Since I learned that my daughter is autistic, my interest in the subject has grown tremendously. I am always on the lookout for ongoing research — anything pointing toward a possible cure, or at least toward a better life for her.
One of the most difficult things I have had to cope with is the series of health challenges she has endured. Even if a cure for autism is never found, I would be one of the happiest mothers alive if there were simply a way to prevent some of those health problems, or make them rarer.
Autism is a serious health concern when you consider that 1 in 68 children in the United States lives with the condition. And yet I feel it still does not receive the attention it deserves. All the same, I commend the many researchers working hard to find a cause — and possibly a cure. It is through their tireless work that we now know autism has not only genetic causes but environmental ones as well.
Why Research Gut Bacteria at All?
It has long been established that children with ASD suffer far more gastrointestinal disturbance than children without the condition. The rates of constipation and diarrhoea in children with ASD can run as much as 3.5 times higher than in children not on the spectrum, while the rate of abdominal pain is about 2.5 times higher.
The rates of constipation and diarrhoea for children with ASD can run several times higher than for other children.
Several studies have shown that the intestinal microbiome — the community of organisms living in the intestine — of children with ASD is significantly different from that of children not on the spectrum. According to researchers, the manifestation of autism symptoms is associated with reduced amounts of particular bacteria in the gut: Coprococcus, Prevotella, and Veillonellaceae.
How the Study Worked
I never had the privilege of having my daughter tested for these bacteria, but the researchers behind this theory studied eighteen young people between the ages of 7 and 16. The experiment unfolded in careful stages:
- Clearing the old gut flora. The first phase aimed to reduce the bacteria colonising the participants' guts. They were given oral vancomycin — an antibiotic — for fourteen days.
- A full reset. On the fifteenth day, participants took MoviPrep, which cleared the bowel and gut of the remaining bacteria along with the antibiotic.
- Reseeding the good bacteria. Next, the children received a mixture of beneficial bacteria in milk, chocolate milk, or juice over two days. The bacteria were isolates taken from the stool of healthy individuals.
- Eight weeks of probiotics. The probiotic treatment — probiotics being live organisms with positive health effects on their host — then continued as a daily oral dose for eight weeks.
- Follow-up. The children were monitored for a further eight weeks after treatment to see whether the effects would last.
What the Researchers Found
The researchers found that of the 18 children with ASD, 16 showed up to a fifty percent improvement in constipation, diarrhoea and abdominal pain symptoms. The improvement was measured by their parents using the Gastrointestinal Symptom Rating Scale.
This spoke to me personally, because constipation, abdominal pain and diarrhoea usually arrive in pairs for children with autism — and I was always frightened and unsure how to cope when they did.
More striking still: improving the children's gut flora also produced a 20 to 25 percent improvement in autism behaviours — especially sleeping habits and social skills. One of the lead authors, Dae-Wook Kang of Arizona State University, described seeing a large increase in microbe diversity, and particularly in Prevotella — the very bacterium the team had previously found to be low in children on the spectrum (as reported by Invisiverse).
I also found that a similar experiment using mice in 2016 produced a positive result. The research has passed its phase 1 and phase 2 trials; if phase 3 also succeeds, it will be up to the FDA to decide whether it can be approved as a treatment for ASD. I truly hope it goes all the way — and gives my daughter, and many autistic children like her, a better life.
