. People like to call
| themselves autistic when it's just social awkwardness, and some
| doctors might even improperly diagnose them, but these are
| separate from the condition.
|
| https://www.healthcentral.com/condition/autism/autism-brain-...
|
| This could help us prevent autism completely.
| faeriechangling wrote:
| >People like to call themselves autistic when it's just
| social awkwardness, and some doctors might even improperly
| diagnose them, but these are separate from the condition.
|
| What makes such a diagnosis incorrect when various forms of
| social awkwardness satisfy criteria A and D of the diagnostic
| criteria [1], and all of the criteria for social pragmatic
| disorder[2]? In the DSM-V-TR era psychiatrists are instructed
| to not just judge somebody to not be autistic if they do not
| appear socially awkward, and to additionally ask if they find
| social interactions distressing, and observe them for longer
| in more naturalistic settings to find the deficit in social
| functioning[3] as part of a thus far continuously lowering
| diagnostic bar as to what is considered sufficient social
| awkwardness to be diagnosable.
|
| >Autism has clear physiological differences in the brain.
|
| Which physiological changes in the brain make you autistic,
| or put another way, which physiological changes in the brain
| must you lack to NOT be autistic? I've heard of any autism
| diagnosis's and self-diagnosis's and I've never heard of any
| of them being based on a brain scan and yet people go around
| calling others and themselves autistic. I've never heard of a
| diagnosis being lost or gained due to a brain scan.
|
| I've heard this insistence that we can infer the territory,
| the neurological conditions of peoples brains, from the map,
| the behaviourist diagnosis, and there may be a correlation
| but it can't be said that any given person with an autism
| diagnosis has any given specific neurological change. The
| only thing we test for IS behaviour, and infer biology from
| it.
|
| [1] https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/hcp-dsm.html [2] https:
| //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_(pragmatic)_communicati... [3]
| https://www.reddit.com/r/aspergirls/comments/th9hku/dsm5tr_n.
| ..
| StressedDev wrote:
| You cannot self-diagnose, and only a trained medical
| professional can diagnose autism. By trained medical
| professional, I mean an autism expert who is either a
| therapist (PHD, PsyD, LMFT, etc.) or a psychiatrist.
|
| Most people who use terms like autistic, bi-polar,
| sociopath, narcist, etc. are using the terms incorrectly.
|
| Also, I suspect you are correct that most ASD diagnoses do
| not use brain scans and rely on a trained professional's
| judgement and observations. That fact does not mean that
| autism does not exist or that some autistic people may have
| physical differences from neurotypical people.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| I'm not sure you think the word "cannot" means what most
| people think it means.
| m00x wrote:
| Diagnosis for autism is complicated because some people act
| the same as people with clear physiological changes, but
| without those changes.
|
| This puts medical boards in a sticky situation where they
| have to be inclusive since there's not enough research to
| say the latter group are definitely not autistic.
|
| I'm in the camp that you shouldn't diagnose an issue
| without clear physiological or chemistry differences, but
| I'm not in control of the medical boards. I think we all
| agree that you shouldn't self-diagnose.
| throwaway2562 wrote:
| Here's hoping. Autism is pure hell for some families. Unless
| of course self-declared leaders of the 'neurodivergent
| community' declare such efforts to be genocidal, modern
| eugenics, and so on.
|
| Relatedly, I was struck to see the recent breakthrough in
| curing congenital deafness condemned by members of the 'deaf
| community' on Twitter. So we unfortunately have good reason
| to expect the same kinds of folly here.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| I've seen the same protests among certain deaf communities
| and it baffles me that someone would oppose a cure to what
| is obviously a medical condition.
|
| In the same vein, I wouldn't oppose a cure for autism,
| despite my own diagnosis. Why go through the pain and
| suffering that comes with autism in a world of non-autists?
| I've seen more than enough of the lives of people with non-
| high functioning autism to realise the absolute living hell
| a cure like this could prevent.
|
| I'm wary of the "cures" people have tried, most of them
| based on fake psychology or pseudoscience, but I have no
| reason to expect the authors of this paper to be in it to
| show how their kid is "normal", like most people looking
| for "cures" seem to be. I expect this article to be quoted
| many times in the terrible Facebook groups that will also
| recommend things like bleach enemas to desperate parents,
| but I also expect good developments from the real
| scientists trying to understand and perhaps cure (the worst
| cases of) autism.
| filleduchaos wrote:
| > it baffles me that someone would oppose a cure to what
| is obviously a medical condition
|
| Ultimately, not everybody seeks to be "normal", and there
| is plenty of reason to fear the imposition of normalness
| when simply being functional would have done just fine.
| filleduchaos wrote:
| Mmm, that sounds rather uncharitable. While obviously Deaf
| people aren't a hivemind, I think people who are not Deaf
| (and fully-abled people in particular) should listen when
| they each speak for themselves instead of coming to broad
| conclusions of "folly".
|
| For me it began to click due to somewhat similar
| discussions I've had about my sight (I'm moderately myopic
| in both eyes and significantly astigmatic in one), where
| I've explained that:
|
| - yes I actually _like_ wearing glasses, and am not
| interested in contact lenses at all
|
| - yes I also _like_ my uncorrected vision: I like the
| softness and the smoothing over of details, and the way
| that lights scatter, and the fact that I can focus on
| things that are right in front of my nose
|
| - no it isn't anxiety that's stopping me from getting the
| likes of LASIK; I actually _like_ having both corrected and
| uncorrected vision
|
| And it is astonishing how much people who are caught up in
| _their_ own complexes about vision deficiencies try to
| convince me that I 'm stupid or even lying because I don't
| share _their_ aversion. It was rather off-putting, to be
| honest.
|
| So yeah, that was how I began to see how people whose
| condition (for lack of a better term) is much more strongly
| linked to their identity[0] would end up with their hackles
| permanently raised against the idea of a cure for a life
| experience that they find neutral and/or positive coupled
| with the prevailing sentiment that they must be so grateful
| and excited about its existence (and if they aren't then
| they must be stupid or crazy). _Theoretically_ it 's good
| that the capability exists because it gives the choice to
| those who do want it, but when a person is part of a group
| without much societal power to begin with, I don't think
| it's irrational to fear that it would eventually end up as
| an imposition rather than a choice (especially when we get
| obstetric treatment).
|
| 0. For example, sign languages are distinct linguistic
| phenomena and not simply a cipher for spoken language. And
| wherever there is distinct language, a distinct culture
| soon follows. This is why "Deaf community" and "Deaf
| culture" are real things in real life not just something
| that someone on Twitter made up, contrary to many abled
| people's assumptions.
| faeriechangling wrote:
| The history of Autistic Psychopathy/Aspergers specifically,
| which has a direct throughline to the modern concept of
| autism, is inexorably tied to the history of Austrian and
| later Nazi eugenics. Sterilisation was supported especially
| more by Nazi hardliners, although catholics tended to
| support voluntary abstinence. Involuntary euthanasia was
| practiced, not openly, against the autistics deemed to be
| life unworthy of life - of no use to the Volk - who lacked
| gemut (Soul, spirit, etc). Those deemed at one time
| redeemable, but ruined by their parents were also purged.
| Those deemed more useful, brilliant, geniuses in the
| sciences, with good Nazi parents, but with lacking gemut
| due to their hyper-masculine nature, were to be
| rehabilitated and treated with patience and understanding,
| but even there reproduction was to be AT LEAST discouraged.
| The ideal Nazi autistic was either dead, or like a worker
| bee, sterile and working tirelessly for the good of
| National Socialism and the breeding stock Aryans. One of
| the goals the child welfare system had was identifying
| which category each child fell into as young as possible,
| so as to treat them accordingly with haste.
|
| We also have the western eugenics movements, and while
| autism wasn't really conceived in their heyday, they had
| much more of a family-centric take on eugenics, although it
| was still at the time largely oriented around the good of
| the welfare state.
