Restrictive diets not appropriate for autistic kids [NYT]

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Regimens: Restrictive Diets May Not Be Appropriate for Children With Autism
By RONI CARYN RABIN
Published: July 27, 2009
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Many parents of autistic children have put their children on strict gluten-free or dairy-free diets, convinced that gastrointestinal problems are an underlying cause of the disorder. But a new study suggests the complicated food regimens may not be warranted.

Researchers at the Mayo Clinic reviewed the medical records of over 100 autistic children over an 18-year period and compared them to more than 200 children without the disorder. The scientists found no differences in the overall frequency of gastrointestinal problems reported by the two groups, though the autistic children suffered more frequently from bouts of constipation and were more likely to be picky eaters who had difficulty gaining weight.

The study, published on Monday in the journal Pediatrics, is the first to look at the incidence of gastrointestinal problems in an autistic population, according to the paper’s first author, Dr. Samar H. Ibrahim, a pediatric gastroenterologist at the Mayo Clinic. She suggested that autistic children should only be put on restrictive wheat-free or dairy-free diets after having appropriate diagnostic tests done.

“There is actually no trial that has proven so far that a gluten-free and casein-free diet improves autism,” she said. “The diets are not easy to follow and can sometimes cause nutritional deficiencies.”

The study found that the vast majority of both autistic and non-autistic children suffered from bouts of common gastrointestinal problems like constipation, diarrhea, abdominal bloating, reflux or vomitin.g Feeding issues and picky eating were also common. Some 77 percent of autistic children and 72 percent of non-autistic children were affected by one or more of these complaints over the 18-year period.

About 34 percent of the autistic children were affected by constipation, compared to 17.6 percent of the comparison group, while 24.5 percent of the autistic children had feeding issues and were selective in their eating, compared with only 16 percent of the non-autistic group.

But very few of the autistic children had a specific diagnosis of a gastrointestinal disease. Only one autistic child had Crohn’s disease, and one had intestinal disaccharidase deficiency and lacked enzymes necessary to digest certain carbohydrates. None suffered from celiac disease, which some reports have linked to autism.

Two of the non-autistic children in the comparison group suffered from lactose intolerance, and one had a milk allergy.

Dr. Ibrahim suggested that the loss of appetite and difficulty gaining weight in autistic children may be related to the use of stimulant medications, which are often prescribed for the condition, and that the constipation may be due to children not consuming enough fiber or drinking enough water.

I suspected this all along. Hopefully word will get out and that will be the end of the DAN diet. My daughter has never been on it because it looked like malnutrition lunacy. Believe me, other parents did try to talk me into putting her on it even though there is zero reason to think she has gluten or casein intolerance. Even many parents who reject the vaccine hypothesis have mysteriously embraced this ridiculous diet. Perhaps because you can't unvaccinate a child but you can prevent them from eating gluten or casein.

Now give that kid some toast and let's drop that nonsense!

Agreed Janissy! I'm tired of politely excusing myself from these discussions from other autism parents. I don't care what their DAN doctor told them, I don't think the diet is appropriate for my children. It seems that everyone is always trying all these ridiculous diets, and interventions, and if you don't sign your kid up for at least one you're really looked down upon.

I am not broken. My kids are not broken, and I do not need any of the snake oil that's being sold to fix our differences. I swear, one more person starts going off in front of my severely autistic son about how he needs cured I'm going to have a meltdown. Just because he's nonverbal does not mean he's deaf.

THANK YOU!! !!.....THANK YOU!! !.....THANK YOU!! !!

i have been warning parents for years that this gluten horse s&%# was nothing but HORSE S%&#

the harm we have been doing to kids is horrific

YOUNG GROWING MINDS NEED THE GLUTEN FUEL TO GROW AND EXPAND, THEY NEED IT

obviously if a true gluten/casein allergy is present, then dietary restrictions are needed, but most kids don't have this issue

thank god this and the vaccines is nothing but HORSE ....

bless you for having a mind and not believing in snake oil, lol

jenny mccarthy is goanna have a caniption, that dumb idiot!! !

sorry for the emotion folks, but iknew this crap with glueten is just CRAP


the reason for most digestive issues with these kids is that they only eat 2 or 3 things

hell my seven yr old autistic son eats everything, lol..we gave him a variety and said tough, try it, you'll like it, and he did

And ya know what's really GREAT for dealing with stress like stupid people insisting on stupid diets? Kneading bread dough. And ya know what really really helps your bread dough turn out better? Gluten.

great post................"malnutrition lunacy", lol...thats a good one

hopefully next they'll expose this chelation nonsense

see my thread on chelation

That must be why it was the societies which started eating glutenous grains soon after they first appeared, ( after a chance mutation in grasses at the end of the last ice age, 17,000 years ago ), in the Fertile Crescent, ( the so called "cradle of civilisation, in ancient Irak and Iran ), were the first ones to invent fixed agriculture, rectangular houses, writing, money, monotheistic religions, etc. It did something to their brains ...

