Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Gut bacteria may offer a treatment for autism

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 270 posts

Re: Gut bacteria may offer a treatment for autism

#31

Post by hugelgupf »

theprotocol wrote: post #20
whitepoplar wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you adjust your diet, or are you taking supplements?

Both. Regarding diet, I started observing the effects of everything I ate and adjusting accordingly, somewhat like an elimination diet. I was actually really clueless at first and had numerous deficiencies as a tradeoff for some of the symptoms disappearing (which was great but not sustainable). Over the span of years, this has improved and today I have no deficiencies and only relatively mild symptoms remain. The bi…

Brain fog, intestinal inflammation. Sounds so very familiar.

Do you have research notes, on methodology and things tried? I'm now very curious for myself.

Re: Gut bacteria may offer a treatment for autism

#33

Post by afarrell »

ben_w wrote: post #14
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 have previously wondered if HIV could pick up mutations which made hosts more sexually active and promiscuous.

Why HIV specifically?

Re: Gut bacteria may offer a treatment for autism

#34

Post by losteric »

theprotocol wrote: post #4
kanishkdudeja wrote: post #3

There's no free will :)

I think there is free will, but like most things in life, it is a privilege not everyone has; many people are constrained by invisible shackles. I would wager that evil still exists, but it requires full awareness of what one is doing when perpetrating it, and so it is more rare than we think. (Of course, this is just an opinion.)

I share a similar philosophy... that free will is choosing between the options we recognize given by our immutable past. Who we are is mostly an accumulation of chance events and responses running on autopilot. Most moments don't matter, some nudge us in different directions, others snowball into defining our eulogies.

Hard work enables us to leverage chance events (if we recognize them) into some probability of success, but the rest is outside of our control. Life is chaotic. We're all just pieces of a big entropy machine.

It's the butterfly effect at scale.

Re: Gut bacteria may offer a treatment for autism

#35

Post by brm »

theprotocol wrote: post #20
whitepoplar wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you adjust your diet, or are you taking supplements?

Both. Regarding diet, I started observing the effects of everything I ate and adjusting accordingly, somewhat like an elimination diet. I was actually really clueless at first and had numerous deficiencies as a tradeoff for some of the symptoms disappearing (which was great but not sustainable). Over the span of years, this has improved and today I have no deficiencies and only relatively mild symptoms remain. The bi…

Not sure which reply chain to jump into here, but during endoscopic evaluation have you ever had biopsies taken to check eosinophil counts in your stomach or esophageal tissue?

Re: Gut bacteria may offer a treatment for autism

#36

Post by TheAceOfHearts »

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?

When you are suffering from some chronic disease you really only care about finding a solution that works for you.

If there was a place where one could submit anecdotal experiences then you could analyze that data and use it as a basis for professionally run medical experiments. For example, if 1000 people said X food triggered symptoms of severe depression for a few hours after consumption then a professional could look at that and say "this is something worth looking into". You would be correct in remaining skeptical of individual claims which haven't been carefully verified, but you would be a fool to just ignore and discard those claims.

Mikhaila Peterson is one example of an individual that was suffering from serious chronic problems who found a solution that appears to work for her. She's now on a carnivore diet, which means she only consumes meat and water. Now, that doesn't mean that everyone should go out and start imitating her, but it sure as hell sounds like something that medical professionals should look into.

Re: Gut bacteria may offer a treatment for autism

#37

Post by theprotocol »

rexpop wrote: post #25
theprotocol wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there is free will, but like most things in life, it is a privilege not everyone has; many people are constrained by invisible shackles. I would wager that evil still exists, but it requires full awareness of what one is doing when perpetrating it, and so it is more rare than we think. (Of course, this is just an opinion.)

This is an extremely articulate and beautiful perspective. How did you acquire it?

I'm probably gonna get downvotes for appearing to bask in this attention (which I didn't expect).

In this case it's based on a heuristic. I can't at all model human will so it seems reasonable to start with it as infinite (since it's so vast and appears virtually limitless, the very reason I can't model it in the first place) and model in the constraints.

edit: also, I am a Christian and that probably factors into my view subconsciously, although I am certain many non-Christian views would arrive to the same conclusion.

Re: Gut bacteria may offer a treatment for autism

#38

Post by theprotocol »

brm wrote: post #35
theprotocol wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both. Regarding diet, I started observing the effects of everything I ate and adjusting accordingly, somewhat like an elimination diet. I was actually really clueless at first and had numerous deficiencies as a tradeoff for some of the symptoms disappearing (which was great but not sustainable). Over the span of years, this has improved and today I have no deficiencies and only relatively mild symptoms remain. The bi…

Not sure which reply chain to jump into here, but during endoscopic evaluation have you ever had biopsies taken to check eosinophil counts in your stomach or esophageal tissue?

I've had several gastroscopies and always had biopsies taken. Eosinophils were within the normal range, so whatever I have is not a true allergy.

Re: Gut bacteria may offer a treatment for autism

#39

Post by nyc111 »

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.

Re: Gut bacteria may offer a treatment for autism

#40

Post by theprotocol »

hugelgupf wrote: post #31
theprotocol wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both. Regarding diet, I started observing the effects of everything I ate and adjusting accordingly, somewhat like an elimination diet. I was actually really clueless at first and had numerous deficiencies as a tradeoff for some of the symptoms disappearing (which was great but not sustainable). Over the span of years, this has improved and today I have no deficiencies and only relatively mild symptoms remain. The bi…

Brain fog, intestinal inflammation. Sounds so very familiar. Do you have research notes, on methodology and things tried? I'm now very curious for myself.

I don't have notes per se, and I am afraid to say something that can be considered advice. I can answer any question you might have though (assuming it's appropriate for me to do so here, I hope I don't annoy HN users).
Post reply on HN