|
| For the autistic activist, nothing makes more sense than to
| stymie such research, as autism's diagnostic prevalence
| expands each year, seemingly driven largely by a loosening
| definition of autism, so to delay the research which
| enables eugenics, people are going to see Autistics as
| having relatively high gemut and productivity compared to
| the past, which should discourage eugenics. They plainly
| value the right/value of the existence of
| autistics/themselves, above the potential reduction of
| suffering allowed by such research. Eugenics after all
| never actually died and remain popular, it's just become
| politically incorrect to openly admit to supporting or
| doing it, and we're currently engaging in a quite
| successful eugenics campaign against downs syndrome[1], oh,
| and the ongoing eugenics against autistics [2]. Perhaps
| these autistic activists would have more confidence in such
| research if modern eugenics were not legal, accepted, and
| practiced against them? Or perhaps they should just get
| over their own egos and admit that this research is for the
| good of the Volk, which is certainly a take I've heard from
| autistics themselves.
|
| That all being said - metabolic research is probably going
| to be less controversial than say genetic research, since
| it's unclear that you can use the former to facilitate
| selective abortions or screen sperm donors. So I think in
| this case, the self-declared neurodivergent leaders will
| let this slide, as if such research can't be used for
| eugenics but makes autistics more popular it should make
| eugenics less likely, not more likely.
|
| [1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/fully-
| human/202101/i... [2]. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/a
| rticle-3377811/Britain-s...
| mewpmewp2 wrote:
| It's gross to hear that they want to prevent it.
| ants_everywhere wrote:
| > Autism is a socioculturally bound diagnosis
|
| This is untrue and unsupported by evidence
|
| > It's a label for those perceived by others in a certain light
|
| This is untrue and unsupported by evidence
|
| > defined in such a way that two with the same label can have
| remarkably little overlap in terms of observed behaviour
|
| This is untrue and unsupported by evidence
|
| > You diagnose autism based on how people act, not who they are
|
| You diagnose all disorders based on observable phenomena, not
| some sort of metaphysical essence.
|
| > Any biological markers for autism are politically suspect
|
| What is this, Lysenkoism?
|
| > as it would imply those without those markers are invalid
|
| Are you saying that in your view biology has some ability to
| mark people as valid or invalid? That's an extremist view and I
| wonder how you arrived at it. If your ideology requires you
| divide the world into "valid" and "invalid" people, then it's
| probably a good time to rethink your approach.
| zer00eyz wrote:
| >> defined in such a way that two with the same label can
| have remarkably little overlap in terms of observed behaviour
|
| > This is untrue and unsupported by evidence
|
| Here is the diagnostic criteria for ASD:
| https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/hcp-dsm.html ... It
| literally lays out a path that can generate a non overlapping
| diagnosis. It sort of has to because we lummped what were
| previously two disorders together because people are
| sensitive to nazi's having existed.
|
| Now go to the UK where there is strong advocacy for a whole
| other set of diagnostic criteria for women. The DSM begins to
| look barbaric and/or sexist if not misinformed.
|
| The moment there is a biological underpinning to something
| like ASD it gets interesting because what do you do with all
| the folks with a diagnosis who DONT fit that label. They have
| something that looks the same but isnt... and the whole
| psychiatry/psychology community looks like quacks. DO note
| that im not opposed to these fields but they need to get
| their shit together on reproducibility.
| ants_everywhere wrote:
| Thanks I'm thoroughly familiar with the DSM criteria, the
| ICD criteria, and the research literature.
|
| > It literally lays out a path that can generate a non
| overlapping diagnosis.
|
| It does not. If you believe there are exist two autistic
| people who have no overlapping symptoms please present an
| example.
|
| > The moment there is a biological underpinning to
| something like ASD it gets interesting because what do you
| do with all the folks with a diagnosis who DONT fit that
| label.
|
| Compare this to, "The moment there is a biological
| underpinning to something like cancer it gets interesting
| because what do you do with all the folks with a diagnosis
| who DONT fit that label." To which the answer is "that's a
| red herring, the current understanding of cancer doesn't
| require all cancers share the same biological origins, so
| why should finding one marker call that into question?"
|
| Or "The moment you locate the code line with a buffer
| overflow it gets interesting because some programs that
| seem like they have a buffer overflow don't have that line
| of code."
| mahatofu wrote:
| Thanks for introducing me to quite a few different topics.
| faeriechangling wrote:
| Responding to all the "This is untrue and unsupported by
| evidence" statements. In the context of this thread, which is
| addressing a scientific article.
|
| > Autism is a socioculturally bound diagnosis
|
| I'm making a normative claim here, so your criticism is
| correct, as this is not a scientifically testable claim at
| all. I'm loosely an adherent of the social model of
| disability[1].
|
| > It's a label for those perceived by others in a certain
| light
|
| First, you later agreed with this statement later when you
| said "You diagnose all disorders based on observable
| phenomena" so this criticism is incoherent and I'm not
| convinced you even disagree with me so much as misunderstand
| me. Scientifically I'd point out the DSM-V-TR defines autism
| observationally[2] and the CDC's research on autism uses said
| definitions[9]. That is evidence supporting what I say.
|
| > _defined_ in such a way that two with the same label _can_
| have _remarkably little_ overlap in terms of observed
| behaviour
|
| I'll again point to the DSM-V-TR[1] where two individuals can
| satisfy section B of the criteria with no overlap whatsoever.
| The only necessary behavioural commonality are various social
| deficits. I'll also point out there are three categories of
| autistics depending on support needs.
|
| More blithely and common-sense like, I'll just point out most
| people do not see all that much common in the behaviour of
| Elon Musk and some autistic in a full time care home who
| cannot dress or bathe themselves. The Autistic Spectrum also
| literally used to be split into 3 separate diagnosis's
| diagnosed based partially on behaviour, and how was that ever
| even possible or contemplated if people never believed there
| was a significant difference in autistic's behaviours?
|
| ---
|
| >Any biological markers for autism are politically suspect -
| What is this lysenkoism
|
| I have not scientifically researched this specific point, but
| some historical background: Autism genetics research projects
| have been cancelled by patient backlash [3] where autism
| genetics projects were scuttled upon popular backlash.
| "Autistic psychopaths" in the past were subject to
| Euthanasia, forced sterilisation, and encouraged to
| voluntarily sterilised themselves by the Nazi regime[4] which
| raises obvious questions as to the utility of biological
| testing to enable a future eugenics regime which may also
| include new technologies like pre-natal testing. While not
| biological testing, we can see that there is political
| backlash against cognitive testing[5] to determine social
| supports for autism. We have also seen the rise of self-
| diagnosis[6] with it defended as being more accessible than
| physician diagnosis and based on the lack of evidence that
| it's LESS accurate than physician diagnosis which
| historically has been subjected to multiple definitional
| changes[7] and bias in terms of access to diagnosis
| itself[8]. Ergo, unless this serves as a method of diagnosis
| more accurate than physician diagnosis, it will be subject to
| the same criticism.
|
| > as it would imply those without those markers are invalid -
| Are you saying that in your view biology has some ability to
| mark people as valid or invalid?
|
| I'm making a claim about _others_ belief if biology _should_
| be used to establish the _validity or invalidity_ of autism.
| It 's my belief that the recognition of biological markers of
| autism would be vigorously protested by patients and advocacy
| groups because of what I just brought up.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_model_of_disability
| [2] (please forgive the source - DSM-V-TR is under copyright)
| https://www.reddit.com/r/aspergirls/comments/th9hku/dsm5tr_n.
| .. [3] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/high-
| profile-auti... [4]
| https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36236157-asperger-s-
| chil... [5] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-
| scotia/direct-family-sup... [6]
| https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/neurodiverse-
| age/201... [7]
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9365987/ [8]
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8924013/ [9]
| https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/data.html
| ModernMech wrote:
| > the same label can have remarkably little overlap in terms of
| observed behaviour.... You diagnose autism based on how people
| act, not who they are.
