Find a therapist to help with autism

A recent article challenges the validity of gut-autism research.

It can be hard to pin down causality in the gut-brain axis, but it may not even be necessary.

Microbes may not cause autism, but they can affect mood and anxiety.

Studies show that it is possible to lower anxiety levels in autistic kids with diet and supplements.

“When you have exhausted all possibilities, remember this: you haven’t.” — Thomas A. Edison

“When you have exhausted all possibilities, remember this: you haven’t.” — Thomas A. Edison

As a writer and a scientist, I have to say: writing is a lot easier than sciencing. In science, if you recommend a drug that doesn’t work, people may die. In writing, the worst that can happen is that people die of boredom. Fortunately, they usually revive.

For such a nerdy field, science can be surprisingly cutthroat. Witness a recent article that says gut-autism research is so bad they might as well just throw in the towel.

The article from the journal Neuron argues that the gut-autism axis is a house of cards built on lousy studies with inconsistent data. They assert that the studies are contradictory and that too much emphasis is placed on dubious mouse models.

They may have a point.

It is notoriously challenging to nail down microbial causes of disease—it is hard enough to simply identify a normal microbiome. Moreover, many of these studies were done with mice, and what exactly is an autistic mouse?

One of their strongest critiques is that the studies have causality backward: Instead of microbes causing autism, they posit that........

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