Can a urine test diagnose autism?
“A simple test that would revolutionise the diagnosis of autism is being developed by British scientists,” the Daily Mail reported. The test would need just a few drops of urine, and is based on the idea that people with autism have different bacteria in their guts from those without autism. This research compared the chemical profiles of urine samples from a small group of autistic children to those from their non-autistic brothers and sisters, and another group of unrelated non-autistic children. It did find that autistic children had differences in the levels of some chemicals, but those that were most different are not chemicals produced by gut bacteria. This is encouraging research, but it is too early to say whether it will develop into another diagnostic tool for autism. Importantly, it did not directly investigate the role of gut bacteria in autism, but looked at levels of chemicals in urine. Also, it is not possible to determine whether these differences indicate a cause or co
