China Youth Daily Client News (Huang Linsheng, Li Lin, China Youth Daily, China Youth Network reporter Wang Yejie) Autism is receiving more and more public attention in recent years. The reporter learned from the Shanghai Tenth People's Hospital a few days ago that the hospital used fecal bacteria transplantation to treat more than 100 children with autism, and the effect began to appear.
Many people can't understand what can be the relationship between autism and fecal bacteria? Can treating the intestines improve autism symptoms?
Yang Rong is seeing a child. (Courtesy of Shanghai Tenth Hospital)
Autism is a pervasive developmental disorder that manifests itself in three core groups of symptoms, namely: social interaction disorders, communication disorders, narrow interests, and stereotyped repetitive behaviors. Yang Rong, deputy director of the Department of Pediatrics of Shanghai Tenth People's Hospital, told reporters that in clinical practice, it was found that autistic children are often accompanied by gastrointestinal symptoms such as constipation and diarrhea, food allergies and intolerance, microbiota imbalance, lack of certain nutrients, single diet structure, etc., "These all suggest that the occurrence of autism may be related to intestinal dysfunction." "In addition, children with autism begin to develop symptoms before the age of 1, and most of the onset is within the age of 3, coinciding with the developmental process of the baby's intestinal flora," suggesting that whether the intestinal microbiome can develop normally and mature and remain stable is directly related to the health of the baby. ”
After sequencing the feces of children with autism involved in the clinical research project, the Shanghai Tenth Hospital found that their microbiota structure was different from that of normal children. Feeding the stool of children with autism to mice can be found to gradually develop autism-related manifestations. Yang Rong believes that this further verifies that the imbalance of the intestinal flora may be the cause of autism, and the conclusions of the study are consistent with the relevant research results published in the past.
It is reported that the Department of Pediatrics of Shanghai Tenth Hospital and the Intestinal Microecology Diagnosis and Treatment Center have cooperated together to carry out more than 100 cases of autism in the early stage, and have carried out children's fecal bacteria transplantation and small intestinal fluid transplantation in the early stage, and it is also the medical center with the largest number of fecal bacteria transplantation treatment cases in Shanghai.
Experts compare flora data. (Courtesy of Shanghai Tenth Hospital)
Pre-transplant examination found that some children have brain MAGNETIC resonance imaging that shows abnormal brain function, that the structure of the intestinal flora is significantly different from that of normal children, and that most of them are accompanied by food allergies and intolerances. By adjusting the diet of the children, and carrying out fecal bacteria transplantation at the same time, after receiving four courses of treatment (each course of treatment for one month), the efficacy is observed, and the preliminary statistics can be effective for children with autism with gastrointestinal symptoms up to about 60%, and the effective rate of combined small intestinal fluid transplantation can be increased to more than 70%. According to parent feedback, the clinical manifestations of significant improvement are mainly concentrated in three aspects: improved sleep quality, normal defecation, and improved behavioral language.
Yang Rong introduced that at present, the treatment is still in the clinical research stage, and autistic children who do not have gastrointestinal symptoms have not yet had the follow-up results of fecal bacteria transplantation. Considering that the treatment of autism is a systematic project, a complete treatment system has been formed with the Pediatric Department of Shanghai Tenth Hospital as the center, including donor screening and full-time management personnel, fecal bacteria transplantation standardized bacteria liquid and capsule preparation team, fecal bacteria transplant treatment team, patient information management physicians, nutritionists, rehabilitation therapists, bioinformatics analysis technology teams, etc., and at the same time, combined with professional teams such as brain functional magnetic resonance imaging analysis, and continuously accumulating systematic clinical experience in diagnosis and treatment.
In order to further clarify whether the microbiota transplant treatment is really effective and exclude the placebo effect, at present, the Shanghai Tenth Hospital has launched a "multi-center, randomized, double-blind, controlled study of microbiota transplantation treatment for children with autism", and a total of 14 sub-centers (hospitals) in China will participate in the research and recruit volunteer families to join.
Source: China Youth Daily client