Gastro-intestinal problems

maybe this could go under a section for common co-occurring conditions? along with apraxia, EDS, etc

Autism and gastrointestinal problems have been linked to each other in multiple studies. In this article, we aim to give a short overview of their findings.

Disclaimer: nobody knows if gastrointestinal problems are a symptom of autism, a common co-morbidity of autism, or even a cause of autism. The ongoing research is at least in part aimed at identifying how exactly autism and gastrointestinal problems are related. Note that at least some of the research that is done into autism has questionable ethics. This article is not meant to discuss those ethics. Please read the page on ethics of autism research to learn more. Please also note that some readers might be triggered by reading about ethically questionable research, and should take caution when reading this article.

Should we put some kind of trigger/content warning here?

To start things off, here are some claims with references. We should turn them into a proper "story" at some point.

• A study from 2013 compared biopsies taken from the guts from children diagnosed with [ASD] and gastrointestinal problems, to biopsies taken from patients with Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis, or no gastrointestinal problems ('histologically normal'). The aim of the study was to find out if there are genetic commonalities between the patients with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis, and the children with ASD. The study found that, while there was a significant overlap in the gene expressions of these groups, the ASD group also had distinctive features, which the authors of the study interpreted as evidence for the presence of an ASD-associated variant of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).