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Fecal transplants for autism deliver success in clinical trials (2019)

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Re: Fecal transplants for autism deliver success in clinical trials (2019)

#121

Post by mrtesthah »

dimes wrote: post #115
Aurornis wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The microbiome might have some modulating effect, but the fidelity of gut-brain axis communication isn’t so strong that our gut microbiome is driving us around with highly specific inputs. The theories for how gut-brain axis modulation works include altering the balance of nutrients that get absorbed and modulating the vagus nerve, primarily. For someone with autism it might be possible that altering some of these ba…

I’m not going to pretend to be an expert here, but I remember a study that found gut bacteria composition predicted whether or not an individual was chocolate-craving or not in individuals eating identical diets: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17929959

It makes sense for chocolate given that cocoa flavanols are prebiotic fiber for GABA-secreting bacteria which of course affects the parasympathetic nervous system.

Re: Fecal transplants for autism deliver success in clinical trials (2019)

#122

Post by cpncrunch »

Aurornis wrote: post #80

I think this is the clinical trial registration: https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT03408886?tab=results It is marked as having results submitted but quality review has not been completed. N=60 and a placebo group, which is better than the N=18 and no placebo group of the first study. There have been so many small scale trials showing amazing autism improvements that failed to replicate in larger, better controlled…

Study completed in 2022, but still no results posted or study published.

Re: Fecal transplants for autism deliver success in clinical trials (2019)

#123

Post by toddmorey »

dimes wrote: post #70
directevolve wrote: post #56

Many autistic children have extremely limited diets. For example, a geneticist friend of mine saw a case where an autistic child had been referred for genetic testing because of horrific, chronic, spontaneous wounds on gums and skin. Turned out to be scurvy, because he had exclusively eaten Wheat Thins for the last 3-4 years, which aren’t fortified with vitamin C. I would fully expect that a monotonous diet leads to…

Just to play devil’s advocate, isn’t it also possible that the preference for a monotonous diet is driven by gut makeup?

Yes! My son who has autism would eat anything we put in front of him until age 3, when his weight, appetite and health suddenly and alarmingly crashed. Ever since that episode, he's had a much more restrictive diet and food preferences. Night and day.

They never successfully identified what happened. Just diagnosed it generally as failure to thrive.

Re: Fecal transplants for autism deliver success in clinical trials (2019)

#124

Post by hapidjus »

swores wrote: post #120
therobots927 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve noticed I really need to keep alcohol and sugar consumption in check. Sometimes it seems like one drink is enough to kick off a gut ecosystem collapse, and other times my gut is more resistant to the effects. Definitely trying to increase fiber consumption significantly.

How are you judging the impact of things on your gut/microbiome?

Toilet visits?

Re: Fecal transplants for autism deliver success in clinical trials (2019)

#125

Post by SoftTalker »

dahart wrote: post #119
SoftTalker wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The public funds the research so that it gets done in the first place. It's not a venture investment.

What do you mean? Research funding absolutely is an investment. Research that is productized is a venture, and the universities involved absolutely do invest in the venture, and sometimes see a handsome ROI. In terms of why the public funds research, your statement might be true, but isn’t addressing the concern that many in the public have raised before: the results of the research should be public, given that the r…

> In terms of why the public funds research, your statement might be true

Yes this is what I meant. We fund research because we think pure research is valuable. It needs to be done without requiring a financial return. Products sometimes come out of it and that's also a public benefit, but direct results of the research are not a "product" they are the starting point to a possible product. There is still a lot of development that has to occur to get to the product stage.

Re: Fecal transplants for autism deliver success in clinical trials (2019)

#126

Post by vfclists »

I find this interesting because my first awareness of a link between gastrointestinal problems and autism was in the retracted so labelled "fraud" paper by Andrew Wakefield et al in 1998 which noted a link between gastrointestinal disease and autism in the subjects of the study.

In fact it is the subject of the paper, not the MMR vaccine which was the cause of the "controversy".

Re: Fecal transplants for autism deliver success in clinical trials (2019)

#127

Post by formerly_proven »

therobots927 wrote: post #86
stephenitis wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seed the gut with nutrients. having lots of fiber and a varied diet increases the number of species that an adult has which is between a couple hundred to a thousand or so. Our guts are generally dominated by a bunch of beneficial bacteria. which for many is not the case for a variety of social economic or behavioral reasons. Add in with explosions of bacterial populations due to alcohol or sugar and you can see…

I’ve noticed I really need to keep alcohol and sugar consumption in check. Sometimes it seems like one drink is enough to kick off a gut ecosystem collapse, and other times my gut is more resistant to the effects. Definitely trying to increase fiber consumption significantly.

Simple starches and sugars (the former being rapidly converted into the latter) are probably the most harmful ingredient once we exclude actual poisons. And they’re just as normalized with most food being primarily composed of them, even though normal people barely need them.

Re: Fecal transplants for autism deliver success in clinical trials (2019)

#128

Post by jtc331 »

toddmorey wrote: post #123
dimes wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to play devil’s advocate, isn’t it also possible that the preference for a monotonous diet is driven by gut makeup?

Yes! My son who has autism would eat anything we put in front of him until age 3, when his weight, appetite and health suddenly and alarmingly crashed. Ever since that episode, he's had a much more restrictive diet and food preferences. Night and day. They never successfully identified what happened. Just diagnosed it generally as failure to thrive.

There’s some research on sudden onset autism being treated with antifungals; so at least sometimes a sudden change may be the result of something very specific in the gut.

Re: Fecal transplants for autism deliver success in clinical trials (2019)

#129

Post by drzaiusx11 »

directevolve wrote: post #56

Many autistic children have extremely limited diets. For example, a geneticist friend of mine saw a case where an autistic child had been referred for genetic testing because of horrific, chronic, spontaneous wounds on gums and skin. Turned out to be scurvy, because he had exclusively eaten Wheat Thins for the last 3-4 years, which aren’t fortified with vitamin C. I would fully expect that a monotonous diet leads to…

We usually call these our "safe foods" and yes, it is a very real problem for many of us in the autistic community, specifically around nutritional deficiencies. In a similar vein, as a child I went several years just eating plain Cheerios. For a close friend it was chicken nuggets.

Re: Fecal transplants for autism deliver success in clinical trials (2019)

#130

Post by jtc331 »

doctorpangloss wrote: post #117
Aurornis wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree about the updates. However, news sites like this one aren’t combing through research to find things to update. They’re responding to PR outreach from companies. Did you notice there isn’t actually a link to a new publication? It’s only quotes from the company. They’re repeating PR material, not updates on the research. There’s a subtext here that isn’t immediately obvious without reading more from the company…

They aren't the only company doing this exact therapy. It isn't a good one. When I looked at preclinical for one of their competitors, that was the exact same thing, the issue was study design. Specifically, you are shoving something up an autistic kid's butt once a day or twice a day. They only did this to the placebo arm for 3 days, and only to healthy kids, whereas the treatment arm did this for 8 weeks. If I punc…

Given there are cases of sudden onset autism being resolved with antifungals, it’s at least not implausible that fecal transplants could be effective too.
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