|
| I'm able to mask until I'm alone. My meltdowns look exactly
| like the observed behavior you see in other people, I just hide
| it better.
|
| I'm also verbal mostly, until I'm not and I'm dissociating.
| Then I look a lot what you're used to seeing, except i don't
| let you see that. I don't let you see me rocking and stimming.
|
| I can talk for an hour in front of 100 people about my special
| interests at any depth, but I can't complete simple tasks that
| others can do every day like going to the grocery store and
| restaurants without extreme difficulty.
|
| Some people are "high functioning" autists, meaning that they
| are able to suppress their negative autistic expressions for
| the benefit and comfort of people around them. This doesn't
| make them "not autistic" -- they still are even if you
| personally can't tell. It just means they're putting on an act
| for you, to make you happy, so that you don't respond in the
| negative way they are used to being received. You are
| witnessing a performance.
|
| That suppression is not a constant, and it can't go on forever.
| Someone doing this long enough will go into autistic burnout,
| which is like an extended depression and comes with skill loss
| and an inability to function in society. If you were to see
| this person at that point, you'd "see" the autism then.
|
| Is this all there is to being autistic though? No! Being
| autistic comes with a great capacity for curiosity, creativity,
| artistic expression, innovation, and excellence associated with
| committing fully (as in actually 100%, eschewing loved ones and
| society) to an endeavor.
|
| These are things we don't want to "cure". Most of the problems
| I face related to my autism have to do with interfacing with
| society, and not understanding people or not being able to do
| things everyone else seems to be able to, without any
| compassion for my inability to do so.
|
| As far as I can tell they come from being dysregulated, and
| being dysregulated comes from extreme sensory overload. If we
| can fix the sensory overload a lot of other things are fixed.
| But that doesn't mean we should be "curing" or "preventing"
| autism, and it doesn't mean people who aren't melting down and
| who can live by themselves aren't autistic -- they're just well
| regulated.,
| faeriechangling wrote:
| From the DSM-V-TR:
|
| "Symptoms must be present in the early developmental period
| (but may not become fully manifest until social demands
| exceed limited capacities, or may be masked by learned
| strategies in later life)."
|
| "Core diagnostic features are evident in the developmental
| period, but intervention, compensation, and current supports
| may mask difficulties in at least some contexts."
|
| "Individuals who have developed compensation strategies for
| some social challenges still struggle in novel or unsupported
| situations and suffer from the effort and anxiety of
| consciously calculating what is socially intuitive for most
| individuals. This behavior may contribute to lower
| ascertainment of autism spectrum disorder in these
| individuals, perhaps especially in adult women. Thus, longer
| assessments, observation in naturalistic settings, and
| inquiring about any tolls of social interaction may be
| needed(Cage and Troxell-Whitman 2019; Hull et al. 2017). If
| asked about the costs of social interaction, for example,
| these individuals might respond that social interactions are
| exhausting for them, that they are unable to concentrate
| because of the mental effort in monitoring social
| conventions, that their self-esteem is adversely affected by
| being unable to be themselves, and so forth."
|
| Observation is STILL actually essential to a diagnosis, you
| can't merely just claim to be masking, but it's not
| technically considered disqualifying for symptoms to only
| appear in certain contexts.
|
| >Some people are "high functioning" autists, meaning that
| they are able to suppress their negative autistic expressions
| for the benefit and comfort of people around them. This
| doesn't make them "not autistic" -- they still are even if
| you personally can't tell. It just means they're putting on
| an act for you, to make you happy, so that you don't respond
| in the negative way they are used to being received. You are
| witnessing a performance.
|
| The research I've seen on the cat-q shows that [1]:
|
| - Neurotypicals men mask a statistically insignificant amount
| more than autistic men
|
| - Autistic women mask a statistically insignificant more than
| neurotypical women
|
| - Autistic women mask a statistically significant amount more
| than autistic men
|
| - Autistics "Compensate" more, copy others behaviour, copy
| behaviour they learned from movies
|
| - Autistics "Assimilate" more, they will force themselves
| unwillingly more than others to be social or not be social.
|
| We should also get over what gets somebody defined as having
| "high functioning" or "level 1" autism. It's a lack of
| severity of social impairments AND restricted & repetitive
| behaviours. With autistic men specifically, the evidence
| points to the "high functioning" as simply naturally
| exhibiting less autistic social interactions and behaviours
| than the "low functioning" without any exceptional effort
| beyond what the everyday non-disabled person does. Some of
| them may be tortured actors, but said people are no more
| prevalent than they are in the general population. It's
| things like imitation, and being in unwanted social
| situations, which is more characteristic of autism.
|
| >Being autistic comes with a great capacity for curiosity,
| creativity, artistic expression, innovation, and excellence
| associated with committing fully (as in actually 100%,
| eschewing loved ones and society) to an endeavor.
|
| Those may correlate with autism, but aren't definitional of
| it. The DSM-V-TR's 1891 word diagnostic criteria briefly
| mentions "Special interests may be a source of pleasure and
| motivation and provide avenues for education and employment
| later in life" as the sole positive trait of autistics.
|
| I don't mean to be a dick here - more activist. If these are
| qualities of autistics, they should either be part of the
| criteria for "Autism spectrum disorder" or autism should be
| conceptualised as being distinct from disorder similar to how
| we distinguish between being transgender and having gender
| dysphoria. Otherwise, one can say that all they wish, but
| they'll face negative stigmatisation from those who see
| autism as a definitionally negative mental disorder with no
| upside other than employability. "Autism" is quite the
| stigmatised word today and I blame psychiatry and The DSM for
| that more than anything else as they treat negatives
| associated with autism as definitional but not positives.
|
| [1] ctrl-f "What it tests" "Average Scores" https://embrace-
| autism.com/cat-q/
| squigz wrote:
| Actual paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-024-06102-y
| m00x wrote:
| ^^^^
|
| Better to read the paper instead of the pop journals. Most
| writers don't understand the issues fully and make mistakes, or
| sensationalize the discovery.
| quodestabsurdum wrote:
| The paper is a super fascinating read, and lines up with
| several key features I've noticed in both of my professionally
| diagnosed autistic children (good luck getting access to a
| competent diagnostician who understands how the ASD criteria
| manifest in passing adults). It's really enlightening to see
| the association between Xanthine, one of the end-stage products
| of eATP metabolization, and the anxiety that is so prevalent
| within my own family.
|
| From the Discussion[1] section of the paper:
|
| > These self-calming connections in metabolism failed to
| develop in ASD. The natural consequence of the loss of these
| metabolic safeguards to overexcitation is for children with ASD
| to seek sameness to avoid the anxiety produced by change91, and
| to be more sensitive to environmental changes across many
| sensory domains.
|
| And a bit further on:
|
| > In the current study, xanthine was the purine that gained the
| most stimulatory (+r) correlations in 5-year-olds with ASD.
| Xanthine is one of the end-products of eATP metabolism97.
| Xanthine is known to trigger a cascade of events that leads to
| mitochondrial network fragmentation, reactive oxygen species
| and reactive nitrogen species (ROS and RNS), eicosanoid (e.g.,
| leukotriene, HETE, and prostaglandin) signaling, immune
| activation, anxiety-associated behaviors, and consolidates
| long-term aversive memories that make the animal hypersensitive
| to future environmental changes that warn of environmental
| danger, cause fear, and trigger anxiety in mice, and is
| elevated in the blood of adults with anxiety disorders98.
| Anxiety is a common but under-recognized problem in autism99.
|
| Another really important observation:
|
| > A major result of this research was that the developmental
| differences observed in ASD were not the result of an increase
| or decrease of one causal metabolite, or an isolated change in
| the gut-brain axis, or neuroendocrine, autonomic, cytokine, or
| immunologic circuits. Instead, it was the interconnectedness
| and developmental state of the metabolic network that underlies
| all these systems that was fundamentally changed.
