Gluten free diet

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I keep hearing about gluten free diets. Has anyone tried it
and has it shown any improvement? My son is 9yrs and diagnosed
AS and VERY stubborn! I don't know if I would be able to change
his diet.

I don't know much about it either. But I do know that my mom's Rice Dream drink (our substitute for milk) is Gluten free. It's been in our household since 1996.

I have heard that people with AS can be addicted to breads with gluten. the gluten goes in our system, and we get a "buzz" off of i tleading to more gluten consumption. it isn't good. I was thinking of trying it. I heard it works quite well.

momtanic, i wouldnt change his diet to a non gluten diet. in my full opinion gluten based foods helped me, i have aspergers at 27 yrs old, and doing just fine. i believe it's the lack of gluten that is causing it, but everyone is different, i would concentrate on the following, flax seed (with omega 3), b vitamins (monster energy drink is a good energy booster and has alot of b vitamins and good vitamins) pottassium (if your son hates bananas, (like i do) try gatorade, etc, heres some more information that i found and i researched that may help, that may help you. of course only do a little at a time, so it doesnt overwhelm your son and remember we tend to be very picky on food too. so you may want to do some investigating. anyway hope this information helps, if possible i would just do one at a time and only a little bit, cause everyone usually has different reactions..

Natural Therapies for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome:

-Genseng And Echinacea
-Essential Fatty Acids(flax seed. omega 3)
-Coenzyme Q10
-NADH
-L-Carnitine
-Magnesium
-DHEA
-Digestive Enzymes
-Glutamine
-Whey Protein
-Adapton
-Folate
-Licorice
-Tyrosine
-MATE

What may help also for Low Energy/Lethargy is to increase intake of fruits, vegetable and grains. Oats is a good choice. Lose any excess weight as this will sap the body of energy.

LOW ENERGY/LETHARGY

-Vitamins B Complex (monster energy drinks is one)
-Magnesium
-Zinc
-Vitamin C
-Gota Kola
-Ginseng
-Liquorice root
-Saw Palmetto
-Damiana
-Bee pollen
-Cayenne
-pottassium (such as bananas and or gatorade) depends on what the like.
-Caffeine (stay away from soda pop though such as pepsi, coke, etc) alot of medine related to depression has the same stuff as caffeine in it) there are some energy drinks that have caffeine that are good for you. such as monster energy drinks) and Ginseng green tea may work too.

Gienseng and Echinacea: Ginseng is a herb that increases energy. Echinacea is a herb that can help for cold and flus. It is known for its ability to stimulate the immune system and suppress infection-causing microbes.

Licorice: It has a sweet taste and help combat fatigue.

also wanted to respond too: KingdomOfRats.

yeah totally agree, usually people who are with aspergers had high functioning autism and changing diet for people with aspergers is mainly for more energy and reducing anxiety/ depression, etc. if your child is aspergers and not severe autism, i wouldnt do the gluten free diet just because usually people with aspergers usually end out ok when there an adult, except of course the anxiety and depression, etc is the main issue when they turn adult. just let him do his favorite activities, and do what he wants (as long as it is ok in your view) also you may want to get a computer for him, and do home schooling at home or something, cause public schools most likely will just trigger anxiety, depression, etc.

I'm seriously considering trying this.... I know I'm hooked on gluten!

A significant percent of autism patients had elevated levels of antibodies to both gliadin (gluten) and to nerve proteins. This does not suggest that gluten is The Cause of autism, but that it may play a role in some people. While there may be some people whose autism is completely unaffected by gluten, this and other research suggests that some people with autism can benefit from eliminating gluten.

