I've probably gone as far down the rabbit hole researching this topic as any lay person can, after running into some pretty major "not living up to my potential" issues in my 20s (I was assessed as not diagnosable as ADHD or ASD by a psychiatrist, but I still seemed to be affected by at least some of the symptoms related to those conditions).
I've been as willing as anybody to believe theories (long commonplace among alt-med communities) like "it's antibiotics", "it's candida yeast" (or insert any other bacterial/fungus/parasite/virus species you can point to), "it's the effect of vaccines on the microbiome", "it's due to microbial dysbiosis in utero".
And after nearly 20 years of researching/contemplating/experimenting, I just find myself thinking "there's no singular, simple explanation or solution". And really, nor should there be; the body is a highly complex system.
Microbiome matters – but there's plenty of stuff you can do to improve it. Metals (mercury, lead, etc) and other environmental toxins (PFAS and other endocrine disruptors [1]) matter – but they can be detoxified over time via some fairly safe and non-invasive techniques. Inflammation matters a lot – and all kinds of things to do with diet, allergens, microbiome influence that. Genetics matter – but probably less than we presume, once all the other factors are considered and addressed (and it's probably more a case of genetic expression in response to stressors, rather than anything hard-coded/deterministic).
A big perspective-shift for me was finding that emotions and trauma matter a huge amount. This is the least-researched and discussed, both in mainstream and the alt-med circles, but in my own experience, nothing has made a bigger difference to my life outcomes (including physiological symptoms like inflammation) than regularly practicing techniques that identify and release deeply-held emotional complexes.
It can seem like an implausible, fringe theory until you think about it this way: if a person is perpetually traumatised, they can be in a "fight/flight/freeze" state, which takes up much of the body's energy and resources, instead of that being directed to healthy immunity (dealing with harmful microbes and allergens), digestion, metabolism, detoxification, tissue repair/growth etc.
And just to confound things even further, having to deal with an unhealthy microbiome in utero or early life can be a cause of trauma (just as it can be in later life when an infection like Epstein Barr can lead to CFS/ME).
I know this all seems very nebulous and speculative; it's taken me a long time to get my head around, but my takeaway after all this time is that to correct these kinds of conditions, these factors all need to be addressed in parallel: emotions, microbiome, toxicity, diet/nutrition.
I'm quite sure there will be no complete understanding and remedy for conditions like ASD and ADHD that doesn't incorporate all these factors.
I've been as willing as anybody to believe theories (long commonplace among alt-med communities) like "it's antibiotics", "it's candida yeast" (or insert any other bacterial/fungus/parasite/virus species you can point to), "it's the effect of vaccines on the microbiome", "it's due to microbial dysbiosis in utero".
And after nearly 20 years of researching/contemplating/experimenting, I just find myself thinking "there's no singular, simple explanation or solution". And really, nor should there be; the body is a highly complex system.
Microbiome matters – but there's plenty of stuff you can do to improve it. Metals (mercury, lead, etc) and other environmental toxins (PFAS and other endocrine disruptors [1]) matter – but they can be detoxified over time via some fairly safe and non-invasive techniques. Inflammation matters a lot – and all kinds of things to do with diet, allergens, microbiome influence that. Genetics matter – but probably less than we presume, once all the other factors are considered and addressed (and it's probably more a case of genetic expression in response to stressors, rather than anything hard-coded/deterministic).
A big perspective-shift for me was finding that emotions and trauma matter a huge amount. This is the least-researched and discussed, both in mainstream and the alt-med circles, but in my own experience, nothing has made a bigger difference to my life outcomes (including physiological symptoms like inflammation) than regularly practicing techniques that identify and release deeply-held emotional complexes.
It can seem like an implausible, fringe theory until you think about it this way: if a person is perpetually traumatised, they can be in a "fight/flight/freeze" state, which takes up much of the body's energy and resources, instead of that being directed to healthy immunity (dealing with harmful microbes and allergens), digestion, metabolism, detoxification, tissue repair/growth etc.
And just to confound things even further, having to deal with an unhealthy microbiome in utero or early life can be a cause of trauma (just as it can be in later life when an infection like Epstein Barr can lead to CFS/ME).
I know this all seems very nebulous and speculative; it's taken me a long time to get my head around, but my takeaway after all this time is that to correct these kinds of conditions, these factors all need to be addressed in parallel: emotions, microbiome, toxicity, diet/nutrition.
I'm quite sure there will be no complete understanding and remedy for conditions like ASD and ADHD that doesn't incorporate all these factors.
[1] https://www.ewg.org/news-insights/news/2022/07/what-are-endo...