|
| In the last year, the All Brains Belong VT organization has
| been working on a collection of information they call "All The
| Things" [2], which lines up with the paper's observation that
| there is an underlying metabolic network at play. As a side
| note, All Brains Belong VT is a fantastic organization that
| focuses heavily on validation and support in a healthcare
| industry which often feels incredibly invalidating for
| individuals who have been reporting symptoms across a wide
| variety of siloed physician specialties.
|
| [1]: https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-024-06102-y#Sec25
|
| [2]: https://allbrainsbelong.org/all-the-things/
| huijzer wrote:
| So there is a clear result found and then post hoc there is an
| explanation made for why this makes sense. That's a bit of a
| red flag since you preferably hypothesize first, but let's look
| at the analysis. If I'm not mistaken, then these are the most
| important parts:
|
| - 467 measured metabolites (features)
|
| - 136 males and 69 females = 205 (data points)
|
| - "To minimize overfitting, only correlations with q values <
| 0.05 were tallied."
|
| Then the predictive performance in Fig. 3 looks very promising
| with a 0.88 AUC score. However, according to the methods:
| "Classifiers of 4-7 metabolites were selected and tested for
| diagnostic accuracy using area under the receiver operator
| characteristic curve and random forest analysis."
|
| Then, those AUC scores do not provide so much value since they
| first used the data to select the best features and then used
| the same data to fit the model on the best features.
|
| It also looks a bit like the authors have thrown the kitchen
| sink at these 200 samples since I see R, GraphPad Prism,
| Python, CIRCOS, Cytoscape, and MetaboAnalyst being used.
|
| And the statement "Fifty (50) random samples at each subsample
| size were taken to estimate the population statistics based on
| the central limit theorem." is a bit weird because the central
| limit theorem shows up throughout many analyses including
| confidence intervals.
|
| So all in all I'm not 100% sure, but I am skeptical. Anyone
| here who knows more about "Metabolic network and hub-and-spoke
| analysis" or "network growth" analysis? Or why it is reasonable
| to use so many metrics instead of being more selective?
| elcritch wrote:
| > So there is a clear result found and then post hoc there is
| an explanation made for why this makes sense. That's a bit of
| a red flag since you preferably hypothesize first, but let's
| look at the analysis.
|
| Eh, this doesn't look to be a P-hacking attempt. Scientific
| exploration doesn't always hit the hypothesis first model.
| Ideally this paper should be a source of future specific
| hypothesis and experiments. Though, IMHO, their implicit
| hypothesis is that metabolism is a core feature of ASD.
|
| The points about the predictive power in fig 3 are
| interesting.
| AnEro wrote:
| I feel like this is going to be used by pseudo-science
| influencers to push trendy diets to prevent autism when this
| study is observations stage at best.
| asdfman123 wrote:
| For stuff like this, overfitting is a given.
| drewcon wrote:
| My only and immediate reaction as well.
| throwup238 wrote:
| Those people often link to papers that directly contradict the
| claims they make, assuming no one is going to check them. This
| won't make a difference.
| AnEro wrote:
| yea example now there are guys in this comment section
| claiming keto has cured their adhd/autism. Helped reduce
| symptoms, sure, but cure? (I've got both of them been on
| keto, like crazy strict ensuring i was in ketosis every two
| days type, and it only reduced brain fog personally)
| ryandrake wrote:
| Whenever you get an HN story that even remotely brushes up
| against health, fitness, or nutrition, you inevitably get
| all the wacky exercise, supplements, and diet commenters
| coming out of the woodwork to tell you all about "what
| worked for me". It's a constant that you can 100% count on
| every time.
| 0xcde4c3db wrote:
| Probably, but it's hardly a requirement. There have been some
| doing it for decades, partly fueled by Wakefield's "autistic
| enterocolitis" pseudoscience and partly the usual
| organic/vegan/raw/paleo/keto bullshit.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Does this mean that they'll start getting their kids
| vaccinated?
| AnEro wrote:
| I fear it will be both that crowd and the anti-covid vaccine
| blind trust of joe rogan guest crowd
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Reveals developmental origins or merely an observational study of
| metabolites in children?
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| I know of at least one book written by and for autistic people
| who advocates for a gluten free diet. They claim in the book that
| this significantly reduces their symptoms.
|
| I don't know if I believe it or not, but the notion of gut-brain
| axis seems to imply that a good diet should help a bit, right?
| jl6 wrote:
| A gluten free diet may or may not help but it's not synonymous
| with "a good diet".
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| That's what I thought too. It seems that the only general
| lesson we have in dieting which js reliable is "refined sugar
| bad" and that intermittent fasting works for getting blood
| sugar under control.
| 0xcde4c3db wrote:
| And it might also help for reasons that have nothing to do
| with gluten. Almost any major dietary restriction tends to
| cause broader changes in diet than just the thing that is
| restricted.
| dkga wrote:
| Indeed. ASD or not, everyone would surely benefit from
| following a nutritionist-set diet based on the person's own
| requirements.
| dkga wrote:
| Asperger here, who doesn't eat gluten at all for almost 3 years
| now (due to allergy). I cant say it improved symptoms of autism
| but my life is divided between before/after stopping gluten
| consumption. I feel like I just started living for real.
| switch007 wrote:
| Interesting. Could you expand?
| m00x wrote:
| Celiac is an awful disease. My ex has it and it wrecked her
| life for years until she found out.
| RobotToaster wrote:
| Gut issues are a common comorbidity with autism, it could just
| be he had some kind of gluten sensitivity and treating it
| allowed more energy to compensate for autism.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| When "comorbidity" is used in this context, are we actually
| referring to people dying because of it? Or does it just mean
| "are found together when discussing this disease?"
| quodestabsurdum wrote:
| Comorbidity is a commonly used term to denote that a
| condition occurs with another condition. In this case you
| can think of it more like "co-occurs".
| RobotToaster wrote:
| > Or does it just mean "are found together when discussing
| this disease?"
|
| this.
|
| "morbid" is from the Latin root "morbus", meaning sickness.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| Ahhh okay. My mind had catalogued it to mean death.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Hence's the CDC's "Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report"
| toasterlovin wrote:
| In common use ("don't be morbid", "that's morbid") I
| agree that 'morbid' has a connotation of death, so I
| don't think your understanding is wrong. In this case, a
| 'co-morbidity' is a term of art in the medical literature
| with the specific meaning of "occurring with".
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| Morbidity doesn't mean dying...
| discretion22 wrote:
| The Latin morbus is disease and mortis is [of] death but my
| experience - and perhaps yours too - is that when
| discussions of morbidity (i.e. using the word
| morbid/morbidity) arise, they are often in the context
| where someone is near death or has died so it is a natural
| linguistic connection to make.
|
| Remarkably often I find my partner has a different
| understanding of English words from me - she was schooled
| in French and can communicate in Italian and Spanish, but
| is also fluent in English (though spoken with French
| mannerisms which seem odd to me as a native English
| speaker). We often find we descend into discussions of the
| most correct meaning of a word in English which has a Latin
| root. The dictionary agrees with her mostly but I have an
| occasional win.
| anon84873628 wrote:
| Well as the article says:
|
| "Metabolism is the language that the brain, gut and immune
| system use to communicate, and autism occurs when the
| communication between these systems is changed"
|
| So it's not unreasonable that for _some_ people, dietary
| interventions can have _some_ effect on this interplay between
| systems. Mostly a just a random "YMMV" shot in the dark at
| this point. But hopefully as this research advances, more
| targeted and predictable treatments will emerge.
| r3trohack3r wrote:
| Anecdotal, but we grow a heritage strain of wheat here in PHX
| (Sonoran White).
|
| Its appearance gives me pause. Common commercial wheat is very
| short in comparison.
