The Microbiome & Autism Series By Teresa Conrick: Part 1 The Epicenter?Note: We have a rich treasure trove of posts from all of our contributing editors, published over the last seven years. During the month of December, well be sharing an assortment of posts and series, starting with Teresa Conricks Microbioeme series. We invite you to use the pull down menus to read material thats new to you, but previously publishesd. Happy reading.By Teresa ConrickSince 1938, autism has moved from a blip on the radar screen to a full-force tsunami today. Those first eleven children identified by psychiatrist, Dr. Leo Kanner, all exhibited the now infamous triad of behaviors:1. Qualitative impairment in social interaction2. Qualitative impairments in communication3. Restricted repetitive and stereotyped patterns of behavior, interests and activitiesSadly, there is not enough reporting of the MEDICAL patterns that Kanner briefly described.Dan Olmsted was the trailblazer on the connection of toxic exposure in those families, with his UPI series posted on our homepage. Then he and Mark Blaxill went back and forth in history to seal the deal on specifically, MERCURY and its insidious relationship with autism. Andrew Wakefield has been researching and publishing for over ten years on the gut-brain connection in autism. My gratitude to each of them for their continual investigations.Leo Kanner wrote these descriptions of those first-ever, diagnosed children but he did not see the obvious: Eating, the report said, has always been a problem with him.” large and ragged tonsils. Following smallpox vaccination at 12 months, he had an attack of diarrhea and fever Large tonsils and adenoids He vomited a great deal during his first year, She quit taking any kind of nourishment at 3 months. She was tube-fed five times daily up to 1 year of age. He vomited all food from birth through the third month. His tonsils were removed when he was 3 years old. He vomited all food from birth through the third month. He suffered from repeated colds and otitis media, which necessitated bilateral myringotomy Because of a febrile illness at 13 months, her increasing difficulties were interpreted as possiblepostencephalitic behavior disorder. He had been kept in bed often because of colds, bronchitis, chickenpox, streptococcus infection, impetigoKanner missed the pattern of GI issues and INFECTION. These two medical problems have continued to be prevalent in many if not most of the children being diagnosed today. Instead, he did the Freudian spin:Food is the earliest intrusion that is brought to the child from the outside. David Levy observed that affect-hungry children, when placed in foster homes where they are well treated, at first demand excessive quantities of food. Hilde Bruch, in her studies of obese children, found that overeating often resulted when affectionate offerings from the parents were lacking or considered unsatisfactory.Our patients, reversely, anxious to keep the outside world away, indicated this by the refusal of food. Donald, Paul (vomited a great deal during the first year), Barbara (had to be tube-fed until 1 year of age), Herbert, Alfred, and John presented severe feeding difficulty from the beginning of life.The children also seemed to have illnesses that may point to Streptococcus, as evidenced by infection of their tonsils, adenoids and ears. That seems to be the pattern still today, if not more.I continue to read more and more research that fits this pattern of infection leading to effects on the brain. Not enough commensal bacteria and too many pathogens can be the epicenter of inflammation, pain, and metabolic reactions that ultimately reach the brain:Researchers have long postulated that gut bacteria influence brain function In 2011 Mazmanian and colleagues reported that changes in gut microbial composition might have far-ranging effects that extend to the brain.8. “Genes and an environmental trigger are necessary but not sufficient for disease development. We knew there had to be a third key element,” says Alessio Fasano, chief of pediatric gastroenterology and nutrition at Mass General Hospital for Children in Boston. Fasano and colleagues hypothesize the answers lie with the health of the gut microbial ecosystem as a whole. Research suggests that short-term exposure to xenobiotics alters microbial physiology, community structure, and gene expression.What is a xenobiotic? -“a chemical compound (as a drug, pesticide, or carcinogen) that is foreign to a living organism. ”There is growing evidence that both environmental assaults AND vaccines can change the microbiome:. Colonization is a dynamic process of interactions among microbes and between microbes and the host and result in balanced bacterial ecosystems that benefit health. Perturbations of these interactive microbial structures (e.g., by environmental change or vacc