The Brain-Gut Connection and the Autistic Spectrum Disorder

The autism spectrum disorder (ASD) occurs in one out of every 68 individuals and can affect any child regardless of sex, race or socioeconomic status. This study enrolled all patients with the diagnosis of ASD attended the Unit of Gastroenterology, Food Allergy and Autism at the Unigranrio University. All of these patients were investigated for food allergy (FA). The gastrointestinal tract of patients with ASD has been extensively studied in recent decades and reveals indistinguishable findings from those found in FA. It is observed that autism often establishes itself as a disease in patients with adequate psychomotor development and without previous neurological conditions, but with FA preceding the neurological deficits. We hypothesized that FA is one of the foregoing factors in patients who develop ASD, if they suffer from inflammation of the central nervous system (CNS). This inflammatory injury may turn neurons the target organ or the FA homing site, once the brain-gut connection is established by different mechanisms.