I think they were saying crohns and colitis are rare elsewhere

Based on the damage snails can do to my garden I’d enlist the help of knights to save my plants

I am very skeptical of anything that has to do with the microbiome since tech companies are going hard into research and trying to find anything that will get venture capital money. I just don’t trust that they aren’t cherry picking or messing with statistics and studies so they can find some of that sweet VC cash.

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I watched this a while back, a lot of the aspects of this doc rub me the wrong way. In the beginning he builds up this shadowy government organization that he has never heard of commiting war crimes. He reveals it as JSOC and I immediately lost all respect for the journalist, any person remotely familair with the military let alone military journalists know what JSOC is. This tells me that from the start this guy was either grossly misinformed for a journalist or being actively disingenuous. In addition to this, many of his sources are directly from the Taliban which while its always good to take information from both sides, he does little to actually account for the motives of the people he is speaking to.

I would personally prefer different terminology than disorder myself. I do believe disorder makes it seem abnormal or aberrant. From all appearances, all forms of neurodivergence are just the expression of traits that change needs, the priorities of needs and the manner in which needs are satisfied coupled with a differing processing and perception.

I’m only out here advocating against using the term disease because that is the most harmful term. Once understanding and acceptance has increased enough, I’d still hope we can then overturn disorder. Perhaps syndrome would be fine?

Anyways, I do want some medical signifiers to the diagnosis, because neurodiverse individuals have broad needs that rarely get met by the system. So I still want it accepted as a medically protected state of being. Because it isn’t as simple as just treating us as the same as everyone. My needs are super different, and my priorities and goals are too.

It will be a long road, but egalitarian treatment will end up relying on acceptance, inclusion and having actual, real space in society for neurodiverse individuals designed around their needs rather than neurotypical needs. Among hundreds or thousands of other factors.

For now, just getting to the point where we all don’t have to mask so damn much and so strongly would be a good start.

It’s actually not the gut microbiome they believe is related to autism. I am not a scientist and I didn’t want to characterize their research by putting it into my own words.

Your idea that “if only we had” leads to people mourning their choices is odd to me. If scientists actually do discover a preventable cause for any disease or disorder, isn’t that a good thing so we can then change our behavior?

I am not pushing anything and I know even mentioning the word autism is tricky. I just thought the documentary was well done and presented legitimate research by well respected scientists. You seem to have an interest in this. I would like to know your opinion after you watch this.

Here is the bio of one of the scientists:

Martin J. Blaser holds the Henry Rutgers Chair of the Human Microbiome at Rutgers University, and serves as Director of the Center for Advanced Biotechnology and Medicine. Previously, he served as Chair of the Department of Medicine at New York University. A physician and microbiologist, Dr. Blaser has been studying the relationships we have with the human microbiome, the bacteria that live in us. Over the last 20 years, he has also been actively studying the relationship of the human microbiome with both health and important diseases including asthma, obesity, diabetes, and cancer. Dr. Blaser has been the advisor to many students, post-doctoral fellows, and faculty. He has served as President of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, Chair of the Board of Scientific Counselors of the National Cancer Institute, and Chair of the Advisory Board for Clinical Research of the NIH. He currently serves as Chair of the Presidential Advisory Council for Combatting Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria (PACCARB). He was elected to the National Academy of Medicine and the American Academy for Arts and Sciences. He has authored over 600 original scientific articles, holds 24 U.S. patents, and he also wrote Missing Microbes, a book targeted to general audiences, now translated into 20 languages.

Like I said, I wasn't arguing whether disease or disorder is correct, but rather saying that a genetic cause is absolutely not the defining factor between disease and disorder.

But it seems you refuse to read what I actually wrote and prefer to argue something else entirely.

The most common reason is because they are available. In particular, rich countries suffer from obesity.

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All of this is your subjective connotations.

For example, there are many types of disease and not all of them are communicable (eg. kidney disease).

ADHD - diet, sleep and excercise are considered a treatment or at least beneficial for some diseases (eg. Diabetes). So this is also a poor argument.

Disease diagnosis is not about "separating groups of humans with one having the advantage". It is about understanding what kind of support they need.

I don't see where the word "disease" causes any more harm than "disorder".

Assholes are going to asshole, regardless if the medical term used.

Autism “may” also be caused by overstimulation of the amygdala during infancy, causing that part of the brain to be oversized and develop faster than others.

Wakefield, who harmed the autistic community so badly and continues to harm them to this day with his misinformation, also used the word “may”. He, too, thought swelling in the gut “may” lead to autism.

