Comments on: Yes, It Is Possible To Get Tired of French Fries

By: Naydi

Naydi — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 03:48:44 +0000

This is interesting. C’s little 2 1/2 y/o brother A, who is pretty neurotypical, has been taken off of milk to see if that is causing his GERD on the advice of the doctor. C will still have milk though. C’s problem behavior seems to correlate much stronger towards cold weather (can’t go outside for 3-4 hours a day). A, on the other hand, throws huge fits when he has reflux. So much so that you would think he was the one on the spectrum if you walked in on it.

Digestive issues are enough to make any child a fussy, tantruming mess. Nevermind a child who already has autism.

By: siliconmom

siliconmom — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 16:55:06 +0000

Nice comments, LBC.

We’ve got five kids, 1 with ADHD, 4 with ASD’s. We’ve always been told and read that it’s a neurological disorder and, given our particular family, my husband and I feel that genetics is definitely the main culprit.

We’ve never done GF/CF. We keep an eye on the kids because my brother and his sister have celiac disease, so there’s family history. My brother reports that since he’s gone off gluten, he definitely feels better and that allows him to rest better which allows his to think more clearly.

Our kids haven’t ever complained or shown signs of have celiac issues so we just decided as parents not to do it. If they do start showing symptoms, then we’ll take them in to the MD and see what’s up.

It’s funny because Meghan, our 5 year old, isn’t a big carb kid anyway and never has been. Her order of preference is fruit, meat, and then maybe some bread product. So maybe she does have issues and I won’t ever really know because she kind of takes care of it on her own, in terms of what she likes to eat.

By: The Search for Certainty (or, why we’re going to the dentist at 3.15pm)

The Search for Certainty (or, why we’re going to the dentist at 3.15pm) — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 15:32:59 +0000

[...] about what can do about it—that fuels the drive to redefine autism as (as noted by a commenter yesterday) a “metabolic disorder,” as a medical and biological disorder and even a disease. [...]

By: LBC

LBC — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 12:08:07 +0000

It definitely makes sense to cut out foods that are not tolerated, like when eating something results in diarrhea or a rash. But what I’m curious about is how food effects behavior. You never seem to hear about parents cutting out foods for “normal” kids who have behavior problems, but this is frequently done for autistic kids.

My second son, who is not autistic, could not drink cow’s milk when we first introduced it. It gave him diarrhea every time (although he had no problem with cheese or yogurt). One pediatrician I talked to (an acquaintance) said, “That’s an allergy. Switch to soy milk right away!” But our actual pediatrician said, “If he can tolerate the yogurt and cheese, he doesn’t have an allergy and therefore does not need soy milk. He’s getting all his calcium from the yogurt and cheese, so just avoid milk for now. Try it now and again to see how he does. This kind of thing often clears itself up.” So that’s what we did, and after four or five months, my son could drink cow’s milk with no problem whatsoever. I just wonder how this would have gone down if the child in question had been my autistic son, and if the doctor had been a DAN doctor. I have a feeling diarrhea would have been “proof” of the leaky gut (or whatever), and the kid would have been put through god knows what to “cure” him.

I guess my point is that even “normal” kids get diarrhea, stomachaches, rashes, etc., and we don’t do the things to/for them that we do for our autistic kids. We tend to take a more common sense approach to health glitches with our “normal” kids, but call in the big guns when the same symptom shows up in our autistic kids.

By: Norah

Norah — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 09:42:48 +0000

There’s lots of food allergies and intolerances in my family, but cutting out foods has never made any of us less autistic, just gave less stomachaches and rashes (and death) and…. helped… stool issues (euphemisms hooray).

By: LBC

LBC — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 02:23:10 +0000

Here’s the rundown of the NIMH study in Rochester that Regan mentioned:
http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00090428?term=Autism&rank=24
I will be keeping an eye on this, waiting for the result. I haven’t tried the GF/CF diet with my son because it just seems nonsensical to me. He doesn’t have stomach aches (that I know of) or any allergies or eating problems, so I haven’t been able to figure out what changing his diet would do (besides depress him). But if it turns out autism is caused by a wonky metabolism and I’ve been “poisoning” my son with wheat and cheese, I’m going to feel pretty horrible.

By: Kristina Chew, PhD

Kristina Chew, PhD — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 23:33:20 +0000

The notion that autism is a metabolic disorder is one biomedical hypothesis about autism—it is, again, a hypothesis. Autism is neurological disorder but there are a lot of hypotheses and theories about it floating (so to speak) around.

By: LBC

LBC — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 22:35:10 +0000

But is autism considered a metabolic disorder? I guess that’s where I’m confused. I understand that a compromised metabolism–like, say, diabetes?–would require a special diet, but I thought autism was a neurological disorder. I see how food effects the metabolism, but how do wheat and cheese adversely effect the brain? Or does autism mess with the metabolism somehow? Like I said, I probably need to talk to an MD to get this stuff straight.

By: Regan

Regan — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 20:40:08 +0000

LBC,
There is a specialized diet that can be used, under a physician’s direction and supervision to control some epileptic seizures. I’m not posting it because I’ve seen some folks contemplate it as a “maybe I’ll try that”. It’s not a trivial “hey let’s give that a shot” kind of thing because it is extremely atypical and needs monitoring.

Other children who have particular metabolic disorders may require restricted diets to prevent physical complications and development of mental retardation–such as low-phenylalanine diets for those with phenylketonuria, for example.

So I believe that there is a place for special diets as medically required–but I concur with you that for medical advice it would make sense to talk to a physician.

By: LBC

LBC — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 20:21:08 +0000

Since autism is neurological (???), it just seems odd to me that it can be helped by eliminating foods from the diet. Can a change in diet help other neurological disorders, like epilepsy or Huntington’s?

People used to say that sugar consumption was linked to hyperactivity, but as far as I know that has been debunked. I guess I’ll have to ask an MD to get a better understanding of this stuff.