Fecal transplants result in massive long-term reduction in autism symptoms

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Winston

Winston

Lorenzo von Matterhorn
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INCREDIBLE. Why did it take so long to realize the apparently incredible importance of the gut microbiome to human health?

Fecal transplants result in massive long-term reduction in autism symptoms
12 Apr 2019

https://newatlas.com/fecal-transplants-autism-symptoms-reduction/59278/
Excerpt:

Scientific research continues to uncover interesting connections between the gut microbiome and human health, including everything from depression to PTSD to autoimmune disease. Another example of this are the emerging ties between gut health and autism, with an exciting new study demonstrating how boosting microbial diversity via fecal transplants can dramatically reduce its symptoms in the long term.

Now, two years after the treatment, the researchers have found that not only did the benefits persist, they seem to have continued to improve. Doctors observations at the eight-week mark found that psychological autism symptoms of the patients had decreased by 24 percent. Now, they've almost been cut in half, with a professional evaluator finding a decrease of 45 percent in autism symptoms compared to baseline.

Prior to the study, 83 percent of participants had "severe" autism. Now, only 17 percent are rated as severe, 39 percent as mild or moderate, and incredibly, 44 percent are below the cut-off for mild ASD.

"We are finding a very strong connection between the microbes that live in our intestines and signals that travel to the brain," says Krajmalnik-Brown.
 
This is garbage science.

Of 18 kids with both behavioral and digestive issues, when they got older and didn't have digestive issues anymore some of their behaviors were modified.
 
All I want to know is ... what is a "fecal transplant?" It can't mean what it sounds like ... can it?
 
Bat-mite said:
All I want to know is ... what is a "fecal transplant?" It can't mean what it sounds like ... can it?
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It means EXACTLY what you think it means (there are several methods of administration ranging from unpleasant to please erase my memory of this). I won't say anything about the linked article, but it is a treatment for some nasty recurrent c. diff infections. I believe I recall at least one double-blind placebo controlled trial being stopped early by the unblinded safety monitoring board because it worked so well that it would have been unethical to continue with a placebo group.

Fecal Transplant "beating" Vancomycin in a head-to-head (joke withheld) recurrent c diff trial:
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1205037
That is admittedly a small trial, but it was well designed and implemented, so the results are striking (at least to me). If anyone made a small molecule that effective the path to FDA approval would be really straight-forward.

I first heard about this technique at an Inflammation Research Association conference in 2012. Nothing like a pre-lunch session on Ulcerative Colitis, IBD and Crohn's Disease complete with endoscopy pics to keep you under your per diem. The speaker nearly killed me with the out of nowhere statement "We're having amazing results with fecal transplant" right as I took a drink. Picture a person (me) spraying water and exploding in self drowning coughing in the middle of a ballroom filled with several hundred PhDs and MDs...good times.
 
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Wow, the treatment is definitely not dinner table fare, but the results are amazing. I guess they'd better be, that's about the only way that someone could be persuaded to try the treatment.

Jim
 
I've heard its used post intestinal infection to repopulate with beneficial microbes. Major difference in the ability to retain nutrients. I had no idea it would have any impact on other aspects. Simply amazing.
 
As usual, XKCD has a relevant comic. Also, many people (myself included) get really weird if they have a blood sugar crash. If kids have a digestive disorder, I could definitely imagine them being hangry all the time, exacerbating autism symptoms. Fixing digestion issues could very plausibly make make them far more functional human beings.
 
boatgeek said:
As usual, XKCD has a relevant comic. Also, many people (myself included) get really weird if they have a blood sugar crash. If kids have a digestive disorder, I could definitely imagine them being hangry all the time, exacerbating autism symptoms. Fixing digestion issues could very plausibly make make them far more functional human beings.
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Keep track of your blood sugar and don't crash!!! I have a childhood friend who is now my brother-in-law that is type-1 that is now blind due to not keeping track of his blood sugar. Like white cane, seeing dog blind.

Thus ends my lecture for the day.
 
heada said:
Keep track of your blood sugar and don't crash!!! I have a childhood friend who is now my brother-in-law that is type-1 that is now blind due to not keeping track of his blood sugar. Like white cane, seeing dog blind.

Thus ends my lecture for the day.
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I am type 1 for 52 years and doing very well. Always sad for me to hear about people who don't take care of themselves. :(
 
We went to Australia a few years ago and I if I recall I think they told us that they discovered fecal transplants are essential to the survivability of orphaned koalas. As you said, the gut bacteria is very beneficial and orphaned baby koalas don't get what they need from manmade foods.
 
heada said:
Keep track of your blood sugar and don't crash!!! I have a childhood friend who is now my brother-in-law that is type-1 that is now blind due to not keeping track of his blood sugar. Like white cane, seeing dog blind.

Thus ends my lecture for the day.
Click to expand...

Thank you for the lecture--I appreciate people looking out for me. I don't know if it matters, but I'm not diabetic, I'm just a skinny guy with a fast metabolism. By crashes, I meant enough to affect emotional stability, but not on the same scale as diabetes. Since that grade of crash is enough to make me not be the person I want to be, I keep tabs on it fairly well. I had to manage it most when I was riding my bike to work, bringing two lunches plus two decent snacks to keep up with the extra 1500 calories burned in the day.
 
