A young boy's autism symptoms unexpectedly improved after being treated with antibiotics for strep throat prompted an investigation into a link between the condition and the microbiome.
John Rodakis, the parent of the child, is a medical venture capitalist with a background in molecular biology, N of One: Autism Research Foundation reported. Rodakis started to review medical literature after his son's miraculous improvement and came across a study from 1999 at Chicago Rush Children's Hospital that documented the phenomenon in other children. After speaking with other parents of children with autism and clinicians, he discovered these types of improvements were shockingly common, but had been scarcely studied.
"I was determined to understand what was happening in the hope of helping both my son and millions of other children with autism," Rodakis said.
Rodakis started a collaboration with Richard Frye, head of the Autism Research Program at Arkansas Children's Hospital Research Institute, and colleagues to hold a scientific conference on the subject and potentially conduct a research trial on the connection between autism and the microbiome (microbes living in the body).
"Careful parental observations can be crucial. In science we take these observations, put them through the scientific method, and see what we find. This is what can lead to ground breaking scientific discoveries and breakthroughs in the field," Frye said.
The findings backed up the 1999 study suggesting a "gut-brain" connection and recent research from Arizona State University that showed children with autism exhibit less bacterial diversity in their gut than children without the condition.
"Current research is demonstrating that gut bacteria play previously undiscovered roles in health and disease throughout medicine. The evidence is very strong that they also play a role in autism. It's my hope that by studying these antibiotic-responding children, we can learn more about the core biology of autism," Rodakis said.
In the recent paper, published in the scientific journal Microbial Ecology in Health and Disease, Rodakis argues the microbiome's role in autism is a promising area of study that is under-funded by the current major public and private organizations that fund autism research.
