Today the New York Times reported on research concerning diets for children with autism. Many of my patients come in and ask about diets, hoping that a change at the breakfast table will make a change in their child's life. Regretfully life isn't that simple. And many people are mislead by practitioners of "alternative medicine," and the "Defeat Autism Now" diet plan that they pay good money for alternative medical advice which research simply does not support. The NYT article says, "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"
Lets understand, by "may not be warranted" they are saying there is no evidence that these diets do anything to help children with autism. As a matter of fact, in many cases they do more harm than good.
"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."
To make this clear,"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."
For more information on the article and to locate the original research you can click here: New York Times
The number and frequency of gastrointestinal problems is basically the same for children with autism and children without. As a parent you may notice the problem more because your child is not as tolerant of these feelings as children who do not have autism, but that does not mean their is a connection, or that you can "cure" autism in any way with restrictive a diet.The evidence is simply not there. Some parents, who start to re-organize their child's life around diet may find behavioural improvements because of the new structure, attention, or perhaps because parents become more tuned in to their child's physical state. But there is simply no connection between the two. It's easy to become confused by reports you hear of success, but you are not hearing from all those who did not find these diets made any change, and interpretation of data becomes cloudy. The new rush to publish "Autism cookbooks" and "Autism Diets" (and their are ADHD diets too, all either unproven or in many cases disproven) is more a reaction of the publishing industries success than any success with the diet during a controlled scientific experiment.
Final advice, talk to our pediatrician.
For those who are trying to figure out who to believe in this confusion I suggest starting by reading a little about Science Based Medicine itself at Steve Novella's web page. Click here for Science-Based Medicine 101
Dr. Roche's web page can be found at socialcognitivetheapy.com
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