Understanding of the gut biome and applications of fecal transplants will be a huge, life-changing area of research in the coming years. Gut biome is being connected to an amazing variety of conditions, and fecal transplants have an incredible ability to repair damaged bug biomes.

There will be amazing announcements in this area. Watch for them.
 
Baby elephants eat their mothers droppings to get the bacteria needed to digest the coarse diet they eat.
I have never heard of an autistic elephant so it must work.
So it must be true.

M
 
That is just kinda crappy. Not gonna volunteer for that research project.
 
dhbarr said:
This is garbage science.

Of 18 kids with both behavioral and digestive issues, when they got older and didn't have digestive issues anymore some of their behaviors were modified.
Click to expand...
This was a study in the peer reviewed journal Nature, April 9, 2019:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-42183-0

"Here, we report on a follow-up with the same 18 participants two years after treatment was completed. Notably, most improvements in GI symptoms were maintained, and autism-related symptoms improved even more after the end of treatment."

"...we also would like to address a potential study limitation interpreting the improvement on GI symptoms after MTT, since these heterogeneous GI symptoms could reflect a wide range of underlying etiological GI pathologies. Although we reviewed medical histories to exclude children with known gastrointestinal diagnoses (such as ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s Disease, celiac disease, eosinophilic gastritis, or similar conditions)19, we did not conduct additional GI diagnostic evaluations, which is a limitation of this study. Thus, we want to underscore need of follow-up studies embracing more thorough examination of participants’ GI pathologies in order to better understand effectiveness of MTT."
 
I can't wait for my mom's probiotics and kombucha crowd friends to get all huffy about how probiotic related treatment (this fecal matter business) is only being medically recognized now that it's an expensive procedure that can be charged by the doctor instead of widely available probiotics they espouse
 
Nytrunner said:
I can't wait for my mom's probiotics and kombucha crowd friends to get all huffy about how probiotic related treatment (this fecal matter business) is only being medically recognized now that it's an expensive procedure that can be charged by the doctor instead of widely available probiotics they espouse
Click to expand...
If she does now, tell her to stop eating or drinking artificially sweetened anything:

Non-nutritive sweeteners possess a bacteriostatic effect and alter gut microbiota in mice
2018 Jul 5

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6033410/

That's just one of several studies and isn't the Israeli study on the same topic I read about. In that one, they took entirely normal lab mice. One set they fed artificial sweeteners (AS). The other, natural sugars (NS). The AS set developed insulin resistance (metabolic syndrome). The NS set did not. They used antibiotics to kill the gut bacteria in both sets after first extracting fecal samples from both. They then swapped the samples and implanted them. The metabolic sydrome previously experienced by the AS mice went away and did not reappear. The NS set developed metabolic syndrome.
 
Similarly, some people expose themselves to parasites (helminths) which thrive in feces rich soil as a treatment for autoimmune diseases such as MS, Crones Disease, etc.
One way they do so is by walking barefoot through the soil which is common in third world countries. Now helminths can be ordered via the Internet of course.
My wife has MS, but I don’t think either of us is ready to try this.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5401880/
 
My cat, who suffered from a condition known as IBD (inflammatory Bowel Disease) had 3 fecal transplants. I was very skeptical at first, and the first fecal transplant was slow to work. However, to my surprise it did eventually work. Unfortunately it was only a temporary fix and it didn't solve the underlying problem. After a few months he would regress and need another one, but he did respond quicker to the later transplant. Also even though it did fix his bowel movements, it did't cure his IBD and his IBD eventually progressed into small cell lymphoma. I lost him about a year ago. Anyway, in his case the fecal transplants did help, but only as a treatment for the symptoms of the disease.

This sounds like very extreme method of probiotic supplement.....
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That's the basic idea. My understanding is there are 2 methods. The method my Vet used was a tube inserted into the lower digestive tract and fecal matter from a donor cat they use specifically for this purpose was mixed with saline and injected. I believe there is another method that uses large capsules that are swallowed.


Usually, the donors are specially selected. They are closely monitored for any diseases or parasites. Often times they are owned by the vet or medical facility.
 
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Stefan2k4 said:
My cat, who suffered from a condition known as IBD (inflammatory Bowel Disease) had 3 fecal transplants. I was very skeptical at first, and the first fecal transplant was slow to work. However, to my surprise it did eventually work. Unfortunately it was only a temporary fix and it didn't solve the underlying problem. After a few months he would regress and need another one, but he did respond quicker to the later transplant. Also even though it did fix his bowel movements, it did't cure his IBD and his IBD eventually progressed into small cell lymphoma. I lost him about a year ago. Anyway, in his case the fecal transplants did help, but only as a treatment for the symptoms of the disease.


That's the basic idea. My understanding is there are 2 methods. The method my Vet used was a tube inserted into the lower digestive tract and fecal matter from a donor cat they use specifically for this purpose was mixed with saline and injected. I believe there is another method that uses large capsules that are swallowed.


Usually, the donors are specially selected. They are closely monitored for any diseases or parasites. Often times they are owned by the vet or medical facility.
Click to expand...
Bummer about the kitty. We know we'll outlive them, but it doesn't really make it any easier.

Jim
 

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