Comment by teslabox | Hacker News Reader

Comment by teslabox | Hacker News Reader

There is some good modern medicine, but the fixation on genes handicaps certain investigators.

> the heritability of ASD was estimated to be approximately 80%, indicating that the variation in ASD occurrence in the population is mostly owing to inherited genetic influences, with no support for contribution from maternal effects.

I think they’re trying to say “it’s not the mother’s fault the kid just has bad genes.”

In the real world there are non-genetic causes behind almost all of the symptomatic presentations of children medically-cursed with the diagnosis of “Autistic”. One group of researchers recently published a paper about the microbiome’s role in the condition [1]. My understanding is that less-desirable bacteria don’t synthesize vitamins and other useful substances (biotin, etc), and make more noxious endotoxins (that overwhelm the liver), than friendlier bacteria.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3564498/

The type of fiber in the diet has a significant influence on the type of bacteria in the intestines. If I had an Autistic kid, I’d try to feed him/her inulin from Jerusalem Artichokes (the food with more of this prebiotic fiber than any other), and avoid all the fake foods they sell in the grocery stores. Many thickeners (carageenan, carob bean gum, etc) are cosmetic food ingredients...

I’m not sure why you are dismissing the result of probably the widest study and stating that autism is the result of not eating the right food.

There is nothing in this study that is useful, it just confirms pre-existing theories that autism is all in the genes. I think those theories are wrong and harmful.

In the real world, autism develops. If the medical profession treated the diagnosis as something other than a chronic condition that a person is going to have for the rest of their life, they might figure out how to treat it.

so you're saying that this study isn't useful because it confirms pre-existing theories? Do you believe that it is wrong because of specific issues with the experimental design or implementation or because you ideological dislike the results?

I read something semi-recently where the author explained his interpretation of the microbiome findings as a part of a cascade: an initial stressor (every case is unique) -> cultivation of the autistic microbiome -> inability to relax -> symptoms. I'm not qualified to re-explain it in my own way, so please take this as my statement that I find an alternate explanation than 'bad genes' for all cases of ASD diagnosis to be more plausible.

While Genetics are good explanations for some things, using 'bad genes' as an explanation is frequently a distraction from a person's actual problems. See my reply to your other comment about the streetlight effect.

>There is some good modern medicine, but the fixation on genes handicaps certain investigators. This isn't medicine - this is science. This isn't the development of a treatment but an attempt to understand biology.

Genes are useful because they are far more fixed and they are far easier to measure than many other things that could be measured.

>"I think they’re trying to say “it’s not the mother’s fault the kid just has bad genes.”

They're saying non genetically inherited material, such as mRNA or proteins, from the mother was shown to have little impact in their study.

> In the real world there are non-genetic causes behind almost all of the symptomatic presentations of children medically-cursed with the diagnosis of “Autistic”.

The causal nature of any complex biological state such as ASD is almost always varied and emergent from many sources and attempting to understand them is useful. It is especially useful to look at genetics because it is (relatively) cheap to get a person's genetics and painless - whereas studying the microbiome is much more difficult and expensive. even the review paper you link to - which has precious little actual research on autism and the microbiome stating

>And in autism spectrum disorders (ASD), there are hints that the gut microbiome may play a role. Studies of fecal DNA extracts have found Clostridium or Desulfovibrio clusters over-represented in children with gastrointestinal complaints and ASD as compared to children with similar GI complaints but typical neuro-behavioral development32–34. Furthermore, clinical improvement has been reported anecdotally in children with ASD who develop fever35, receive oral antibiotics36, or ingest probiotics37, all of which are likely to alter the gut microflora. While these initial studies are promising, they suffer from small sample sizes, in part due to the laborious, conventional, culture-dependent techniques used to identify bacterial species

> Genes are useful because they are far more fixed and they are far easier to measure than many other things that could be measured. [...] It is especially useful to look at genetics because it is (relatively) cheap to get a person's genetics and painless - whereas studying the microbiome is much more difficult and expensive.

This reminds me of the joke about the drunk looking for his keys:

>> [...] Noam Chomsky has a characteristically dry and precise version of the story: “Science is a bit like the joke about the drunk who is looking under a lamppost for a key that he has lost on the other side of the street, because that’s where the light is. It has no other choice.”

>> So historians, mystics, scientists and drunks have something in common: they all tend to seek the truth where the process of seeking is easy, rather than where truth is.

- https://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2016/03/the-street...

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