Aspergers or Gluten Intolerance?

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I don't know of one offhand, but the obvious classes of ok food are fresh/unprocessed fruit, salad, and vegetables, also fresh/"unprocessed" meat, fish, cheese, and other dairy products, pulses, nuts, seeds, and drinks like tea, coffee, herbteas, fruit juices, wines, ( and other pure grape-based alcohols, plus pure non-grain-adulterated rum, I think ), fruit syrups, aswell as potatoes, pure corn and rice. There is plenty to eat without gluten in, so long as do not rely on processed/prepared foods.

As someone said gluten is added to a huge number of ready meals of various kinds. The sneakiest two in my opinion are "hydrolysed vegetable protein", in soups, snacks, etc, which is actually gluten, and the unmentioned gluten which is used as a sort of glue to stick flavourings and spices onto "flavoured" salted snacks. If you are particularly sensitive modified starch is a bad idea too, as it will have a gluten residue if it is wheat starch. Also need to use tamari rather than soya sauce, ( which contains wheat ), which can be a pain if love chinese takeaways! Be careful of "dustings" on certain dried fruit; some are just rice flour, but some are wheat.

Some otherwise ok foods often suffer from contamination as they are processed in the same factories as products containing gluten; chocolate can be, so need to find out which brands can tolerate, and so can oats, ( otherwise gluten-free ).

A gluten-free diet does not need to cost anymore money than a standard diet, but it can take a while to adjust, if are used to eating a lot of ready meals etc, and also because food intolerance often creates addiction/dependency on the very food which are sensitive to. However you don't need to be a great cook; many very simple meals are gluten-free. The biggest hurdles in my opinion are "eating out", ( though after a while you get to know where and what is ok, and I no longer find it difficult at all ), and the mindset you have to overcome, the food you were brought up to eat, from which it can seem as difficult to separate yourself as your own identity.

I eat potatoes, rice, and sometimes corn, to replace wheat. And have also found that eating less carbohydrate in general anyway has a very beneficial effect on my health.

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Is this quote directed at my post? If it is, would you please point out to me where I indicated that I thought a GF/CF diet would cure ASD? I don't personally believe it will. However, I know that I am lactose intolerant, if not allergic to dairy, and all 3 of my kids have a lot of allergies, and asthma. The one person that I would peg as having a gluten intolerance in my family would be my NT daughter.

A gluten free diet does cost more, but I'm not going to go into that since I think Dilbert covered that pretty well in his post.

The one thing that I'm noticing about that list of symptoms, with the exception of digestion issues, is that all of those things are also symptoms of diabetes. Carbs can cause someone with diabetes to have a really high blood sugar, which would cause all the things you listed. I'm not saying that your experience isn't genuine. I'm glad that you are feeling better. It's just that I wanted to add that as also a possible cause of that particular cluster of symptoms.

i have both Asperger's and gluten intolerance. Actually, I have the Non-Celiac Gluten intolerance, which is also very common. In Celiac it is an autoimmune response where the body makes anti-bodies against gluten and wheat. In my case I just have an intolerance, where my intestines do not have the enzyme that breaks down gluten, wheat. I also have fructose, MSG, and lactose intolerance, as well.
My Main Asperger's symptoms did not go away, but I am less moody, more focused, and I can think better. I also have no more diarrhea nor heartburn, anymore.
I spend a lot of money on food. I have to have practically a very strict diet. Here in my area of the United States, i tried buy gluten free/ wheat free foods, but they are so expensive. Even buying the ingredients would set me back twice as much as buying regular ingredients,like flour and the "bad" stuff. So, I just read the labels and avoid anything that says wheat,lactose and/or anything that I am intolerant of. As for Gluten, in the United States, the Food and Drug administration does not require food manufacturers to list gluten as an "allergen" on their allergen warning label section. I am not sure why, but my mom told me it is because gluten is in just about everything. So I went on the internet and found a site that list all ingredients that gluten is found.
Here it is:
www.babyandkidallergies.com

this site has a link that contains the list of ingredients that contain wheat and gluten. It is a great list so that you can look of these ingredients on the food labels. I hope this helps.
Babyandkidallergies

who posts about topics without references. According to the experts on gluten allergy, there are definite physical symptoms in MOST cases, but not all. Symptoms may be present but misdiagnosed. Behavioral issues may occur but autism is NOT a behavioral problem, but a neurological difference that manifests in some recognizable behaviors. The experts recommend that a gluten free diet NEVER be tried before being diagnosed with celiac disease. And this is done through a verified medical procedure, a blood test.
It is entirely possible that digestive issues and ASD's are related, co-occuring. But listen, people, if it were verified through research that gluten or casein allergies CAUSE autism, don't you think it would be the gold standard for treatment???? We all wish it were that simple.

Thanks ouinon, that's very helpful.

