Autism
Andrew Wakefield has proposed a condition called Autistic enterocolitis to describe a condition where bowel disorders can contribute to autism. However 10 of the 13 authors of the paper have since retracted its interpretations, and the British General Medical Council (GMC) has ruled that Wakefield suppressed and falsified data.
Parents have reported gastrointestinal (GI) disturbances in autistic children, and several studies have investigated possible associations between autism and the gut.The disputed Wakefield et al. paper also suggested that some bowel disorders may allow antigens to pass from food into the bloodstream and then to contribute to brain dysfunction.Although Wakefield later proposed the term autistic enterocolitis, his studies' methodology has been criticized, their results have not been replicated by other groups,and Wakefield has been accused of manipulating patient data and misreporting results.
There is no research evidence that autistic children are more likely to have GI symptoms than typical children.In particular, design flaws in studies of elimination diets mean that the currently available data are inadequate to guide treatment recommendations. A 2008 study found that children with autism had no more peptides in their urine than typical children, casting doubt on the proposed mechanism underlying the leaky-gut theory.
In another example, a 1998 study of three children with ASD treated with secretin infusion reported improved GI function and dramatic improvement in behavior, which suggested an association between GI and brain function in autistic children, although the low number of patients is statistically insignificant. After this study, many parents sought secretin treatment and a black market for the hormone developed quickly. However, later studies found secretin ineffective in treating autism.
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