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I would fully expect that a monotonous diet leads to a heavy skew in the gut microbiome as specific bacterial species that thrive on that diet are selected for, others against. It makes some sense that a fecal transplant could repair the damage. If the diet has shifted or expanded, the transplant could lead to long term benefits by restoring newly-viable bacterial species, perhaps by facilitating digestion of the new types of food.
I’d be curious to see a factoring out of the diet composition, gut microbiome, genetics, and severity of autism symptoms.
Now that is something that should be done more often - especially in science journalism, but not only. We cruelly lack long-term vision - not only forward but backwards too.
Maybe science journalism should just adopt a wiki-model instead, where there is one article per "subject" then any new (confirmed?) information/data goes into that, and interested people can subscribe to updates there instead.
Wikis generally have much better long-term maintenance given the right individuals running it, compared to a "publication journal" where things tend to get out of date eventually, with no way of actually seeing when old articles get updated.
What we currently don’t understand is why for some people they never got them (we have techniques to transport the biota from the mother during birth for non-natural procedures) or they loose them.
Even with the transplant, the microbes won’t stick around on those people (not taking about autistic people here, but people in general).
Diverse food really helps, just as not eating ultraprocessed (they won’t reach the end of the intestines).
Fermented and other pre or probiotics will really help too.
But none of those will recover the biota in some people.
2 questions:
1) Did your constipation start right after you did strict carnivore? Or was it after 4 years?
2) List all foods that you ate on strict carnivore. (Include salt, water etc. I presume it won't be a long list)
1) Do I detect a note of sarcasm?
2) List all times you’ve been sarcastic on the internet before. (Include social media, message boards, etc. I presume it won't be a long list)
I was a little surprised to see this.
So the university researchers use time and money from the university to make a discovery, extending on previous published research, and then patent it and start their own for-profit?
Excuse my ignorance, but is that how it's done generally? Where's the upside for all those who are potentially affected?
It kinda makes sense - Presumably the university is involved somewhere still, and it needs to be commercialised somehow, but..
https://skysonginnovations.com/startups/list/
It's interesting they got a lot of funding from over 100 families with autism children:
https://skysonginnovations.com/startups/list/
Don’t worry, the money is usually coming from taxpayers so the universities don’t have to chip away from their endowments
The alternatives are lengthy court battles between universities and their best (e.g. most commercial) researchers. This creates bad PR for the university and uncertainty for the researcher & their startups because potential investors don't like open court cases.
So people came around to make this kind of license fee contract and researchers check it before deciding to join a certain university.
Not a fan of gene / bacteria patents though.
> Our phase 2 study for adults with autism found that the treatment group improved more than placebo on the primary outcome (autism symptoms) and on a secondary outcome (daily stool record),
However they say they also have an adult trial running that seems to show similar effects, so there might be something more into it.
At the same time, gut microbiota is extremely complex to study.
So, this may be a plausible result. I cannot judge the plausibilities right away in the way you suggest it.
I understand a newborn gets its microbiota naturally by contact with the mom in the first days, maybe all the sterile environment involved in surgery changes that.
(They run a tube through your nose, down your throat, through the stomach to the top of the intestines, and introduce the bacterial slurry there.)
Also, "fecal transplant" is marketable only to weirdos. "Probiotic infusion" would work better.
For those who want to gain some artistic talent, there's this (but is expensive):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artist's_Shit
> Prior to the study, 83% of participants had "severe" autism. Two years later, only 17% were rated as severe, 39% as mild or moderate, and incredibly, 44% were below the cut-off for mild ASD.
Emphasis mine. If you are below the cutoff for mild ASD you wouldn't be diagnosed at all.
(Without a control group, you have questions about how people of that age generally progress, and what other treatment/therapies they receive over those 2 years. The phase 1 trial was with children whose parents presumably sought ever possible way to help them, while the placebo controlled phase 2 was adults who may have plateaued.)
That makes sense, since ASD is a disorder classification and is mainly relevant for treatment and benefits. Plenty of autistic people are not diagnosed with ASD.
The article certainly could do more to differentiate between the autistic spectrum itself and the diagnosis of ASD, but as long as you know not to conflate the two, it seems perfectly clear to me.