|
| I have a friend who can't eat "common" wheat products from the
| grocery store, having been diagnosed with severe gluten
| intolerance, but can eat Sonoran White without symptoms.
|
| You can follow the same exact recipe but substitute Sonoran
| White flour for standard flower, and they can eat the final
| product.
|
| I have absolutely no research to support my stance here. But
| given gluten intolerance is, from my understanding, a
| microbiome disorder. And Sonoran White grows tall and requires
| less pesticide/herbicide/fungicide, while common commercial
| wheat grows low to the ground and the head of wheat sits
| stewing in a bath of herbicide/pesticide/fungicide - I suspect
| the difference between the two strains' impact on the
| microbiome is less genetic and more environmental.
|
| ADHD research is showing similar early correlation between a
| mothers' diet and the rate of ADHD (particularly caffeine
| consumption). I have a similar belief here that ADHD correlates
| with caffeine consumption because caffeine is often consumed in
| liquids containing additives that disrupt the mother's
| microbiome.
|
| I strongly suspect that, over the next 100 years, we are going
| to find that we've been waging war on the human biome through
| food preservatives and environmental contaminants. And that
| many common chronic disorders/illnesses (including ADHD,
| Autism, weight gain, etc) in our generation are actually
| attributable to a disfunctioning microbiome.
| mandmandam wrote:
| > I strongly suspect that, over the next 100 years, we are
| going to find that we've been waging war on the human biome
| through food preservatives and environmental contaminants.
| And that many common chronic disorders/illnesses (including
| ADHD, Autism, weight gain, etc) in our generation are
| actually attributable to a disfunctioning microbiome.
|
| I suspect you're very right, and I further suspect that
| there's already research proving this that has been shelved
| and hidden behind NDAs by the people profiting from this,
| just as with big tobacco and big oil and big agri etc.
| kridsdale3 wrote:
| I fully intend to get my new kid on Kimchi once he moves to
| solid food-eating.
| aitchnyu wrote:
| What is referred to cuisine today is partly preserving food
| in bacteria killing chemicals. Do you mean to hypothesize
| people ingesting more (traditonal) bactericide are sicker?
| squigz wrote:
| > And that many common chronic disorders/illnesses (including
| ADHD, Autism, weight gain, etc) in our generation are
| actually attributable to a disfunctioning microbiome
|
| All of those things have existed for ... ever
| r3trohack3r wrote:
| They have.
|
| But I do not believe they were as common prior to the 1960s
| as they are in the 2020s.
| zamalek wrote:
| Gluten-free only makes a difference for those with an
| intolerance. Source: I am HF-ASD, my wife is gluten intolerant
| so my gluten intake is sporadic but bingey, gluten does nothing
| at all to me.
|
| The only food that is objectively bad for every single human is
| processed food. Gluten tends to be processed, so people who
| needlessly go gluten-free may be incorrectly attributing
| improvements to that.
|
| Also: if you're not actually intolerant, there is a high chance
| you're eating gluten without knowing it. Treat yourself to fast
| food fries? How sure are you that gluten (crumbed chicken)
| wasn't fried in the oil?
| faeriechangling wrote:
| I'll incidentally mention that gluten-free diets tend to
| incidentally be lower in FODMAPs which are another gut
| intervention, and autism has LONG correlated to digestive and
| dietary issues. Ketogenic/low-carb is also popular.
|
| The gut-brain link I'm aware of three major theories. Gut
| issues could be causing a disorder of the brain. A disorder of
| the brain could be causing disordered lifestyle habits (Diet,
| exercise) causing digestive issues. A disorder of the brain
| could directly impacting digestive function.
|
| I will however say, I would treat claims about the gut-brain
| axis and autism with the utmost scepticism as disgraced doctor
| Andrew Wakefield, who popularised the link between the MMR
| vaccine and autism to personally financially benefit from an
| undisclosed patent on a measles vaccine using fraudulent
| research, was a gastroenterologist and later anti-vax
| influencer who ended up popularising the gut-brain link of
| autism particularly among those who distrust scientific
| institutions. He notably influenced Jenny McCarthy who became a
| noted alt-medicine momfluencer in the '00s/'10s pushing gluten-
| free and anti-vax. Which is to say, research on the gut-brain
| link is done quite a lot by legitimate scientific researchers,
| quacks, and frauds alike so you have to be discriminating.
|
| Additionally there have been various scientific reviews of
| dietary interventions, gluten-free being one of the most
| researched, and the evidence hasn't been shown ANY dietary
| intervention or gut intervention like fecal transplants is a
| silver bullet.
|
| This isn't to say that there isn't anything to the idea that
| some people we've diagnosed as autistic or believe they're
| autistic, cannot be helped by dietary interventions. I would
| dare speculate, that a significant portion of those called
| "autistic" could make autistic symptoms fall into the sub-
| clinical range through gut interventions (diet AND exercise),
| and that such people may even be clinically distinct from other
| people considered autistic other than through their similar
| behaviour.
| ModernMech wrote:
| "Prevention strategies"
|
| As an autistic person, no thanks. Let people be autistic.
| 2four2 wrote:
| Autistic as an identity and autism as a disease are different
| things that are difficult to uncouple. Similarly to obesity,
| it's difficult to talk about the health aspect without people
| being sensitive about the identity aspect. I find it's useful
| when reading about research to empathize with the authors and
| realize their work is an attempt to be constructive instead of
| providing social commentary.
| mewpmewp2 wrote:
| Autism is not a disease. It's a diverging feature.
| munchler wrote:
| Some people are severely disabled by autism. Are you
| suggesting that we should just let them suffer?
| anon84873628 wrote:
| Saying this doesn't make you hip, woke, or cool.
|
| Autism is clearly a "spectrum" disorder that is not fully
| understood or categorized yet, which is exactly why we need
| this type of research to reach a conclusive, testable
| biological basis.
|
| To portray severely afflicted people as simply
| "neurodiverse" and dismiss treatment options for them, is
| far more bigoted than the reverse.
| dukeyukey wrote:
| How do you square that with the severe cases of autism? The
| people who will never be able to live independently?
| Tijdreiziger wrote:
| There are also non-autistic people who aren't able to
| live independently.
| dukeyukey wrote:
| Absolutely, but nobody tries to dissuade people from
| finding a cure to most conditions that stop independent
| living.
| ModernMech wrote:
| I'm being productive by pushing back and saying that when
| people say that autism needs to be cured and prevented, that
| they shouldn't say that, because autism doesn't need to be
| cured and prevented.
|
| It's not a disease, but in this society it is a disability,
| and there's a stigma and lack of understanding around autism
| in general.
|
| What we can do today to make life better for autistic people
| everywhere is to spread awareness and acceptance of autism.
| Not talk about curing and preventing it. That's stigmatizing.
| anon84873628 wrote:
| Of course society should become more accepting and
| accommodating of differently-abled people of all types. But
| can you really look at the extreme end of the Autism
| spectrum and say that isn't a disease or disorder?
|
| One reason we need this fundamental research is to
| disentangle the different types of afflictions and give
| them different names.
| MajimasEyepatch wrote:
| You don't even have to go to the extreme end. Ask people
| with milder presentations, and they'll be able to tell
| you about all sorts of confusing interactions and
| frustrating situations they've experienced that wouldn't
| have happened if they were neurotypical. Hard to say that
| doesn't impact their quality of life.
| pseudalopex wrote:
| Those experiences wouldn't have happened if the autistic
| people were medicated to neurotypical or neurotypical
| people were more accepting of autistic people. And many
| autistic people would reject being medicated to
| neurotypical despite those experiences.
| Scarblac wrote:
| This is about people diagnosed before the age of 5, they're
| almost all cases of severe autism. That's very different
| from the kind of autism you're talking about.
|
| People who are permanently unable to live independently
| have a condition that should be prevented if possible.