Whereas people in countries/areas where glutenous grains didn't grow naturally, and weren't cultivated, until relatively recently anyway, like southern Africa, the Americas, Australia, and Eastern Asia, ( where they ate corn, rice, manioc, and other non-glutenous grains ), didn't develop/acquire most of these things until much later, often only after being exposed to wheat by empire-building peoples from the Middle East, India, Europe etc.

Children who grow up without gluten don't develop the same kind of intellectual capacities. We need gluten to maintain the thrust of western-style civilisation. ( "Young minds" fed on rice, corn, and manioc, don't "grow and expand" satisfactorily! )

Last edited by ouinon on 31 Jul 2009, 6:14 am, edited 2 times in total.

PS. From "The Gluten File" at : http://jccglutenfree.googlepages.com/

Gastrointestinal symptoms are not a reliable indication of whether gluten is a problem for someone, so arguing that people on the spectrum don't seem to suffer from more G.I. problems than non-autists does not mean gluten-free diets are inappropriate.

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In my case for instance I had no idea that I was intolerant of/sensitive to gluten until I was 29 years old, when I tried an exclusion diet/fast, ( over 5 days ). I had experienced only "normal" amounts of G.I. problems over the years, and didn't realise that my descent into manic-depression/mood disorder and breakdown, was a symptom of gluten intolerance. Chronic anxiety, irritability, fatigue, over-exciteability, etc, aswell as depression, have disappeared/faded away the longer, and more consistently, that I exclude gluten.

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East Asia has had a flourishing civilization for thousands of years. Actually rice and corn are not that bad for you. I would be wary of diets for children unless absolutely necessary but let's not make rice and corn into the boogeymans. Those two whole grains are better for you than products from refined flour, like white bread.

But nowhere near as long as the Middle East, Western India, and Northern Africa, where wheat, ( glutenous grain ) first appeared, and was first cultivated. The first neolithic developments everywhere else were at least 3,000 years later, ( and didn't arrive in North America until European man took wheat there in 1500 AD ).


I was being just a wee bit sarcastic about them, ( hence the "wink-smiley" underneath, sorry if it wasn't clear ), seeing as how AnAutisticMind seemed to think that the mental/intellectual development of children brought up without gluten would suffer. In fact I think wheat has had a very powerful, even detrimental, effect on the development of civilisation, and that rice, and perhaps corn, are "safer" foods as far as many people's bodies and brains are concerned.


Wholegrains may be better for you than refined cereals, but unfortunately the phytates in the fibre of whole grains bind to zinc ( a significant factor in mood, cognition, and other functions ), and take it out of the body, ( meaning need to eat lots of eggs, fish, animal flesh, and seafood, to compensate ). Reducing starchy carbohydrates to a minimum is the best policy, especially as archeological evidence shows a serious decline in general health after people started cultivating and regularly consuming cereals.

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Interestingly, traditional chinese meals start with clear soups, followed by protein and vegetables, and rice is at the end; the idea seeming to be that you ate the best nutritional sources first, and filled up on rice if absolutely necessary, as if they recognised that cereals were not so good for health, ( not clouded in their thinking about it as peoples/cultures are that are addicted to wheat ).

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I just want to point out that it is not necessary to ingest animal milk products in order to be healthy. Lactose intolerance is prevalent among many groups: 75% of African Americans and 90% of Asian Americans are lactose-intolerant, as are 90% of Chinese, and 98% of Southeast Asians and Thais. Milk is clearly not a "perfect food" if entire ethnic groups cannot digest it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lactose_in ... e_by_group

In the United States, the dairy industry is backed by a very well-funded, very aggressive, long-term advertising campaign. The US government provides big subsidies for milk producers, and the government promotes dairy consumption through the "food pyramid", etc.

It is good that it worked for you and your condition, but how is that relevant to the finding of the study that such a diet did not have a relevant effect on children on the autistic spectrum? I don't think there is an argument that gluten intolerance and other issues exist, but more the relationships between such issues.


M.

It's not because milk is a bad product lacking nutrients. It's because their ancestors didn't drink cow's milk so they didn't evolve the protein and immunity needed to digest dairy products from cows. Low fat and skim milk are supposed to be good for you, if you are not lactose intolerant, that is