Does a gluten & dairy free diet help?

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My mother-in-law was telling me about a website where parents claimed that a gluten & dairy free diet had cured most of the symptoms of their autistic daughter (diagnosed at age of 2, and "fine" by the age of 4). I think MIL is thinking that this might help/cure my 8 yr old Asperger's son. The critics seem to say that the GFCF diet only has this sort of effect in low-functioning autistic children. My son is high-functioning, and main issues are to do with social skills and difficulties with changes in routine. I am skeptical that a GFCF diet would automatically give him all the social skills to function as an NT etc. If it would help then I would be prepared to try it, although it seems like it would be such a drama to cut gluten & dairy from his diet - he loves his food and would probably be cranky about it, and it would also be such a lot of work from a cooking point of view. Any advice or ideas?

I found it helped, but only because gluten (especially bread) gives me a stomach ache, which kind of distracts from giving people my full attention and concentrating in general. I don't know whether it is directly linked to better communication skills though and I really doubt it will 'cure' autism.

A Gluten and Dairy free diet will only help if these products have been found to be causing problems in the first place. And this diet will absolutely not cure autism. For a child who has been demonstrating sensitivity, to change the diet will release some of the burden of autism, in terms of hyper arousal to stimulation, irritable bowel, and craving allergies. As a person with Asperger's, I have found that eliminating these things from my diet have made me feel more calm and able to cope with my sensory issues. I am able to pay better attention to my surroundings. I am able to make better choices when not overwhelmed with coping with social interactions. If I were a child, there would be less meltdowns, rigidity, and hypersensitivity to sensory input. There's my 2 cents.

I had problems with mild allergies when I was a kid/teenager. There were certain foods I had to avoid at first, then gradually increase my intake of them on a sheduled diet that was designed to build an immunity. I remember how much that SUCKED! Nowadays food allergies aren't a problem except for bananas, which only give me trouble if I eat them every day for a week. My experience includes an understanding of how inconvenient, awkward, and personally costly it is to avoid certain foods even when there is a valid, medically recognized need to do so. In the absence of allergies, or lactose intolerance it seems like a waste for people to follow a diet for what is probably nothing more than a placebo effect. The personal costs of following arbitrary eating restrictions include possibly having to avoid favorite foods, not being able to just eat whatever is being served, and time and effort lost on having to make special meal arrangements.

Those sorts of claims don't make sense. The objective of gluten/casein free is not to cure Autism, no credible person claimed that. It may relive some symptoms that are connected to dietary problems. What tends to happen is people cherry pick the type of symptoms that happens to constitute a 'cure' to them. The reality is more likely they have ASD, and dietary problems aggravate or bring out certain symptoms. The incidence is probably quite variable. There is no reason to assume GF/CF will make any difference to a particular person.

I thought I'd give it a shot. I have been on it for a while. I do it because:

a) You eat fresh ingredients. Unless you are rich, you are going to have to cook much of it yourself. ASD or not this is going to be healthier and that will have an impact on mood.
b) So much food contains wheat/gluten, it is absolutely incredible. More often than not it is not necessary. People are being ripped off. Human physiology/and habits have changed from cave men through the dawn of agriculture to the present.
c) I'll try anything to try and reduce my cognitive problems, especially.
d) I found out it wasn't as restrictive as I thought it would be, especially if you can cook. I also like many the cuisines that tend to be naturally gluten free, such as South East Asian. And Casein free is not too difficult.

So far it is quite subtle. It is probably not enough to attribute it to any one thing. It might be just a normal fluctuation. I probably am heather, but with everything going on it is really difficult to notice things. I had already cut back on ‘junk’, I just continued with the many produced consumables the people take for granted. It has been a real eye-opener. Seriously, people have no idea what they are eating most of the time. I'm not anti food science either, but it takes more skill to get a product down to minimum ingredients and healthy. Many ingredients are not there to improve the quality of the product; they are essentially filler ingredients, often these ingredients then need extra stabilisers.

