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While many people are aware of the behavioural symptoms associated with autism, probably not so many realize that autistics often also have gastrointestinal problems. With that in mind, scientists at the University of Arizona recently conducted a study in which a group of 18 autistic children received fecal transplants from donors with healthy gastrointestinal systems. Not only did the procedure help to "rebalance" their gut flora, but it also improved their behaviour.
First of all, a fecal transplant is just what it sounds like. Feces from one person are screened for disease-causing organisms, and then introduced into the recipient's digestive tract. In this case, the recipients first took antibiotics for two weeks, to wipe out their existing gut flora. They then received the fecal transplant initially in a high-dose liquid form, after which it was delivered in a lower-dose powder mixed into smoothies.
Of all the possible ways I could imagine to treat autism, that was not one of them...
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday January 25 2017, @10:16PM
We don't need peer reviewed double blind placebo controlled studies to tell us that one of our children is gluten sensitive, has moderate to severe reactions when he ingests gluten, and the other child doesn't seem to have a problem with gluten. Gut flora and other things influence the level of sensitivity, it's not a yes/no binary testable condition.
So many things with autism are just the same as they are in the general population, but magnified. When people have pain, they get grumpy, hard to deal with, and they lose some ability to focus and comprehend what's going on around them. Most people can just shrug this off as "having a bad day," but having a bad day with autism can be a whole other level of intense.
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