Do gut microbes have a role in autism itself?

Autistic people are more prone to certain gut problems – and a disrupted microbiome could be part of the reason

• Autism could be diagnosed with stool sample, scientists say

Wind the clock back 40 years and autism, at least officially, was a rare condition. According to case rates in the 1980s, only a handful of people in every 10,000 received a diagnosis. The picture today is radically different: better awareness and a broadening of the criteria mean autism is now common: 1% to 3% of people worldwide are now estimated to be on the autism spectrum.

History records some horrendous mistakes around the underlying causes of the condition. One of the earliest studies of autistic children remarked that many had “highly intelligent parents” and close relatives who were “limited in genuine interest in people”. The observation fuelled the false and deeply damaging idea that autism was caused by “refrigerator parents” – a coldness in the upbringing. Yet more harm followed in the 1990s when researchers claimed that the MMR vaccine caused autism. The work has since been vigorously demolished, but scores of children still suffered, or worse, as a result of being unvaccinated.

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