Last month, a review paper[i] came out on the implications of the disruption of the bacterial microbiome in autism. I was hoping to find something new in it and was not disappointed. A few highlights. As the bacterial microbiota are crucial for the production of many important vitamins, they “…can exert an important influence over … More Autism and the Early Bacterial Microbiome
For those of you who made it through my mammoth post of last week, re: d-lactate acidosis…well done! (For those of you who skipped it, you’re going to fail the pop quiz.) I have spent even more time on this, looking more into studies that have been done regarding treatment. There’s not a whole lot … More A Follow Up: Treating D-lactate Acidosis
Because I know how to have fun, I have spent hours and hours over the last 2 days reading about d- lactate acidosis. I’m not even sure why. It was one of those things, I guess, that suddenly struck me as interesting – and I felt I needed to understand it better. It turns out … More D-lactate Acidosis, SIBO, Autism, Chronic Fatigue or…What Happens When Judy Can’t Stop Reading
Almost daily, I read some kind of research supporting the benefits of prebiotics. (I cover this topic regularly: for example, here and here.) Yesterday morning, I was extremely glad to learn that an actual study was recently done on children with autism.[i] It’s always exciting for me to find actual in vivo autism studies…especially when … More Prebiotics in Autism: A Positive Study
A simple study for today’s post but also, a really, really, REALLY important one. Researchers at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia did a meta-analysis, covering 6,851 patients, looking at whether or not giving a multi-strain probiotic reduces the incidence of Clostridia difficile infection (C.diff) in adults and children taking antibiotics.[i] I wrote about this hellish … More
Late last week, there was a little review of the evils of antibiotic use in pregnant woman and babies in the Australian version of The Conversation.[i] An incredible statistic: apparently half of Australian infants get at least one round of antibiotics by their first birthday – one of the highest rates in the world. Most … More Some Remarkable Antibiotic Facts
Today is a throw-back-Thursday. I pulled out my overstuffed, supersized binder of great research articles I’ve collected over the years and arbitrarily flipped to one to write about. It dates from 2011, and in this analysis of gut bacteria in children with regressive autism versus controls, the researcher found high levels of Desulfovibrio.[i] (He also … More Autism and Desulfovibrio Bacteria: A Throw Back Thursday Gem
On an ordinary day, one of my posts on Facebook may reach 200 people. A couple of weeks ago though, I noticed that one reached well over 1000. It was regarding recent research out of Harvard, published in the journal, Nature, about the role of gut bacteria in multiple sclerosis.[i] My original post was of … More Gut Bacteria and Neurological Disorders: Uncovering the Exact Mechanism
This was a WOW for me. An international team of researchers have discovered that, in mice at least, immune cells in the brain react differently to changes in gut bacteria…and on whether or not they are fetuses or adults.[i] The absence of a maternal microbiome dramatically affects the microglia (the immune cells) of the brain … More Boys, Girls, Gut Bacteria..and Inflammation
There have been multiple articles this week looking at the relationship of our microbes to mood. I thought this research out of Oxford University[i] was particularly interesting in that, it looked at that relationship from an evolutionary point-of-view. It’s accepted as fact now that our bacterial microbiome has tremendous effect on directing our social behavior, … More The Gut, the Brain and Mood
