Abstract
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a complex behavioral syndrome that is characterized by speech and language disorders, intellectual impairment, learning and motor dysfunctions. Several genetic and environmental factors are suspected to affect the ASD phenotype including air pollution, exposure to pesticides, maternal infections, inflammatory conditions, dietary factors or consumption of antibiotics during pregnancy. Many children with ASD shows abnormalities in gastrointestinal (GI) physiology, including increased intestinal permeability, overall microbiota alterations, and gut infection. Moreover, they are “picky eaters” and the existence of specific sensory patterns in ASD patients could represent one of the main aspects in hampering feeding. GI disorders are associated with an altered composition of the gut microbiota. Gut microbiome is able to communicate with brain activities through microbiota-derived signaling molecules, immune mediators, gut hormones as well as vagal and spinal afferent neurons. Since the diet induces changes in the intestinal microbiota and in the production of molecules, such as the SCFA, we wanted to investigate the role that nutritional intervention can have on GI microbiota composition and thus on its influence on behavior, GI symptoms and microbiota composition and report which are the beneficial effect on ASD conditions.
Highlights
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a complex behavioral syndrome that occurs before the third year of life and which affects several spheres of the normal mental development
The findings suggest that certain dietary habits may play a role in Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) development, even though further work is required to investigate causality and to determine if dietary manipulation could reverse the symptoms of ADHD, taking into consideration all potential factors [123]
ASD patients have high level of free amino acids (FAAs) [186], which are derived from hydrolysis of proteins and peptides, like glutamate that may be involved in the etiopathogenesis of neurodevelopmental disorders [187]
Summary
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a complex behavioral syndrome that occurs before the third year of life and which affects several spheres of the normal mental development. Food restriction, difficult eating behaviors and GI disorders were recorded among medical conditions associated to ASDs. children with ASD are very selective eaters (“picky eaters”) and most of them show aversions to specific food colors, texture, smells or other foods’ characteristics [26,27]. Many ASD children have been shown to carry abnormalities in GI physiology, including: increased intestinal permeability [34,35], overall microbiota alterations [36,37,38,39,40], and gut infection with cresol-producing Clostridium difficile [39,41,42,43,44].Recent evidences in human gut microbiota studies highlighted the existence of a close connection between gut and brain functions, the so called “gut-brain axis”, including neural, hormonal, immune, and metabolic pathways [45]. In this review we will highlight the emerging data about the relationship between gut microbiome, diet, GI symptoms and autism, and we will discuss nutritional criteria as intervention and strategy to ameliorate ASD symptoms
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