| ModernMech wrote:
| As a spectrum, autism presents in many ways, but it's all
| considered "autism" at this point. There are not
| different "kinds".
|
| Sometimes "severe" autism at an early age calms down as a
| person grows.
|
| Sometimes "mild" autism gets worse as someone becomes
| dysregulated and overstimulated.
|
| Many times autism is missed in women and POC because they
| mask more readily than boys. Sometimes it's missed in
| boys because it's explained as "boys being boys".
|
| Either way, why don't you ask autistic people if they
| want to be "cured" or "accommodated"? I think you'll find
| the answer is "accommodation". It seems like, to me at
| least, it's only not autistic people who talk about
| "curing" autism, as if they'd be doing the world a favor
| if there were no more autistic people.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| I don't see why POC would mask this easier
| spondylosaurus wrote:
| IIRC it's not really masking, more that children of color
| are more likely to get labeled "disruptive" or "defiant"
| than diagnosed as autistic, at least compared to their
| white peers. Two kids could exhibit the same behavior,
| but one is correctly recognized as having a meltdown and
| the other is written off as a troublemaker.
| zwaps wrote:
| Why not ask autistic people
|
| Have you ever even seen someone with severe autism?
| robocat wrote:
| Strongly yes as per other comment:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40329772
| Scarblac wrote:
| I have autism myself and so do both my kids, I would
| _love it_ if there was some way to lessen it. It 's a
| great hindrance for me, all the time I want to do things
| that I feel I should be able to do, but then run into
| various walls.
|
| My children (15 and 10) are learning about themselves but
| they haven't found an advantage of their autism yet.
|
| But, we function well enough, I can hold down jobs and so
| will they, it's a set of things we're not good at but we
| can deal.
|
| The severe cases I know, I have never heard them utter a
| word, or leave the house on their own. They live in a
| world inside their heads. I really can't see what they
| have as the same as what I have.
| pseudalopex wrote:
| -
| Scarblac wrote:
| No, 10% - 20%.
|
| The article says:
|
| > For the majority of people with ASD, the condition is a
| significant disability, with only 10-20% of children
| diagnosed before 5 years of age able to live
| independently as adults.
| shipman05 wrote:
| I understand the sentiment, but there's a reason it's called
| the autism spectrum.
|
| I work with several software engineers with autism who are as
| capable as their peers. Sure they may have behavioral quirks,
| but not significantly more so than the normal variation in
| human behavior. Their brains don't seem to work in an inferior
| or problematic way, just different.
|
| On the other hand, I have a close relative with more severe
| autism who could never read and understand this article, could
| never type a comment such as yours. She's incapable of holding
| a job or living on her own without assistance. Her mother
| passed away young, and her older sister, just 19 at the time,
| had to take on the responsibility of being her sole caregiver,
| and she will have that burden for the rest of their lives.
|
| For some it may be a different variation of the human
| experience, but for cases as severe as my relative's, I find it
| hard to believe that a cure or prevention for autism wouldn't
| be a massive quality of life improvement for all involved.
| ModernMech wrote:
| Indeed, my ex wife was incapable of living on her own or
| holding a job. I have a whole social circle of autistic
| friends of different abilities. Some still live with their
| parents. Men in their 40s living with their parents. Women
| who left home for the first time at 30 only to have to move
| back within months. My one friend is a sex worker because she
| can't hold down a real job. She sells her meds and her body
| to get by.
|
| I lived with my parents last year, at 36, but I moved out and
| got a 1 bedroom. It was touch and go for a while, I still
| can't cook for myself, but at least I can take care of my
| cats.
|
| I'm never going to have children. I'm never going to have a
| house. A family like my parents had. My sister as well, well
| she just got a boy friend so maybe not.
|
| The through line problem here is not autism. Despite the
| range of (dis)ability, the thing that makes it a problem is
| how autistic needs are unmet by a society that expects us to
| be worker bees.
|
| My ability to type this message and read is not a constant.
| There are times when I am non verbal. There are times when I
| cannot read because the letters are all jumbled in my head.
| When I'm able to read and write and speak, society values me.
| When I'm not, society devalues me. You want to take autism
| out of the equation so that I can be valuable to society.
|
| What I'm saying is that society needs to be reoriented so
| that autistic people are valued whether or not they can read
| or write or speak.
|
| Although I have to say I'm unsettled by you speaking for
| someone who can't speak, and deciding unilaterally that
| "curing" them would be a massive quality of life improvement
| for "all involved". Did you ask them?
| MajimasEyepatch wrote:
| > My ability to type this message and read is not a
| constant. There are times when I am non verbal. There are
| times when I cannot read because the letters are all
| jumbled in my head. When I'm able to read and write and
| speak, society values me. When I'm not, society devalues
| me. You want to take autism out of the equation so that I
| can be valuable to society.
|
| > What I'm saying is that society needs to be reoriented so
| that autistic people are valued whether or not they can
| read or write or speak.
|
| People like to say stuff like this on social media, but I
| can never quite figure out what they actually mean. Society
| emerges from interactions between people. If someone can't
| communicate, how exactly are they supposed to participate
| fully in society? All people deserve love and support and
| dignity regardless of their ability to contribute
| economically, but I'm curious what this "reorientation"
| would actually mean in practice.
| somenameforme wrote:
| Then people should stop conflating the two. This whole
| "spectrum" nonsense is nonsense. Your coworkers are not
| autistic - they are weird or whatever other more PC term you
| might want to use, and that's great - many, if not most,
| great engineers are!. There is no need to pathologize
| differences in people. Your relative, by contrast, is. If you
| have a habit of feeling sleepy at work, it's not like we say
| you're on the narcolepsy spectrum. It's just a completely
| dumb concept.
|
| People like your relative, or the kid who sits around
| flapping his hand and starts freaking out if anybody
| interacts with him - those people are obviously not just
| 'weird'. They clearly have severe mental disorders, and if we
| want to call whatever it is that they have autism - fine. But
| if we do, then we need to stop calling people like your
| coworkers, Bill Gates, or whoever else also autistic.
| cubefox wrote:
| > Autism is known as a "spectrum" disorder because there is
| wide variation in the type and severity of symptoms people
| experience.
|
| https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/autism-spectrum-
| disor...
| rjmunro wrote:
| There is a continuous range of people in between. Where do
| you draw the line?
| somenameforme wrote:
| This is like asking where to draw the line when somebody
| is bald. Are you bald if you have 1 hair? Yes. 2? 3? 137?
| There's of course reasonable room for discretion in
| saying what is or isn't bald. But it isn't reasonable to
| say somebody with a full-on afro is on the spectrum of
| being bald.
|
| Literally some of the most high functioning and
| successful individuals are being diagnosed as "on the
| spectrum" of what is, in its "real" form, a completely
| crippling and disabling condition that yields individuals
| who would have simply been classified as mentally
| retarded in the past. This is just completely
| nonsensical.
| cubefox wrote:
| What you call "real" form is just a strong form, and
| there is no clear line to draw between real and not real
| autism, or between "completely crippling" and "not
| completely crippling", etc.
| pseudalopex wrote:
| Many people are on the balding spectrum.
| shermantanktop wrote:
| You could say that we all lose our hair eventually. Some
| of us are just temporarily hirsute.
| Tijdreiziger wrote:
| I got my autism diagnosis in my early 20s (from a licensed
| psychologist, before you ask).
|
| It was a life-changing experience for me. Suddenly I was
| able to understand and validate my experiences and
| shortcomings, and to improve myself based on that
| understanding, instead of resigning myself to the fact that
| I'll always just be a 'weird' human with 'weird' opinions,
| feelings and experiences.
|
| I suppose though that since a random guy on HN said so,
| this is actually impossible, and I should just go back to
| having the entirety of my lived experience dismissed as
| 'weird'.
|
| Gee, I'm sure glad we cleared that up.