The problem with the whole insinuation is the notion or idea that autism could have been prevented “if only we had…”. This leads to parents mourning their choices, treating the child differently and focusing on trying to cure them. Whether or not that is the documentaries intent, I’ve worked in the world of children with autism long enough to see the difference between parents who think their child’s behavior is somehow curable versus those with broad acceptance that this is just who their child was always going to be.

I believe you there IS a link between a neurodivergence in all forms and delicate gut health. Most people I know with neurodivergent traits have gut health issues, I have IBS myself, my partner does too. I’m ADHD, they are autistic. My issue is your title parses as “internal microbiome may be linked to the rise in…autism.”

I find this misleading because we have to determine first that autism actually IS on the rise, or if diagnostic ability has risen to the level to catch and diagnose cases effectively. Secondly, the sentence insinuates that internal microbiome is raising the number of autistic cases.

Because of this, and because most people are NOT experts in ASD and there is so much misinformation about it, I wanted to disclaim for those going in how this documentary may be trying to sell a point as very likely when the agreement in the field is that it is highly irresponsible to claim we are anywhere close to an understanding on the cause.

The documentary could be fine, but I wish you had made a separate sentence that stated “It also touches on the feedback links between ASD and gut health.” Then I wouldn’t have felt the need to warn people to have their guard up going in.

This has what to do with the variety I was commenting on?

We know the monks didn't do it out of boredom though.

It does. But disease implies a concerted effort to eradicate it or cure it. If my leg is diseased you either treat the cause of the disease or remove the leg before it causes damage to the rest of my body.

If someone has mad cow disease I need to be careful and possibly stay away from them.

A disorder absolutely is still a negative connotation. I have ADHD and I don’t feel disordered in my behavior at all. I do everything I need to do to be successful in society. People can tell I’m different and a little quirky, but I generally have far more positive interactions than negative ones.

I’d say from my view neurotypicals often engage in behavior patterns that are disordered in their goals at least as often as I am, and seem to seek out self destructive behavior patterns I would never engage in. But they are the dominant group, so I’m the one disordered.

I would definitely like a different term. I do not have any medical treatment for my ADHD and instead use diet, sleep, exercise and meditation to manage myself. So yes, I would prefer a new term besides disorder too, maybe syndrome.

My point is only that disease causes active harm in its use, it is a very bluntly negative, a 1/10 on the positivity scale. Disorder is a 4/10, it is negative, but does a softer, more implicit harm of separating groups of humans with one having the advantage and the other the disadvantage. It isn’t good, but I don’t wince hearing it.

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For sure. But why are people eating so much more than they used to? I haven't watched this video, but it does make sense that could be linked to gut health.

I 100% agree with you. Gregor Mendel studying beans and putting them into charts to track their qualities that closely? Sounds like a hyperfixation to me.

Alan Turing being able to work incredibly long hours on the wildly complex math behind the Turing machine cracking the enigma code?

I believe it has been a consistent genetic trait expressed throughout all human history. Much like my own diagnosis of ADHD. It’s just no one knew that it was a real difference in processing the world and just used designations like “odd” or “quirky”.

Neither the title nor the documentary is “misinformation.” The scientists theorize that the rise of allergies, obesity and autism “may” be linked to the loss of our microbiome and I clearly used the word “may”. They certainly don’t state it as a fact, nor did I in the title. They are researchers with Rutgers University, not Andrew Wakefield type quacks, and have studied this for decades and are respected in their fields and the doc is about their research and double blind studies. I am not sure how a hypothesis a scientist is testing is “misinformation.” And in the case of autism, it’s not the loss of our “gut” microbiome they believe to be the cause. How do you confidently state something is misinformation and you haven’t seen it? Just give it a watch.

Our vegetables have been bred for sweetness and shelf life. Their nutritional content is dropping all the time.

You didnt need a tone of brains to hunt and farm. Especially working as a group. That is most if human history. Diagnosing autism would have served no purpose in 99% of human history.

Yes some people blame themselves for like the treatment of their child or something they did or didn't do but proper education ends that

The thing is that you can and probably should also ask why people are eating more calories.

It's not classified as a disease it's classified as a disorder and if you'd like to see a really good explanation look elsewhere in this thread

But that wasn't the point. The argument was autism is not a disease because it is genetic.

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This is an incorrect argument, regardless of whether autism is classified as a disease or not, the cause is not relevant.