Interventions targeting the gut microbiota and their possible effect on gastrointestinal and neurobehavioral symptoms in autism spectrum disorder.

This review looks at treatments that target gut bacteria in autistic children who often have stomach problems like constipation and diarrhea. Researchers found that changing gut bacteria through treatments like special transplants, probiotics, and dietary changes might help both stomach issues and autism symptoms. While early results look promising, more high-quality studies are needed to prove these treatments really work.

This comprehensive review examines interventions targeting gut microbiota in autism spectrum disorder (ASD), focusing on their effects on gastrointestinal and neurobehavioral symptoms. The authors evaluate multiple approaches including fecal microbiota transplant, microbiota transplant therapy (MTT), probiotics, prebiotics, synbiotics, antibiotics, antifungals, and dietary interventions. The review highlights that MTT shows particularly promising results for both GI symptoms and core autism symptoms, with beneficial effects appearing to be long-term. However, most current studies are open-label designs, and the authors emphasize the critical need for more rigorous double-blinded randomized controlled trials to establish definitive therapeutic efficacy.

Gut microbiota interventions show promise for treating both GI and neurobehavioral symptoms in ASD, but current evidence is primarily from open-label studies. Clinicians should await results from rigorous randomized controlled trials before implementing these interventions as standard practice. MTT appears most promising but requires further validation.

Most studies reviewed were open-label designs rather than rigorous controlled trials. The review acknowledges that more extensive double-blinded randomized controlled trials are needed to confirm therapeutic efficacy of microbiota interventions in ASD.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a developmental disorder that is characterized by deficits in social communication and restricted, repetitive, and stereotyped behaviors. In addition to neurobehavioral symptoms, children with ASD often have gastrointestinal symptoms (e.g. constipation, diarrhea, gas, abdominal pain, reflux). Several studies have proposed the role of gut microbiota and metabolic disorders in gastrointestinal symptoms and neurodevelopmental dysfunction in ASD patients; these results offer promising avenues for novel treatments of this disorder. Interventions targeting the gut microbiota - such as fecal microbiota transplant (FMT), microbiota transplant therapy (MTT), probiotics, prebiotics, synbiotics, antibiotics, antifungals, and diet - promise to improve gut health and can potentially improve neurological symptoms.

The modulation of the gut microbiota using MTT in ASD has shown beneficial and long-term effects on GI symptoms and core symptoms of autism. Also, the modulation of the gut microbiota to resemble that of typically developing individuals seems to be the most promising intervention. As most of the studies carried out with MTT are open-label studies, more extensive double-blinded randomized control trials are needed to confirm the efficacy of MTT as a therapeutic option for ASD. This review examines the current clinical research evidence for the use of interventions that target the microbiome - such as antibiotics, antifungals, probiotics/prebiotics, synbiotics, and MTT - and their effectiveness in changing the gut microbiota and improving gastrointestinal and neurobehavioral symptoms in ASD.