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World J Psychiatr. Sep 19, 2021; 11(9): 605-618
Published online Sep 19, 2021. doi: 10.5498/wjp.v11.i9.605
Gastrointestinal disease in children with autism spectrum disorders: Etiology or consequence?
Arthur Krigsman, Stephen J Walker
Arthur Krigsman, Pediatric Gastroenterology Resources of New York and Texas, Georgetown, TX 78628, United States
Stephen J Walker, Institute for Regenerative Medicine, Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, Winston Salem, NC 27157, United States
Author contributions: Krigsman A and Walker SJ contributed equally to this work; both authors have read and approve the final manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: No conflicts-of-interest to report.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Stephen J Walker, PhD, Professor, Institute for Regenerative Medicine, Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, Medical Center Blvd, Winston Salem, NC 27157, United States. swalker@wakehealth.edu
Received: June 2, 2021
Peer-review started: June 2, 2021
First decision: June 23, 2021
Revised: June 24, 2021
Accepted: August 12, 2021
Article in press: August 12, 2021
Published online: September 19, 2021
Core Tip

Core Tip: Children with autism spectrum disorder are at a significantly increased risk for chronic gastrointestinal issues from an early age. Clinicians and caregivers should be made aware of this association and provided with the tools necessary for recognition of gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms in these children. Because the first several years is a critical developmental window in the life of a child, and because of the demonstrated correlation between GI symptom severity and severity of autism spectrum disorder behaviors and cognition, it is plausible that a neurodevelopmental diagnosis may result from an untreated, persistent state of GI/immune dysregulation.