Fortunately, I was raised with freshly cooked food - my mother would be appalled at the sight of a ready meal or a microwaved one and I'm pretty much the same. I love to cook and this helps a lot.

From what you say, I've been "pretty much" gluten free for the last year and a half, as I don't eat anything that explicitly contains wheat. I wasn't sure about the cheese, potatoes and rice - good to hear they're ok. On the other hand I had no idea about the soya sauce and I use that quite often!

I just relocated and for the last month my diet went nuts, mainly due to eating out more often. I do feel worse, but I blamed this on stress. There were so many changes (and no, I don't deal that well with change ) it was hard to pinpoint exactly why I'm sort of messed up.

Alas, it seems like next week things will go back to normal - more or less - and I'll be able to resume my old eating habits and routines - I'm quite curious to see if my sleep and mood will improve. Anyway, I'll check more carefully things like stock or sauces and probably just make my own

I'm not an expert (my dad knows way more about this) but I thought the hydrolyzed proteins are actually glutamate (also in autolyzed yeast and extracts). The story is they add other ingredients separately that combine with it once eaten to form monosodium glutamate, which has disastrous effects on the nervous system, et cetera. Very sneaky, indeed. (Hydrolyzed soy is supposedly the worst.)

At any rate, I'm going in for Celiac testing in a couple of days. I've been gluten-free for about a year, and a lot of my autistic-esque* symptoms have cleared.
If I have it, the tempting conclusion is that it was the culprit all along, but would that explain my prime number savant abilities (among others)?

Someone wondered how an allergic reaction could affect cognition... if it's an autoimmune reaction, the immune system is attacking the brain, too.


*A lot of doctors have wondered whether I'm on the spectrum, but I've never been diagnosed because I can behave normally with effort. Having learned to make eye contact properly, it's nigh impossible to tell, but I still always feel... well, like I'm on the wrong planet.

It's ugly that we don't know what autism actually IS, and diagnose based on behavioural criteria... what of the champion behavioural fakers, who yet can only maintain the facade by investing mental energy at the expense of practical/substantial aspects of life? Doh.

I can see you're going to make a lot of friends here.

I tried the GFCF diet. Lost a lot of weight and could sleep at night, but still had my AS symptoms, I was less irritated though. So now I say wheat makes me angry.

I agree completely, because I currently follow a semi-gluten free diet and exclude all dairy as well. When I started looking into gluten, like you said, it's in EVERYTHING--it's absolutely bizarre.



Actually you can, it's just not easy to find GF beer in restaurants, but you can buy it (although as you mentioned, it may be hard for you as you live in a small town). I tried one called Redbridge and is made by Anheuser-Busch. And I think I read somewhere that most wine is GF, as is Vodka and Tequila.



As for the hypothesis; much of what I've read suggests a correlation between autism and gluten; however as someone else said I don't believe removal of one will cure the other.

Lol I wrote that ages ago. Heineken is almost gluten free I think. I have a friend that only drinks that. So all the strong alcohol is GF? When I party hard I only have one shot of tequila. It's too much for me.

Oops. I saw the thread pop up and went to the beginning and started reading, skipping over time stamps. Ah well; I'm stuck in a hotel, on business, 800 miles more north than I wish to be (especially with all the friggin snow).



Seems like quite a few: http://www.celiac.com/articles/222/1/Gl ... Page1.html



Heh, my buddy and I went out for Halloween and while they weren't very strong, I managed to down five long islands (my most favorite-ist drink). Yeah, I was pretty toasted.

Wine is GF, as are distilled spirits like vodka, brandy, rum, etc. celiac dot com has a good list of GF alcohols.

I recently read an article in the New Scientist that said that (if I remember rightly and apologise for my glibness...) we develop the microbial landscape of our guts when we are born and that it has been shown that there is evidence that in normal mice who were tested on (can't remember the test) they began to display autistic-like behaviour. They started becoming anxious and repetitive for example. It made me wonder again about the link between digestive issues/food intolerances and autism.

I never wanted to eat wheat as a child and would whine if I was made to - it made me feel horrible. And last year I was diagnosed with Aspergers. I have given up gluten in totality for the last year and have noticed a massive improvement not only in my digestive symptoms but also in other areas; I am no longer so anxious or depressed, nor do I feel such confusion.

I still have all my sensory issues but markedly less pain. I still can't mingle with groups of women without feeling really unlike all of them but I have more clarity so can manage better. I still solve emotional problems with my intellect but feel less overwhelmed by them.

However recently I went through a difficult period emotionally and I "treated" myself to an apple turnover. I suddenly became how I used to be and had what could be perceived as being a tantrum, felt completely out of control and profoundly confused.

There may be no correlation at all but it was certainly a remarkable coincidence. Does anyone know of this article and able to enlighten me further? And does anyone share similar experiences with gluten/ASD confusion?!