| MajimasEyepatch wrote:
| There's this thing people online tend to do where they'll
| take a well-defined word or phrase like autism spectrum
| disorder and just decide that it actually should mean
| something else and get mad when everyone else uses the word
| in the "wrong" way. It consistently derails conversations,
| and it almost never brings anyone around to a place of
| greater understanding.
| oblio wrote:
| This is just ridiculous, just like some deaf people wanting
| their kids to be deaf to be part of the deaf community.
|
| We were born with ears for a reason, same thing, our brains are
| to a huge percentage built for social skills for a reason.
|
| We can call them however we want but all these are basically
| diseases of various forms.
|
| People can choose their hair color, to grow their nails long,
| their clothes or the myriad other things that allow us to
| express our uniqueness, without making life stupidly difficult
| for no reason when it's already super hard.
| squigz wrote:
| If you don't mind being on the spectrum, that's great for you.
| Some of us are looking forward to more research like this. Many
| of us don't want to go through this struggle forever, or make
| another generation go through it, all while waiting for society
| to get its shit together and completely reorient itself to be
| neurodivergent-friendly? No thanks.
| softfalcon wrote:
| Is anyone else reading this and seeing the worrying, "we can just
| medicate away the autism"?
|
| They're talking about a possible pharmaceutical "fix" for autism
| in children under 5.
|
| Seems a bit premature for just recently finding a metabolic
| difference in a cohort of children.
| m00x wrote:
| That's not what the article suggests at all. It's during the
| developmental stage, which is by nature temporary.
| somenameforme wrote:
| Yes it is. It's exactly what the article suggests:
|
| ---
|
| ... Naviaux and his team completed early clinical testing for
| suramin. ... Now, the researchers hope that by revealing the
| specific ATP-related pathways that are altered in autism,
| their work will help scientists develop more drugs that
| target these pathways to manage the symptoms of ASD.
|
| "Suramin is just one drug that targets the cell danger
| response," he said. "Now that we're closely interrogating how
| metabolism changes in ASD, we could be at the beginning of a
| drug renaissance that will create new options for treatment
| that never existed before."
|
| ---
|
| This study [literally] brought to you by Pannex Therapeutics,
| Yuva Biosciences, Kuzani, and Paxmedica, MaraBio Systems, Inc
| and undoubtedly numerous other big pharma interests that were
| able to keep the study at arm's length enough to avoid
| disclosure requirements. [1]
|
| [1] -
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-024-06102-y#Sec36
| softfalcon wrote:
| Thanks, appreciate you backing up my thoughts on this.
|
| I've already received several down votes from folks who
| seem to disagree with my concern.
| ldjkfkdsjnv wrote:
| Used to have a mix of what could be considered ADHD/light
| asperbergers. I dont eat carbs and mostly stick to a keto diet,
| it resolved many symptoms. Our food is poison
| 2four2 wrote:
| Lots of carbs make me fall asleep and kill my motivation. My
| lunches at work are light and carb-free for that reason.
| manmal wrote:
| Do you have microbiome dysbiosis? A keto diet might improve
| things (eg lower LPS production), but long term can diminish
| microbial diversity. I'm not saying keto is bad at all - it's
| just that microbial diversity is an important predictor in GI
| health and one should keep an eye on that too.
| ldjkfkdsjnv wrote:
| Yeah i mean i know that keto isnt great, but it has changed
| my life to some degree. When in ketosis, i feel like i have
| "agency", otherwise i am this foggy headed, sloth
| hailruda wrote:
| I can relate to this. Could you point me to any resources
| about keto diets?
| electrondood wrote:
| I'm Broad Autism Phenotype (BAP) and prefer low carb because I
| feel better, but it doesn't change my personality traits or
| cognitive tendencies one iota.
| ldjkfkdsjnv wrote:
| I have a noticable ability to react quicker in social
| situations, im more "normal". Otherwise my brain is sluggish
| and i struggle to maintain conversation/things go over my
| head
| ffjffsfr wrote:
| > what could be considered ADHD/light asperbergers
|
| could be considered, or did you get a diagnosis from a
| specialist? Self diagnosis is not reliable. If you don't have
| an official diagnosis you can't be certain you really have
| ADHD. There may be several differe tfactors relevant for YOU
| that make keto diet work for you. Same diet can be harmful for
| similar people who have ADHD.
| ldjkfkdsjnv wrote:
| I have a diagnosis, i just dont trust doctors. please stop
| gaslighting me
| throwaway092323 wrote:
| > Self diagnosis is not reliable
|
| Professional diagnosis is not reliable either. ADHD and
| autism are often misdiagnosed as one-another, especially in
| girls.
|
| > If you don't have an official diagnosis you can't be
| certain you really have ADHD
|
| A lot of the time, the mental health professional making the
| determination doesn't have specialty in ADHD/Autism. All
| they're doing is looking at symptoms and making their best
| guess. Which is exactly what people are doing when they make
| a self-determination. In many cases, people with high-
| functioning autism know more about autism than the people who
| are supposed to know. And it's not like the diagnoses can be
| validated when we're still figuring out what autism even is.
| bluecalm wrote:
| If you knew anything about how "diagnosis from specialist"
| works in practice you wouldn't dismiss self dismiss diagnosis
| so easily. "The specialist" usually spend a few hours at most
| on the diagnosis (if even that) while people who self
| diagnose live with the symptoms their whole life.
|
| It would be such an easy world of you could go to a doctor
| and get answers but it's not the world we live in unless it's
| common cold (and even then a lot of doctors can't be bothered
| and prescribe antibiotics just in case).
| b800h wrote:
| "with only 10-20% of children diagnosed before 5 years of age
| able to live independently as adults"
|
| > Well this is nonsense for starters - circular logic. Doctors
| won't diagnose autism in most cases before the age of eight. For
| the diagnosis to have happened before the age of five would imply
| that the case is profound in the first place.
| piker wrote:
| The stat seems accurate on that basis. True, it may be read to
| imply more.
| willsmith72 wrote:
| That's the whole point.
|
| It's not like they took the age 5 at random, it's literally
| what was used in the study
| ffjffsfr wrote:
| there are other factors here. Children diagnosed with autism at
| the age of 5 must be adults now to determine if they can live
| alone. So they were diagnosed at minimum 13 years ago, with
| many diagnosed much earlier. Autism diagnostics is much more
| common now than it used to be, especially in families with
| higher economic status. Diagnostics tools evolved, more kids
| are tested and tests capture more kids. So I think this number
| will be completely different in 10-20 years from now. In my
| experience as a parent of ASD kid, many kids now considered ASD
| would not be considered ASD 20 or 30 years ago.
| grumpy-de-sre wrote:
| On the topic of metabolic disturbances in Autism, huge fan of the
| work Dr. Randy Blakely is doing on the links between Serotonin
| metabolism and Autism. One of the most surprising, and strongest
| (25-30% of patients), biomarkers for Autism is actually Platelet
| Hyperserotonemia (high levels of bound Serotonin in the blood).
|
| For decades it's been without explanation but recently Dr Blakely
| has described a bunch of cases where it was narrowed down to SERT
| transporter polymorphisms and inflammation.
|
| Worth a watch for those interested in the weeds of this stuff:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpDtuKV5CJs
|
| I've got a pet hypothesis that differences in Serotonin
| metabolism (and receptor hypersensitivity) might play a role in
| why SSRIs aren't generally considered a first line treatment for
| ASD symptoms,
| https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.1112345109
| john01dav wrote:
| Pathologizing autistic behaviors is not the right approach here.
| Most autistic behaviors are harmless except insofar as allistic
| (non-autistic) people provide unnecessary consequences for it and
| through incompatibilities. We don't say that a Linux workstation
| in a network of Windows computers is broken or needs to be fixed
| (or visa-versa), but rather we recognize that the problems are
| due to the differences. As such, attempts to "cure" or "prevent"
| autism are actually an eugenic attempt to remove harmless
| variation that many people irrationally deem to be objectionable.
