51–60 of 69 posts
Autism diagnosis are based on nothing more than behavior. The facts here are that one child behaved in a manner consistent (enough) with the criteria for ASD. After treating a fungal infection, the child’s behavior changed. I think it’s a stretch to associate fungal infections with autism. There are probably many ailments that could trigger typical ASD behaviors.
I think this tends to discount the emerging narratives about the link between gut microbiome and neurotransmitters.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9504309/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8234057/
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcell.2021.6491...
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/06/gut-bacte...
People are not used to this idea that what happens in your microfauna may play this super important role in what happens in your head, but there are already links to things like parkinsons and anxiety/depression.
To me it's not a stretch to associate fungal infections with a neurological disorder or symptom presentation at all, it's a pretty natural extension of the research that's happened over the last 10-15 years. And in several (human) case studies and research scenarios (mice), there is evidence for an actual causal link and not just "people with neurodivergence have fucked up microbiomes" too - treat the microbiome and you treat the parkinsons, or the ASD, and you can induce autism-like symptoms in mice by infecting their microbiome with B. fragilis.
Not a doctor but this does seem like probably the biggest thing people have tended to ignore (studiously, in some cases), that microbiome might play this huge role in things like weight or mental health. 100 years later, we are going to look back at this as an obvious case of science more or less ignoring what was right in front of our faces because it wasn't medicalized yet.
The paper is dated August 2020. Does anyone know a follow up study done?
Authors are discussing this anecdotal paper here.
Lol https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shaw_(laboratory_own... Leave it to HN to fall for grifters, but then again I suppose this must just probably just a massive conspiracy by the big bad Illuminati or something to profit off mainstream understanding of autism and we should trust the “science” this time. (To be fair, I can’t find anything that points to the main author being nearly on the same level of quacker…
It's human nature to make ourselves feel superior by putting down others, but it skews discussion in a way that goes against what we're trying to optimize for here (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...).
Edit: it looks like you've unfortunately been breaking the site guidelines in a lot of what you've been posting here. Can you please review them and stick to them? I don't want to ban you but we end up not having much choice if an account keeps posting in this low-quality way.
Lol https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shaw_(laboratory_own... Leave it to HN to fall for grifters, but then again I suppose this must just probably just a massive conspiracy by the big bad Illuminati or something to profit off mainstream understanding of autism and we should trust the “science” this time. (To be fair, I can’t find anything that points to the main author being nearly on the same level of quacker…
Paul Offit also has a great book on the other topic of what to look out for when it comes to quackery called "Do You Believe in Magic?" where he talks about Jenny McCarthy and various doctors who tried to support that movement.
If you’re inclined to take this paper seriously, or if you feel like reading a very badly produced article, I recommend reading the full paper. It’s just a few pages, and a light read. Also, you’ll get to ponder how in the “List of abnormal clinical symptoms of the child with an autism spectrum disorder prior to antifungal therapy”, the first entry is “Silly”. No standardized assessments of autism (e.g. the ADOS) are…
Some others from that list:
- Curious/into things
- Likes fans
- Farting (stinky)
- Looks sick
Amazing criteria.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Autism spectrum disorder isn’t a disease like COVID with a known cause. There are likely many things that lead to symptoms consistent with ASD. According to the link the mold infection has biomarkers, and presumably it’s possible that some people who have this infection and ASD can be treated for the infection and might see improvement. However I don’t think the article implies in any way that ASD is caused by mold i…
When my son was diagnosed with autism a quarter century or so ago, we would see claims like this popping up now and again. At first we would get excited, but over time we learned to ignore them. Desperate parents make easy targets for grifters and quacks so you have to expect this kind of thing. The worst part is when well-meaning family and friends keep excitedly sending you articles or giving advising you on these…
My brother has a few friends with similar deficits, just different ones. That makes me dubious of the idea of autism as a particular 'disease'. In fact I find the disease model insulting.
The paper is dated August 2020. Does anyone know a follow up study done?
If you’re inclined to take this paper seriously, or if you feel like reading a very badly produced article, I recommend reading the full paper. It’s just a few pages, and a light read. Also, you’ll get to ponder how in the “List of abnormal clinical symptoms of the child with an autism spectrum disorder prior to antifungal therapy”, the first entry is “Silly”. No standardized assessments of autism (e.g. the ADOS) are…
I honestly thought you were joking or at least over exaggerating. You aren’t, haha. Some others from that list: - Curious/into things - Likes fans - Farting (stinky) - Looks sick Amazing criteria.