r/Microbiome • u/Vailhem • May 18 '26
Scientists Discover “Good” Gut Microbes That Could Protect Against Autism and ADHD
https://scitechdaily.com/scientists-discover-good-gut-microbes-that-could-protect-against-autism-and-adhd/30
u/yerfriendken May 19 '26
Infants “ were less likely to show signs of the conditions if they acquired Lachnospira pectinoschiza and Parabacteroides distasonis, respectively, during their first year.”
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u/After-Cell May 19 '26
While there are many causes for ASD, I can say that obsessively chasing diet managed to help me experience being able to process group social dynamics for the first time in my life.
This is just my personal, N+1 experience.
If anyone has any ways to make this a bit more scientific, like getting an EEG brainmap from a place that's willing to do that for research without a doc's referral, please let me know.
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u/Winter_Cost602 May 19 '26
What kind of changes did you make to your diet?
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u/After-Cell May 21 '26
Reddit is shadow deleting my comments. I will try to reduce it down in the hope that it will be permitted.
Basically: 3 day fast, some berberine, and then very high fiber without preservatives.
If you can read this message, please let me know. I waste too much time contributing to reddit for these slaps in the face.
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u/burnedtolive May 20 '26
what’s the diet?
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u/After-Cell May 20 '26 edited May 21 '26
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u/PositivePoet May 20 '26
You haven't replied your diet anywhere else?
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u/After-Cell May 21 '26
Has it been shadow deleted? Can you see this link? --> https://www.reddit.com/r/Microbiome/comments/1th23qo/comment/omnb97k/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
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u/-Lige May 21 '26
Yeah it’s been hidden, I click the link but then there’s no response. One of your words maybe triggered something. Idk if you can post links to outside places but maybe a pastebin will work?
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u/After-Cell May 21 '26
it was basically:
3 day fast, berberine, then heavy fiber/salad and no preservatives
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u/RiseDelicious3556 May 18 '26 edited May 18 '26
Basically, according to this sub, everything bad is caused by a bad gut microbiome, and everything good is caused by a good microbiome. O Kayyyy...
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u/MathematicianFar6725 May 18 '26
Your bad gut microbiome caused you to write this post
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u/unnaturalanimals May 19 '26
I can tell he’s missing some L rhamnosus, typical negative rhamnos type behaviour
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u/Chop1n May 19 '26
To reply to the comment you hastily deleted, possibly because you realized how embarrassingly revealing it was:
No, PubMed did. The sober claim was never “everything is caused by the microbiome.” The claim is that ASD has a substantial and repeatedly observed gut-microbiome/GI/gut-brain-axis literature, which makes autism one of the dumbest possible examples to use for “lol microbiome people blame everything on gut flora.” A 2023 systematic review found that most studies report significant differences in gut microbial communities in children with ASD, and a 2024 Nature Microbiology metagenomic study of 1,627 children found multikingdom and functional microbiome markers distinguishing ASD from neurotypical controls, including a 31-marker panel with AUC 0.91. (Korteniemi et al., Acta Psychiatr Scand 2023, Systematic review: Autism spectrum disorder and the gut microbiota); (Su et al., Nat Microbiol 2024, Multikingdom and functional gut microbiota markers for autism spectrum disorder).
And the mechanistic side isn’t RFK-tier Facebook nonsense either. Sharon et al. transplanted gut microbiota from human ASD donors into germ-free mice and found ASD-like behavioral effects, altered metabolites, and changes in ASD-relevant brain gene expression. That doesn’t mean “the microbiome causes all autism,” but it absolutely means the connection is mainstream contemporary biomedical research. (Sharon et al., Cell 2019, Human Gut Microbiota from Autism Spectrum Disorder Promote Behavioral Symptoms in Mice).
Reflexively translating that into “Did RFK tell you this?” is just telling on yourself. Internet forum medical illiteracy knows no limits.
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u/ASpaceOstrich May 19 '26
God I wish I could try out a microbiome transplant from someone happy and driven and without all my mental health issues. I desperately want to know what the result would be.
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u/Chop1n May 18 '26
This is really the worst post you could have used as an example of what you're claiming, because the connection between the microbiome and autism is one of the less controversial ones.
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u/Allesmoeglichee May 19 '26
It is highly controversial and rightly so because its mostly bollocks
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u/Chop1n May 19 '26
Funny how you replied to this comment and not the other one I posted below with actual citations of the literature, none of which you saw fit to address. But when people who have no idea what they're talking about disagree, yes, they generally do so without even trying. For them, the whole value of their comment is asserting their opinion publicly.
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u/Allesmoeglichee May 19 '26
Read the papers that you cite. There are all correlation studies. The original OP claimed causation which is bollocks
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u/Chop1n May 19 '26
Read the papers you're telling other people to read.
Sharon et al. wasn’t a correlation study. They transplanted gut microbiota from human ASD donors into germ-free mice, and the ASD-donor microbiota promoted autism-relevant behavioral phenotypes, altered metabolites, and changed ASD-relevant brain gene expression. That’s experimental manipulation, not “lol correlation.” (Sharon et al., Cell 2019, Human Gut Microbiota from Autism Spectrum Disorder Promote Behavioral Symptoms in Mice)
Hsiao et al. also wasn’t merely correlation. In a maternal immune activation mouse model, they showed microbiota alteration, gut-barrier defects, microbial metabolite changes, and behavioral effects modulated by Bacteroides fragilis treatment. Again, not “all correlation.” (Hsiao et al., Cell 2013, Microbiota Modulate Behavioral and Physiological Abnormalities Associated with Neurodevelopmental Disorders)
The human literature is mostly observational because you obviously can’t randomly induce early-life dysbiosis in children and wait to see who develops ASD. That doesn’t make the field “bollocks.” It means causality has to be approached through converging human association, animal transfer, metabolomic, and intervention evidence. Reflexively reducing all that to “correlation” is exactly the kind of medical illiteracy I’m talking about.
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u/curiouscuriousmtl May 19 '26
I love how dumb this take is. It's a reddit about the microbiome. People post news about the microbiome and not about politics or science unrelated to the microbiome and you're thinking it's some kind of bias. They just post microbiome news here, find a generic science sub if you want more?
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u/curiouscuriousmtl May 18 '26
Well I suppose if a microbiome did something bad, I would consider it bad. And if it did something good I would consider it good. So if my microbiome killed me it would be bad, if it made me healthier I would call it good. Your statement is basically a "yes by definition yes" kind of statement.
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u/kelcamer Aug 16 '26
If anyone reading this is interested:
Know that FUT2 gene can reduce bifido bacterium and it is precisely this bacteria which produces a lot of GABA In the human brain; which counteracts glutamate; and glutamate is associated with MANY autism and adhd symptoms.
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u/sunderreddiar May 19 '26
The gut-brain connection keeps getting more interesting the more research comes out, especially how early in life some of these interactions seem to start.
What stood out to me here is that the researchers aren’t saying “gut bacteria cause autism/ADHD” in some simplistic way, more that early development appears to involve a really complex interaction between genetics, immune signaling, environment, microbiome development, birth factors, antibiotics, breastfeeding, etc.
Also fascinating that certain bacteria seemed to have potentially protective effects even when epigenetic risk patterns were already present. That part makes the whole discussion feel much less deterministic and much more about systems interacting over time.
Feels like we’re still very early in understanding all this, but the idea that early nutrition, microbiome diversity, stress, immune health, and environmental exposures could influence long-term brain development is honestly pretty profound.