One problem is eating out. Basically I assumed it just wasn't possible. Somebody told me that some popular chain restaurants did it in the US. I'm quite sceptical about a restaurant ability to deliver this in a mixed kitchen, let alone a chain restaurant. It takes some dedication to do it at home. E.g. if you're sharing a toaster...well you can't. I don't trust people not involved in the diet to know or care enough. Recently I had to go out on my birthday—to appease my family. I found there was some restaurants with gluten free, and was looking specifically for it to be marked on the menu. I did one better: I found a restaurant that not only has had gluten free options on their menu for a while; it was participating in the Celiac Awareness Week and had a gluten free set menu. So I thought what the hell, let's go. Well, I can't say they made a good start. I picked a starter and main from the set menu. Starter came with some crusty bread on the side. It was obvious it was not gluten free, but I asked nonetheless. By this point another waitress was already rushing to the table. She asked if I wanted the bread, and could she take it. It was like they wanted to remove it, but in such a way that would not draw attention to the gaff, even though it was blindingly obvious (on Celiac Awareness Week no less). To be honest, I found it all too amusing to be annoyed (luckily they got me on a good day). That was mussels, main was risotto I asked them not to use diary and they were fine with that. Dessert was limited because all but one contained diary, I suppose this is to be expected with Italian desserts. Overall I thought it was quite good food. Hopefully they will improve the training. In my view if you are going to eat out don't go to a chain restaurant, and try to find a restaurant that appears to be serious about making provisions not just trying to tap into another niche.

It will help you take a dump.

I have NO known allergies, but HERE is what I found personally.....

Limiting milk makes NO difference, with me...

Limiting Gluten was almost like taking a stimulant! I lost weight, AND felt better. Did it make me normal? NOPE! But it DID make me better overall. I only wish some JERKS didn't put me in a situation where I capitulated.

I think Hartzospace summarized it really well. Many have found they simply feel better eliminating either gluton, dairy, or both, and when you feel better, you have less to deal with, and are less likely to fall into the negative ruts.

We're trying to slowly cut back on gluton with my son, although it's not so easy for us, because he loves bread and pasta. It's not a "must do," just a "maybe you'll feel better, so let's see if we can get there." He now takes a salad to school for lunch, for example. I am noticing less horrible smelling gas coming out of him so in my book these tiny steps are good, lol. Just FYI, I'm hearing that quite a few Aspies have had success just with cutting out gluton, and have no issues with cassein, so for simple convenience it might be worth splitting the two and trying to cut out just one.

Since your son is 8, I think he should be involved in any such decision. My son and I are talking about this together. He's actually more on board than I am, lol, because he doesn't have to do the special cooking if we're going to run full throttle. Basically, what we discussed was that some "kids like him" felt healthier and more clear headed when they changed the way they ate. I actually first brought it up one day when he just couldn't sit down for his homework. He asked a ton of questions and bought into the idea. The thing is, changing diet can never be construed as changing who one is. It's not like taking medicine. It's natural. And my son hates the way his mind races at times, so if he can change that, he'll be happy. As long as his creative ideas continue to flow the way they always do.

And it isn't a huge leap for us to consider that my son could have some issues with diet. He has to take medicine for constipation (we had no idea one could be constipated while pooping daily, but it turns out he was) and there is that gas issue I mentioned earlier ... So, clearly, SOMETHING isn't going through him right. Even if finding out what that is will never make a bit of difference on how clear headed he is, it WILL make him healthier, and that is a worthy goal by itself.

As for those "totally changed" stories. Well, I have to wonder if those kids were ever autistic, as in underlying brain wiring, in the first place. Could they just have developed symptoms that presented as autism? Or maybe they were Aspies who appeared low functioning, but should have been high functioning, of the sort that appears perfectly normal at pre-K (as my son did)? All I know is that I don't think anything has been "cured" beyond a food sensitivity issue. But, as we are starting to learn, food sensitivity issues actually can affect us in huge ways we never considered possible. I think it would be productive to spend more time on that, actually, and develop tests to more accurately find out who is sensitive to what.

Cutting out gluten has made the brain fog go away which allows me to think nore clearly. If you thought I could hyper-focus then you should see what I can do now. Having a clear head doesn't make the AS go away or cure it but it does allow me to function properly.

Thanks for your comments everyone - very helpful. My son does suffer from constipation and bad gas every now and then so the comments relating to that were interesting . . . which made me wonder what the main symptoms are of gluten intolerance? I thought it was mainly a sore stomach - in fact, I asked my son yesterday if he often had a sore stomach and he said "no". The variety of comments also got me thinking that maybe reducing gluten may help (eg. someone said they give their child a salad for lunch) rather than totally having to eliminate it?