|
| For example, it is commonly stated that autistic people have
| communication deficits, but this is just a communication
| difference. We can see this because if a communication task is
| given to a group of only autistic people they perform comparably
| to when the same task is given to a group of allistic people.
| Problems only take place when the group is mixed with both
| autistic and allistic people being present. The keyword "double
| empathy problem" can be used to find more information about this.
| (https://doi.org/10.1177/1362361320919286)
|
| As another example, allistic people tend to _very_ harshly judge
| autistic people for extremely subtle cues that they are
| different. When allistic people are shown recordings of autistic
| people communicating and of allistic people doing similiar tasks
| they, within less than a second, judge the autistic people very
| harshly. This effect persists when controlling for the content of
| the communication. (https://doi.org/10.1038/srep40700) Of course,
| doing anything that actually warrants such a judgement in a
| context like that is impossible so this is a bias against
| autistic people. I think that this can be compared to implicit
| racial bias: it is something that most people need to learn to
| consciously identify and then not perpetuate and is not due to
| any faults with the victim.
|
| Good resource on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1AUdaH-
| EPM
|
| There are higher support needs autistic people who need help with
| activities of daily living. In my opinion, though, in many cases
| this is not autism but rather autism with an accompanying
| intellectual disability and the intellectual disability is the
| reason for higher supports needs. In some cases this could also
| be caregivers unnecessarily pathologizing behavior and then
| convincing someone that they need more support than they really
| do, which I have seen in real life.
| anon84873628 wrote:
| There is a big difference between "neurodiverse" people and
| severely autistic people facing huge challenges in their life.
| Are you seriously dismissing the idea of helping treat that
| latter group?
|
| " this is not autism but rather autism with an accompanying
| intellectual disability and the intellectual disability is the
| reason for higher supports needs. "
|
| This is a self-contradictory statement. But what do you think
| people are researching if not those intellectual disabilities
| -- why they occur and how they can be prevented.
| john01dav wrote:
| > There is a big difference between "neurodiverse" people and
| severely autistic people facing huge challenges in their
| life. Are you seriously dismissing the idea of helping treat
| that latter group?
|
| The people who you are referring to as neurodiverse also face
| huge challenges. When everyone hates you just for being
| yourself and not hurting anyone, that _is_ a huge challenge.
| This can threaten peoples ability to make a living. This can
| result in people having to live in abusive situations due to
| lack of financial -- not practical -- ability to live on
| their own. When you need to do stimming to feel internally at
| piece but most other people will perceive this as a threat,
| that is a challenge. When you need protection (e.g.,
| headphones) from sensory input in the outside world, but the
| world does not allow this in some cases (for example a job
| may deem it to be "unprofessional") that is also a threat.
| Supports are needed in this case, and these supports are for
| the world to lighten up about allowing these things.
|
| Also, there are, perhaps more challenging, problems that what
| you call "severely autistic" people face. We should _also_
| support these people. For these people, the supports could be
| similar as above (the world lightening up, perhaps about the
| requirement that everyone be productively employed) or they
| could be different (a medical treatment that increases
| intelligence). Such a medical treatment needs to be performed
| ONLY with the informed consent of the patient, to the degree
| that that is possible with the communication difficulties.
|
| > This is a self-contradictory statement. But what do you
| think people are researching if not those intellectual
| disabilities -- why they occur and how they can be prevented.
|
| I think that this type of research is unnecessarily lumping
| intellectual disabilities with the traits in what you call
| neurodiverse people. I am much more open to helping people
| with intellectual disabilities, to the extent that these
| people want that help, than I am to treatments that attempt
| to normalize neurodiverse people. The word "autism" refers to
| both groups, so research that is about "curing autism" is at
| least in part about normalizing neurodiverse people.
| anon84873628 wrote:
| Thanks for you comment. I was only splitting the spectrum
| into the two broadest categories for rhetorical simplicity.
|
| Of course I also agree that society needs to become more
| accepting and supportive of all types of people. To put it
| simply, we should not become a bioengineered dystopia. We
| can do two things at once though.
|
| >I think that this type of research is unnecessarily
| lumping intellectual disabilities with the traits in what
| you call neurodiverse people.
|
| This is an unfair and unsubstantiated view that you are
| projecting onto the researchers. _I_ give benefit of the
| doubt that these professionals have a far better
| understanding of the science, sociology, and ethics of the
| topic than any of us. We need better understanding and
| improvement in _all_ the areas right now.
| john01dav wrote:
| The medical system has a history of mistreating
| marginalized groups (of which neurodiverse people are
| definitely an example), and there are a huge number of
| people who fund and perform research aimed solely at
| eradicating all forms of autism. Autism Speaks is one
| such group (which is an ironic name since the views of
| the organization differ greatly from those of most
| autistic people), and they are quite active in autism
| research and well-funded. As such, I do not think that
| giving the benefit of the doubt is reasonable.
| Furthermore, even if the researchers have an excellent
| and completely ethical view of autism, many people
| reading about the research will not so giving such a
| perspective remains valuable.
|
| If can be easy to say that we should simply explore all
| avenues of research, and in an ideal world this would be
| true, but we do not live in an ideal world. There are two
| concerns with this type of research:
|
| - it has an opportunity cost of research that might be
| more effective (for example medical treatments that could
| help with sensory hypersensitivity under an informed
| consent model could be a good result, or research that
| helps us understand what, exactly, leads allistic people
| to hate autistic people so much so that we can improve
| communication in both directions)
|
| - it creates new abilities for those who would do
| eugenicist harm, even if they are well-meaning
| shutupnerd0000 wrote:
| > In my opinion, though, in many cases this is not autism but
| rather autism with an accompanying intellectual disability
|
| That's just like, your opinion, man.
|
| If autism warrants needing help with daily living then it's a
| disorder by definition.
| john01dav wrote:
| There are two ways that something can lead to needing help
| with daily living:
|
| - society rejects the trait without good reason, so then
| someone needs help to deal with this rejection
|
| - the trait leads to an inability to do something that the
| person wants to do, irrespective of any societal concerns
|
| I am okay with calling the latter a disorder, but not the
| former. The traits that are recognized as part of autism
| (social incompatibilities, stimming, special interests, hyper
| or hyposensitivity -- these are the DSM traits for autism
| rephrased more politely) are clearly in the former case.
| Traits that lead to being unable to function (such as an
| inability to feed one's self) are not on this list, but
| rather are characterized by intellectual disability.
| shutupnerd0000 wrote:
| Do you always reply with definitions you invented on the
| spot to justify your view of reality?
| jprete wrote:
| I think you're engaging in the no-true-Scotsman fallacy with
| the claim that highly autistic people with a lot of special
| needs are really "autistic with intellectual disabilities". I
| disagree. They're simply more autistic and more impacted than
| either of us.
| john01dav wrote:
| See here for why I think that it is different:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40329752
| pseudalopex wrote:
| They did not say no true autistic person are intellectually
| disabled. They said they are overlapping groups. Like
| Scotsmen and people who put sugar in porridge.
| tsoukase wrote:
| Autism is rooted during fetal brain development. Behavioural and
| metabolic changes show up later. There is no an egg and chicken
| problem. The primary disease starts in the CNS and everything
| else follows
| computerphage wrote:
| How do you know that?
| tsoukase wrote:
| Schizophrenia, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's have links with the
| gut too. But I "know" they start from the brain. No advanced
| or complicated hypothesis
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| How would you prove or disprove this theory?
| MajimasEyepatch wrote:
| There's so much brain development that happens in the first few
| years after birth that there's absolutely no way you can say
| that with confidence.
| tsoukase wrote:
| No developmental anomaly can start after birth. It must
| preexist but is not detected. Proof: heavy cases of autism
| are diagnosed at birth, so the beginning lies sometime in
| uterus. The same holds for the lighter cases too.
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