Autistic girl dragged from home for unknown Food Sensitivities

JuniperFromGallifrey said:

Please be mindful when talking with "health" professionals who might not have bothered to stay up on the medical science around the different biology linked with Autism.

I think a bit of common sense is needed here - those professionals often have a workload far in excess of most of us and are making life affecting decisions on an hourly basis.

To expect them to keep up to date on just one small area around a condition affecting a small minority of people (approx 2% of people are autistic and only some will have the issues here) is more than a little unreasonable.

What would be useful is if an organisation like NAS could advocate to the NHS to have neurodivergent training created for the NHS and for groups where we attend to have a minumum number of people trained on this with an annual refresher.

JuniperFromGallifrey said:

I am trying to appeal to universities and charities. We need the NHS FULLY updated on the bio-science of Autism

Could you share what hard proof the research in this area has produced please? It would be useful to see the peer-reviewed articles that will be taken seriously by the medical community. Most of what I have read so far has only resulted in indications or is not peer reviewed so I would like to update my own knowledge.

It would take a while to compile, there's a lot of medical journals. While a search for gut microbiome +Autism can turn up a good deal, I'll pull some which link to dozens more and give an idea of how to further search. One has to overlook some of the wording in these, but the research on this specific issue is key. Some claim it's emerging while others have a good amount of evidence.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2225411022000281

https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/cellular-and-infection-microbiology/articles/10.3389/fcimb.2022.915701/full

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41575-023-00857-1

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0889159118300783

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8638778/

I could keep going... they're everywhere. 

However, "Divergent Training" should come second, as there is a growing disdain to someone getting 'special treatment' for being different. 

FIRST: Knowledge of the biological potentials and research in progress: gut-health issues, allergies, inflammation, gut microbiome - all these should be step one as it changes the entire perspective and therefore, bias. It changes how autistics are treated. Had this team known that potentially there is an issue with absorbing nutrients which cannot be easily communicated and is not intuitive, they wouldn't quarantine her and treat her like a criminal who's simply protesting 'food' for a psychosomatic reason. 

Sepsis is another often overlooked. 

By way of analogy, did you see the news today of a woman who died from "slapping therapy" ? She believed that she could cure her diabetes by coming off her medication and joining a cult where they slapped each other ... yes, seriously. Regular slapping does not cure diabetes - we now have the proof.

There is good research that links the gut biome to mental health - it appears to involve the vagus nerve and neurotransmitters. So there may be some relevance to some autistic behaviours. However, " correlation does not imply causality ".  I know an kid who lives almost entirely on chicken nuggets. This is not a healthy diet, and I bet his gut biome will be very different from his friend who eats green vegetables, cheese, yoghurt etc. - because the bugs come from what we eat.  I doubt very much that this lad's immune system is "programmed" to reject everything except chicken nuggets. The issue is at the other end of the vagus nerve, in his brain.

It would appear that the young lady who was "sectioned" had such a restricted diet that she was not getting adequate nutrition. It is not just a matter of losing weight - without essential vitamins and minerals the body ceases to work. Electrolytes go out of balance. The body cannot synthesise essential biochemicals. Eating disorders are a major cause of death. This applies whether or not the patient is autistic.

Ian said:

she was not getting adequate nutrition

Her mother reported she had been eating 3 x a day and then some. She was still losing weight. This tells me there is good enough reason to not just hand her a protein  'shake'. While a basic bloods was reported fine, it doesn't mean they properly tested. One has to know what to look for and request these tests. The science behind even gluten allergies is puzzling, but gut-biome tests exist. Thinking beyond a psychological issue and a basic Typical narcissism here is key, and they were involved enough it seems, to have looked a bit further. 

Of course our gut biome is going to be different. Vegetation and location changes what we need along with genetics.

I don't really even think we need to make a decision as to where the discreet lines of mental health begin and end. Even if we look at the bodies Inhibitors and Filtering, how much is too much? If I can filter out the smell of gas leaking in my home that's not healthy (I had a flat mate and a landlord who couldn't smell it, thankfully the technician I called could). And if I can acutely smell gas though the walls of my neighbour, well, that's produces a safer life. Yet, hyper-sensitivity to elements is treated as 'ill-health'. And in many cases, it is part and parcel with being more than under the weather.  We might agree that most things are best in a balance. 

The links I'd added above are just a few in a pool of many regarding Autism and a biological difference. And accordingly, I would go so far as to say Monotrpism in the very extreme is most likely the result of lower GABA. But gut health is also linked to hormonal balance among many other things.

Of course, back to the issue of too much filtering out unwanted noise as a learned mechanism and you have individuals as above, joining a cult instead of maintaining somatic balance! 

Ian said:

she was not getting adequate nutrition

Her mother reported she had been eating 3 x a day and then some. She was still losing weight. This tells me there is good enough reason to not just hand her a protein  'shake'. While a basic bloods was reported fine, it doesn't mean they properly tested. One has to know what to look for and request these tests. The science behind even gluten allergies is puzzling, but gut-biome tests exist. Thinking beyond a psychological issue and a basic Typical narcissism here is key, and they were involved enough it seems, to have looked a bit further. 

Of course our gut biome is going to be different. Vegetation and location changes what we need along with genetics.

I don't really even think we need to make a decision as to where the discreet lines of mental health begin and end. Even if we look at the bodies Inhibitors and Filtering, how much is too much? If I can filter out the smell of gas leaking in my home that's not healthy (I had a flat mate and a landlord who couldn't smell it, thankfully the technician I called could). And if I can acutely smell gas though the walls of my neighbour, well, that's produces a safer life. Yet, hyper-sensitivity to elements is treated as 'ill-health'. And in many cases, it is part and parcel with being more than under the weather.  We might agree that most things are best in a balance. 

The links I'd added above are just a few in a pool of many regarding Autism and a biological difference. And accordingly, I would go so far as to say Monotrpism in the very extreme is most likely the result of lower GABA. But gut health is also linked to hormonal balance among many other things.

Of course, back to the issue of too much filtering out unwanted noise as a learned mechanism and you have individuals as above, joining a cult instead of maintaining somatic balance!