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Gut bacteria may offer a treatment for autism

economist.com

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Re: Gut bacteria may offer a treatment for autism

#61

Post by dcx »

nyc111 wrote: post #39
theprotocol wrote: post #2

Without S. Boulardii, I am a neurotic mess who can't digest anything at all nor think straight after eating anything, so I'm inclined to believe this hypothesis. I am also intrigued about what this means for criminality and how the line between illness and evil is likely to shift given the role of microorganisms in behavioral dysfunction; and more broadly, we don't like to admit it, but it seems that completely amora…

@theprotocol thanks for this detailed explanation. Very helpful.

Adding my thanks to this. I have IBS and have done a ton of self-experimentation over the years to fix my symptoms (with reasonable success). I totally get what you mean about free will and being unable to think straight when your digestive system is not managed. This is an interesting pathway that I had not discovered yet; from my initial reading it looks like the mycobiome is somewhat at the cutting edge [1].

[1] https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2607/6/1/22/htm

Re: Gut bacteria may offer a treatment for autism

#62

Post by zumu »

vbuwivbiu wrote: post #8
chippy wrote: post #6

Reading about toxoplasma (a parasite of rats which can infect humans and alter their behaviour), I recall something about the common cold (a virus) and behaviour. My memory is fuzzy but there was a study that indicated that those with initial stages of a cold seek out human contact more and in the case of women, show more skin. The implication is that the virus seeks to replicate by altering our behaviour to transmit…

"the virus seeks to replicate" variants of the virus that caused their hosts to socialize more replicated more

Kind of a tangent, but the way you phrased it, while much more technically correct, is totally roundabout and unnatural to a native English speaker.

I've often postulated that the necessity of a Subject in English sentences causes us to inadvertently project agency in our descriptions of events / phenomena that in reality don't have an "actor" in a meaningful sense.

It's fascinating to consider to what extent this false notion of causation and agency may constrain a native English speaker's understanding of the world.

Re: Gut bacteria may offer a treatment for autism

#64

Post by codeddesign »

jlg23 wrote: post #57
erikpukinskis wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also casts religions with dietary restrictions in an interesting light.

Which major religion forbids yeast intake (and how would you guarantee that) and from which angle does one shine light on a people united in faith but with distinct local food (and yeast) sources to make it "interesting"?

Look at the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Their belief isn’t necessarily yeast but dietary standards in general. Promotion of a vegetarian/vegan diet, and removal of alcohol, coffee, and sugar since the late 1800’s. As far as I know the dietary standards include the promotion of the effects of gut bateria, and the ill effects of eating things like warm bread but not necessarily removal of yeast.

Re: Gut bacteria may offer a treatment for autism

#65

Post by theprotocol »

nyc111 wrote: post #58
theprotocol wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I figured out that my problems were related to intestinal microflora because they became ten times worse after undergoing 3 courses of H. Pylori eradication therapy in the span of only a few months, and I never improved for years afterwards. That's the short version; in reality, I suffered for a decade and a half before I caught on that I could do something about it, and it took about 5 years after that to get any ki…

@theprotocol With your permission, I hope, I copied your comments to my wiki http://www.zeynel.a2hosted.com/index.php?title=Digestive_Hea... I think it will be useful to others as well to read them as a whole. I'll update if there are new relevant comments. Thanks!

Sure, but please note that it is not to be construed as advice, merely an example of what might work for someone, and that everyone is different (for instance, one of my posts mentions that a subset of people do extremely well on a diet opposite mine - high starch).

edit:

I've also not written anything about methodology, so I hope my writings have not given the impression that one can play fast and loose with supplements. I actually follow a safety-first approach, and I do this only after a doctor reaches a dead-end.

General approach for evaluating supplements:

1- Find out about something that sounds promising, either by accident, or googling ideas and stumbling upon something that claims to improve your condition in some way.

2- Skim reputable sites (that cite research) listing the potential pros and cons of the supplement in question. Stop here if there is an unacceptable level of risk.

3- Skim any research about the supplement vs. your condition.

4- Read Amazon/iherb/other customer reviews for formulations of the supplement. Do not get excited. Most of these reviews are fake. What you are doing here is scoping out the ideal claimed outcome as a screening tool. If the ideal outcome is not worthwhile, stop here.

5- Dig into the research yourself. Confirm the level of risk. Check interactions. Determine whether there is a chance of the supplement working.

6- Purchase and test product. Remain objective. The baseline expectation is that nothing will work. Don't be emotional about that. I love having experience with products regardless of whether they work for me or not. I find it very interesting either way.

Re: Gut bacteria may offer a treatment for autism

#66

Post by Something1234 »

ben_w wrote: post #12
amelius wrote: post #9

Perhaps a stupid question but can't they run some kind of differential analysis on blood values to find out what could be causing the effect on the brain? (I.e. take blood samples before and after introducing gut bacteria)

The impression I get is the biology is so messy that, even if that passed an ethics committee, they would still have difficulty isolating the stuff they were interested in from other effects they couldn’t control for. It’s not impossible, but it is very expensive. This is partly why medical tech takes about 10-15 years to go from invention to deployment.

Why would a blood analysis be difficult to get pass an ethics committee? I get the confounding factors bit, but blood analysis seems to be a common practice.

Re: Gut bacteria may offer a treatment for autism

#67

Post by hyperpape »

chapium wrote: post #10
salamanderman wrote: post #5

I'm not too keen on the discouragement against self experimentation at the end of the article in this case. Self experimentation has greatly improved insulin pump technology in the past few years, and this situation has much much less risk.

How good are most experiments with a sample size of 1? Can the data gathered be independently verified?

I'm pretty down on a lot of self-experimentation, but it's worth noting that probiotics are frequently recommended by doctors for many other issues and are unlikely to have harmful effects. I'm not familiar with the strain discussed here, but normal strains are ~$1/day. So the danger is that people might get a bit of false-hope or imagine a connection that's not there. I won't say that's harmless, but it can be a lot worse.

I'm more worried that people will latch on to the gut connection and experiment with other "cures". There's an entire world of people poisoning their kids to try and cure "gut problems".

Re: Gut bacteria may offer a treatment for autism

#68

Post by agumonkey »

Brakenshire wrote: post #29
agumonkey wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had an argument with someone about colds, saying that external temperature favorited infection and they responded by saying the cause is more likely proximity in close warm spaces. I think our system is too complex for a tiny virus to manage to influence such behaviors.. but that's not impossible.

The human body is complex but it has a lot of global variables. All a virus needs to do is twiddle these global variables and sometimes it will have a beneficial effect for propagation. Any part of the body can chuck any molecule into the blood stream and have it transported round the body. Virus evolutionary processes can ‘engineer’ for things to cross the blood brain barrier just like pharmaceutical researchers. Ev…

What should I read to know these variables ? any books or references ?

Re: Gut bacteria may offer a treatment for autism

#69

Post by __s »

chippy wrote: post #6

Reading about toxoplasma (a parasite of rats which can infect humans and alter their behaviour), I recall something about the common cold (a virus) and behaviour. My memory is fuzzy but there was a study that indicated that those with initial stages of a cold seek out human contact more and in the case of women, show more skin. The implication is that the virus seeks to replicate by altering our behaviour to transmit…

I've experienced that. Usually an introvert, but a few days before a cold I'd often go for a walk & drop in on someone randomly, before any symptoms. The decision making is kind of experienced as a drawing back of inhibition
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