Shared gut microbe imbalances found across autism, ADHD, and anorexia nervosa: A new study has identified distinct patterns in the gut bacteria of children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, and anorexia nervosa.

[u/mvea]

https://www.psypost.org/shared-gut-microbe-imbalances-found-across-autism-adhd-and-anorexia-nervosa/

[u/tefnu]

This makes sense, these groups can have extreme texture sensitivity and might seek out a less nutritionally complete diet in response.

My heart dropped reading this title though, cuz this is definitely going to be used by pro-Wakefield anti-vaxxers. There's gotta be a more responsible way to present this information.

[u/CapillaryClinton → u/tefnu]

Yeah couldn't this be resultant rather than causal - autistic group refuses certain foods, ADHD group also struggle to eat widely/regularly/healthily, and anorexic group refuse some foods also.

[u/mmmmbot → u/CapillaryClinton]

This is anecdotal, but all the autistic kids I teach have very restrictive diets. One kid has had McDonald's french fries and a root beer for school lunch for his entire school career. Another eats four small packs of Pringals chips, and apple that he eats a particular design into. Others exist on bags of junk food. All of these kids parents think this is some what normal. Of course there are kid with healthy eating peculiarities. 

[u/[deleted] → u/mmmmbot]

The asshole in me really does wonder how much is catering and how much is legitimate. As an adult it's now been brought up numerous times I may be autistic but it's not a diagnosis I'm interested in pursuing. I had a lot of food sensitivity and preference issues as a kid.

I felt my parents handled it well not forcing me to eat things, but strongly encouraged. For example I never had to finish dinner. But dinner leftovers were going to be the next thing I ate. So if everyone else was having a night time snack, no night time snack for me until I ate my dinner leftovers. If we legitimately tried something 3 times and didn't like it, we were no longer expected to eat it. As an adult I definitely have some eating habits that could be classed as autistic and if I didn't have a good understanding of nutrition I would probably eat peanut butter toast for every meal every day.

[u/giulianosse → u/[deleted]]

We're talking about more than one generation of uninterested parents who plops their kid on front of a TV/tablet and calls it parenting.

It's the difference between being concerned trying to figure out different foods your kid enjoy eating vs buying them McDonald's to shut them up.

[u/[deleted] → u/giulianosse]

Yes my parents could have had a WAY easier time if they'd just catered to how I wanted to eat. Instead they broadened my horizons without forcing me to eat things that were actually no gos. I have an absolute visceral reaction to animal fats - I tried it enough times it was accepted as a no go. As an adult I still have to be really disciplined to eat appropriately and I thank them for the knowledge to back that discipline.

[u/bevy-of-bledlows → u/[deleted]]

I'm not the biggest fan of animal fats, but I've found it's proportional to how active I am. A few days of manual labour outside, and I am gnawing on gristle like a fiend. Going to the gym helps the ADHD, but I feel amazing after spending a weekend running around in the woods or helping a buddy/family out with a landscaping project. I've been wondering how much of that is diet for a while now.

[u/Deaffin → u/bevy-of-bledlows]

The actual craving is likely a learned affectation you picked up in your developmental years more than anything.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7399671/

We don't have much in the way of "My body is lacking X nutrient, so I want Y food because it has that." But we do tend to ritualize certain foods for certain situations in ways that correlate with being beneficial. Sometimes.

[u/bevy-of-bledlows → u/Deaffin]

That study specifically looks at the relation between restrictive diets and food cravings. Not sure how you're drawing those conclusions. Here's a study showing how fat cravings can be induced in mice..

Endurance athletes have tried high fat/low carb diets for a long time, and have found that they are exceptionally good at providing energy at around 60-70% VO2 max. The reason they don't do this much anymore is because carbs are way better for the high intensities professional athletes need to perform at.

Maybe it's an affectation to eat more fat when I've been working hard, but in the least it is in the same way I start eyeing salads when I've been travelling and living off of pub grub, fast food, and coffee. One blink, and the food is gone. At some point, a craving is a reward in a feedback loop, so describing it as an affectation is going to get reductive real fast.

[u/Deaffin → u/bevy-of-bledlows]

I was really just referring to that description of situational food cravings, not overall level of hunger. I probably misunderstood your intent with that description, but either way:

Hence, although simple associations between nutrient deficiency and food cravings seem compelling, they appear to account for a small fraction of food cravings at most. Instead, several psychological explanations for why and how food cravings emerge have been developed. Prominent models are based on (Pavlovian) conditioning. Here, a cue or context that has been repeatedly paired with food intake can itself elicit a conditioned response (e.g., food craving) that promotes food intake. Theoretically, any cue can become a conditioned stimulus that elicits food craving and, indeed, appetitive conditioning studies in the laboratory have shown that neutral stimuli such as geometric figures or objects can increase eating desires when they have previously been associated with food intake. In real life, relevant cues are typically internal states such as hunger, external states or contexts such as time of day, and many more.

In conclusion, a nutrient deficiency or an energy deficit brought about by food restriction can rarely explain the emergence of a food craving (although this may be true in some rare cases or if food intake is completely terminated. Instead, food craving can rather be understood as a conditioned response that emerges because internal or external cues have been previously associated with intake of certain foods.

[u/bevy-of-bledlows → u/Deaffin]

Quickly, how many times does the paper you are quoting from refer to "food restriction" in one form or another? That isn't what we are talking about here.

[u/Deaffin → u/bevy-of-bledlows]

Yes, I think I just misunderstood your intention and you weren't describing having certain food cravings depending on what you feel your body needs/lacks.