Is our gut causing our autism? what do you think
The gut thing's a lot of baloney cooked up by Andrew Wakefield in his fraudulent MMR paper -- look it up, he cooked up the autism/gut connection while working for a class-action lawyer who paid him a wad to find something bad about MMR. Actually made up stuff about the twelve kids in his "study". He was a GI guy and the rise in autism was hot news at the time, so put them all together and there you go.
It's unfortunate, because it sent a lot of parents off on desperate wild goose chases, trying all kinds of funky diets in hopes of 'curing' their kids. If the kids wound up with healthier diets because of it, okay fine, but the expense and degree of hope/obsessiveness were cruel.
There's been speculation about the association between digestive disturbances and autism for years, at least since the 1960s.
I used to read case studies during the 1970's which detailed digestive disturbances in kids with what seems, within the modern conception of things, to be "childhood degenerative disorder." These kids would invariably acquire skills, then lose them. These kids were said to be "autistic."
ASPartOfMe
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The theory has gotten a lot of media attention in the last few months since Autism Speaks got heavily involved in funding research on the topic. A known cause of gut issues is stress. Being a small minority trying to live in a neurotypical world is damm stressful. Is research that is picking up gut factor/cause of Autism actually picking up Autism related stress causing gut problems?
I still see to much anecdotal evidence of Autism running in families to dismiss the it is mostly genetics idea. But is is true that "cult" or "outlier" theories end up bieng proven right, so anything can happen
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Professionally Identified and joined WP August 26, 2013
DSM 5: Autism Spectrum Disorder, DSM IV: Aspergers Moderate Severity
“My autism is not a superpower. It also isn’t some kind of god-forsaken, endless fountain of suffering inflicted on my family. It’s just part of who I am as a person”. - Sara Luterman
Last edited by ASPartOfMe on 31 May 2014, 4:57 am, edited 1 time in total.
I am very skeptical of the idea that bacteria in the gut could cause or cure autism. If it were that simple then everyone would know about it. I am not convinced that diet has any effect on autism. I have read too many posts from people who have tried various diets with out it having much of any effect on them at all.
Going gluten free (as I was allergic to wheat) had a huge effect on the way my brain worked, and I know my brain is working much much better. I am now unsure how close I am to being normal though as I see some major differences in the way I act from the people around me. I think I had some developmental problems with my brain, combined with gluten allergy, combined with problems with my thyroid, combined with chronic sodium deficiency and maybe a few other issues that I don't know about. One of my parents also has leaky gut syndrome which means I may have gotten that also. This added up to something very similar to AS. Now I am just left with a hand full of developmental problems. It is possible that the other issues were drawing out my autism and now I am much less autistic.
I have found a post from someone who said they had AS + gluten allergy and now they have just AS after going gluten free. Also I have read about NT people who have had gluten allergy but who weren't at all autistic. So I am not sure what was going on with myself.
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