Autism gut-brain study

Feeling inspired!! I received a wonderful email from a parent of two children who participated in the study this morning. These kids completed the study with post-study outcomes associated with improvement in gut, anxiety and behavioural symptoms. The parent told me that both kids, after a rocky start to the school term, had received awards only awarded to one student per grade per year. The parents are as proud as punch and give some credit to the study treatments for this achievement (given the improvements they noted). Of course, one example does not provide evidence that the study treatments are effective, we need to analysis the overall study outcomes and see what the data tells us!! But this is motivating and gives me the warm fuzzies!!😁

New research has found that changes in the gut bacterial composition is associated with changes in social withdrawal behaviours for autistic children. Also decreased diversity of gut bacteria was linked to worsening of inappropriate speech.
Link to article -

The Gut Microbiome in Autism: Study-Site Effects and Longitudinal Analysis of Behavior Change | mSystems Research relating gut microbiome composition to autism spectrum disorders (ASD) has produced inconsistent results, indicative of the disorder’s complexity and the need for more sophisticated experimental designs. We address this need by (i) comparing gut microbiome composition between individuals ...