Absolutely! It is worth every bit of effort to at least try a gluten and dairy free diet for those with Aspergers. I am 32 and have just been recently diagnosed. I'll tell you a story that I disclosed on here a month back about my experience with gluten being taken out of my diet.
I was an overweight kid growing up and always had big problems in school. I failed both the 1st and 2nd grades. I was a loner and couldn't communicate well with others. In the 7th grade I decided to go on a diet and I was going to lose the weight no matter what. I decided to exercise and eat healthy. Of course I took all that processed foods that contain so much diary and gluten out of my diet. After 7 months and before starting the 8th grade I was thin and felt great. I slept like a baby, made straight As all year for the first time in my life, made the basketball team, and had a group of friends. It was the best year of my life. People would imply how smart I was and how much they liked me. It was almost perfect. Then gradually I started to eat what I wanted again. I ate junk food but was still able to keep the weight off with exercise. Slowly I started to lose friends and in the 9th grade my sleeping habits were horrible and I had no friends. One of the friends that I had in the 8th grade one time looked at me and said, "what happened to you"? I didn't know for the life of me what he meant. A few people through high shcool would say the same thing. It reminds me a little of that movie Awakening with Robin Williams. I was there for a moment, then out like a light. Through the rest of high school my grades were average to below average, I had no friends, I would go home and watch tv every afternoon, and on the day of graduation I realized I had nobody. It was very sad, very very sad. This continued through college.
A couple of years after college I started working as a manager for a hotel. I decided to go on the Atkins diet because I got big again. I exercised but followed a strick Atkins diet of meat and vegetables. Of course I have always been an aloof, passive, quite, kind of manager with problems with eye contact and conflict. My district manager who came in every 2 months looked at me and said "you lost weight"? Then she said, "there is something else about you". You look and seem so much more confident. I was promoted and given my own property the next quarter. Unfortuantely, I started to eat what I wanted again to relieve stress from the move. Needless to say, I was fired because of Asperger tendencies and lack of communication within a few months.
Fast forward to 5 years later, it all seems to make sense. I do feel that opiate like affect eating dairy, and especially gluten. My eyes practically roll back in my head and I am just not there. I have been on a gluten and casein free diet now for 4 weeks, well almost. If the food was obvious to have gluten I would eat it. For example I would eat corn tacos at Taco Bell with ground beef. I researched on the internet and found out it has gluten. I would eat this a few times a week. So it is tough to eat this way on the road, but I manage. At Wendy's I'll eat chilli, orange slices, potato, or chicken salad. I really do feel better and noticed I don't stem as much. I think and pray that it will get better with time.

IIRC, there's a double-blind study on gluten/casein free diets and autism/asperger's patients due next year, some time. I'd wait for that, myself, but I tend to be pretty conservative about jumping onto unproven fads, YMMV.

I'd stay away from giving Monster Energy to a 9 year old. Filling them up with caffeine and and artificial colours just seems like a great way to provoke unmanageable hyperactivity. Taurine and B-vitamin complexes are easy to come by. GNC is switching over to sublingual (absorbed directly into the bloodstream after you tuck the pill under the tongue) vitamins where possible, that's a far more effective way of absorbing B vitamins than a pill you swallow.

The worst thing is stopping.
I imagine it's something like being an alcoholic, because you are an addict for life.
I don't know if it definitely has something to do with aspergers, but I go in and out of eating gluten ( wheat, rye, oats , hydrolised veg protein, and as CentralFLM says gluten is added to so much stuff you can have some nasty surprises; feeling better and better and then suddenly tearful and distanced and aggressive and alienated,because of accidentally eating something with gluten in, like what they use to bind flavourings onto crisps, and in some baked beans brands etc ! !!) because I LOVE bread. But it has some kind of effect on my mind.
I adore bread. After a break , when I'm starting to miss that buzz, or simply think it won't do me any harm, just a little, I eat some , god it's soooo gooood, yummy, and then the buzz; my brain so lively , and light and I feel so awake and excited and "able". Speedy and active and sociable .

Then as the days pass my brain feels noisier and noisier as if I have some jabbering manic person in there who just won't shut up, and I care less and less about people ; couldn't give s**t about them; all that counts is thinking, logic, truth,and conquest and change and progress. Onwards! . and I am further and further away from everyone. I feel invincible, out of my body, but the din in my head is getting worse and the world starts to feel flat like something out of a game on the internet, like an illustration. ( and my stomach/guts feel torn up/worn out, and I have to have my bread fix earlier and earlier each day.)

So I STOP. Immediately I start to crave it ; I want it so, and I know it will stop this tearing ache in my stomach; but IF I resist next day I start feeling dreamy and drifty , though likely to explode cos so tense. The day after my head is quiet.Peace returns. But then I get depressed ; it's so awful being back here, humdrum, in the tedious body, without the magic , without all that space and MEANING!!
Suddenly my brain is silent again. I feel back in my body. I feel bounded by four walls again. I am earthbound. I am vulnerable. And my brain is crawling , thinking is so slow and laborious. Withdrawal is tough. By the end of the week I feel better, friendlier,more human. ( tho' friends have said I seem cowlike in first weeks after stopping , cos brain so tranquilised). It takes a while to fully recover a healthy level of brain activity.
But I do so miss that excitement, that abstraction, that space , infinity. I miss it and so I start again. And stop again. ........etc etc
I've been doing this for 15 years. Sometimes I think it's like throwing away the Ring. Stopping is like cutting off part of myself because it is so dizzyingly wonderful to be up there like a god, so able to see in all directions.
And there's been times that I've been sure that I would never eat gluten again , because I have discovered how wonderful and loving and warm life can be if I stick to avoiding it completely.
And then times I say it's not that significant. Too many times that I forget how much more whole I feel if cut it out for long enough. Some clinical ecologists say it can take a year or more to experience fully the complete recovery from its effects on the brains of sensitive people.
One thing I am fairly sure about ; it is no accident that the first ever plants with gluten in them evolved in the fertile crescent and were eaten by human beings for the first ever time shortly before the first abstract gods were imagined and represented , houses went from being round to rectangulaire, and animal husbandry was invented .and all that!!
If I was a believer in aliens ( I'm not!!) I'd even think glutenous cereal seeds had been dropped over the planet deliberately.
And think it's interesting that the principal cereal grain in the East ( until recently) has always been rice, which does not contain gluten.

