https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-024-01739-1?utm_source=klaviyo&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=%28Email%20-%20Chris%20Kresser%20General%20News%29%20Chris%27s%20Friday%20Favorites&utm_term=new%20study&utm_content=new%20study&_kx=ZpXBDTeEF9QJhwDqQXXrImrT_HpFsBz1ZlYMbsx_Vq0.my75y6

With children going back to school this week, I was reminded of this article I first read earlier in the summer. Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) makeup and increasing percentage of our school population, with some debate about the real increasing incidence versus better diagnosis inflating the ranks.

Equally the subject of vigorous debate, is the cause of autism. Or more accurately, the causes, since it appears to be a multifactorial trigger that may be different in various affected individual.

This particular article focused on assessing the microbiome of neuro- typical children versus children with ASD. The integrative health community has long argued that neuro- divergent children almost always will exhibit significant functional G.I. markers abnormalities, which are likely the source of some retrograde brain functioning alteration. That same community has also argued that neuro- divergent children can see improvement in their brain functioning if we can improve their microbiota. This particular research article did not address that question, but clearly confirmed with advanced diagnostic techniques that is the children do indeed have some substantially and statistically significant differences in their digestive ecology. However it's pretty safe to operate on the hypothesis that G.I. intervention that will improve microbiota composition will indeed have a secondary positive effect on the function of the central nervous system. It's especially exciting for chiropractors in the integrative health community, since chiropractic adjustments alone have been shown to improve gut -brain axis signaling, further enhancing the effectiveness of any nutritional intervention.