Dysbiosis of Gut Fungal Microbiota in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders.
Children with autism carry a different gut fungal fingerprint—more bread yeast, less mold—that fits the wider picture of microbiome imbalance.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Zou et al. (2021) compared stool samples from kids with autism and neurotypical kids.
They looked at fungal DNA to see which yeasts and molds lived in each group.
The study was done in China and used the same lab methods for every child.
What they found
Kids with ASD had more Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the yeast used in bread.
They also had less Aspergillus versicolor, a common environmental mold.
These fungal shifts add a new layer to the gut-difference story.
How this fits with other research
Xie et al. (2022) and Zou et al. (2020) saw similar patterns, but they tracked bacteria instead of fungi.
Together the papers show the whole gut microbiome—bacteria plus fungi—is shifted in ASD.
Kaiser et al. (2022) found children with ASD get inflammatory bowel disease more often.
The fungal changes here might help explain that gut-inflammation link.
Fujishiro et al. (2023) extended the idea to preterm-born kids, showing microbiome markers hold up even in that smaller group.
Why it matters
You can’t fix behavior by killing yeast, but gut clues give you early warning signs.
If a client has chronic stomach pain or odd stools, consider a gastro referral.
Tracking fungal markers may one day join bacterial tests as part of a full gut panel.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
In this study, we tested the feces of children with ASD and those of healthy children, and the overall changing of the gut fungal community was observed in ASD children compared with controls. However, there were no abundant fungi populations showed significant variations between the ASD and Control group both at phylum and class level. Among the 507 genera identified, Saccharomyces and Aspergillus showed significant differences between ASD (59.07%) and Control (40.36%), indicating that they may be involved in the abnormal gut fungal community structure of ASD. When analyzed at the species level, a decreased abundance in Aspergillus versicolor was observed while Saccharomyces cerevisiae was increased in children with ASD relative to controls. Overall, this study characterized the fungal microbiota profile of children with ASD and identified potential diagnostic species closely related to the immune response in ASD.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2021 · doi:10.4161/gmic.19344