No doubt if you have this condition, gluten gives you an opiate affect. When I was in college I would listen to self-help tapes (especially Napoleon Hill's work). My mind would go on for weeks and months in this high state of euphoria because what I was learning, the ideas that I would come up with, and the thoughts I believed no one had ever experienced. And of course I would preach this stuff I learned to every ear in range. They would get bored after being preached to, but I didn't care. I just thought they didn't get it. I thought I was going to take over the world with the knowledge I was coming up with. I've never been on acid, but I would bet gluten proteins escaping into the bloodstream would be just like acid. However, the one common theme with all my crazy thoughts would be NO ACTION behind it. I could go on for decades THINKING about it, but no action. And I think that is the harmful thing about it. It eventully leaves you in disappointment and lonleness.

Yes ouinon, someone knows what you have experienced and probably thousands of others have but just don't know it is gluten that is making their mind go crazy. Unfortunately, I don't think this state is healthy at all, especially in the long run. My Dad while I was growing up would go months and even years without working. He is 58 now, and has not worked in 11 years. He is so indecisive about everything. He is big on conspiracies. I use to think he had schizophrenia until I was recently diagnosed. He could talk on the phone with you for an hour about how corrupt the government is and how "they" want to create a New World Order. Literally you could put the phone down and come back an hour later with him still talking. He wouldn't even know you were gone. This of course is a big symptom of AS. I've mentioned a gluten free diet to him, but of course he thinks the goverment is trying to poison all of us anyway. At his age, I don't know if it would work or not.

dont you think if autism or aspergers was cause of gluten dont you think pretty much everyone would be autistic? everyone goes to mcdonalds and other fast food as it is. if it had to do with gluten everyone would be like us. like i said i state i think gluten has nothing to do with it. there is alot of research that it is genetic and i think anxiety, stress and a bad dramatic events such as divorce, family tragedies, adoption, etc cause alot of it. especially the mild autism and aspergers i believe it does. based on my research, there is alot of discussion about anorexia, etc. now severe autism who knows, but i was pretty severe autistic when i was a child, now i'm aspergers and adhd, etc i didnt have any problem with gluten when i grew up, thats 27 years of life, not seeing any problems with gluten. and limiting a diet especially from gluten limits your childs food choices severely.

Occurrences in nature, glutamine-view article

Glutamine is the most abundant naturally occurring, non-essential amino acid in the human body. In the body it is found circulating in the blood as well as stored in the skeletal muscles. It becomes conditionally essential (requiring intake from food or supplements) in states of illness or injury. Food sources of glutamine include meat, poultry, fish, beans, eggs, and dairy products.

Functions

1) A substrate for DNA synthesis.
2) Major role in protein synthesis.
3) Promotes muscle growth and decreases muscle catabolism. [citation needed]
4) Primary source of fuel for enterocytes (cells lining the inside of the small intestine).
5) Precursor for rapidly dividing immune cells, thus aiding in immune function.
6) Regulation of acid-base balance in the kidney.[citation needed]
7) Alternative source of fuel for the brain and helps to block cortisol-induced protein catabolism.
As a form of fixed nitogen by heterocysts, exchanged for photosynthate from undifferentiated cyanobacterial cells.

In catabolic states of injury and illness, GLN becomes conditionally-essential (requring intake from food or supplements). Glutamine has been studied extensively over the past 10-15 years and has been shown to be useful in treatment of serious illnesses, injury, trauma, burns, cancer and its treatment related side-effects as well as in wound healing for postoperative patients (citation pending). That is why it is now also classified as a "nutraceutical". Glutamine is also marketed as a supplement used for muscle growth in weightlifting, bodybuilding, endurance and other sports.

based on my research from alot of different sources, glutamine is a very important amino acid that is important in the genetic code. thats why i believe having a pretty health diet, with a little bit of gluten is the most important. based on my research the best way is improving the glyoxylate cycle before providing gluten to your children, cause there is some discussion that it may be toxic to the immune system. In plants the glyoxylate cycle occurs in special peroxisomes which are called glyoxysomes. Vertebrates cannot perform the cycle because they lack its two key enzymes: isocitrate lyase and malate synthase.

I believe as long as you work on improving the glyoxylate cycle there is no need to limit your child's food choices severely. cause as long as the glyoxylate cycle has not been improved your child will always have food processing issues. it may help for a short time, but it never will be fixed unless you improve the glyoxlate cycle, and limiting your childs food intake will limit his food choices severely. do not fix it unless it is severely broken such as going to the er or something.