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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forumspnwmom
(108,995 posts)and Celiac, both of which can affect the gut bacteria. So this deepens the understanding.
applegrove
(118,807 posts)in their gut compared to current hunter gatherers. Let's hope a whole bunch of ailments are healed or diminished by the studies going on now.
In other news:
Sanjet Gupta went and visited indigenous people in South America. CNN. They had no heart conditions. They were eating fish and fruit and fighting parasites. Seems if your immune system is going all engines go you don't get heat disease. When these same people moved into town and started on the local non wild diet there they got heart problems.
abqtommy
(14,118 posts)The Economist requires registration/subscription...but thanks for pointing the way.
applegrove
(118,807 posts)Restoring the balance
The human study, the latest results of which came out a few weeks ago in Scientific Reports, is being conducted by Rosa Krajmalnik-Brown of Arizona State University and her associates. It was prompted by earlier work in which Dr Krajmalnik-Brown and James Adams, a colleague at Arizona State, sequenced the dna of gut bacteria from 20 autistic children to discover which species were present. They found that the children in their sample were missing hundreds of the thousand-plus bacterial species that colonise a neurotypical persons intestine. One notable absence was Prevotella. This bug, which makes its living by fermenting otherwise-indigestible carbohydrate polymers in dietary fibre, is abundant in the alimentary canals of farmers and hunter-gatherers in places like Africa, rare in western Europeans and Americans, and nearly nonexistent in children with asd.
Their discovery led Dr Krajmalnik-Brown and Dr Adams to the idea that restoring the missing bacteria might alleviate autisms symptoms. Two years ago they tested a process called microbiota transfer therapy (mtt) on 18 autistic children aged between seven and 16. Of their participants 15 were regarded, according to the Childhood Autism Rating Scale, as having severe autism.
.....
Ten weeks after treatment started the childrens Prevotella levels had multiplied 712-fold. In addition, those of another species, Bifidobacterium, had quadrupled. Bifidobacterium is what is known as a probiotic organismsomething that acts as a keystone species in the alimentary ecosystem, keeping the mixture of gut bacteria healthy. Now, two years later, although levels of Prevotella have fallen back somewhat, they are still 84 times higher than they were before the experiment started. Levels of Bifidobacterium, meanwhile, have gone up still furtherbeing five times higher than they had been at the beginning of the study. This, says Dr Krajmalnik-Brown, suggests the childrens guts have become healthy environments that can recruit beneficial microbes by themselves.
Crucially, these changes in gut bacteria have translated into behavioural changes. Even 18 weeks after treatment started the children had begun showing reduced symptoms of autism. After two years, only three of them still rated as severe, while eight fell below the diagnostic cut-off point for asdaltogether. These eight thus now count as neurotypical.
ProudLib72
(17,984 posts)Amazing they achieved such profound changes that late in childhood!
BigmanPigman
(51,632 posts)will have a sad day with this news.
diane in sf
(3,919 posts)Vulnerable to vaccine toxicity. Saying all vaccines all the time are healthy for everyone is just as dumb as absolutely refusing all vaccines.
Major Nikon
(36,827 posts)So that's a bit of strawman rhetoric. Your first statement is speculation that's no more valid than what McCarthy et al are pushing.
Polybius
(15,491 posts)n/t
appalachiablue
(41,177 posts)Response to applegrove (Original post)
appalachiablue This message was self-deleted by its author.
karin_sj
(812 posts)I wonder if young adults could also be helped. There are so many out there that are on the spectrum. It sure would be wonderful if they could benefit from this too.