Autism- diet and autism, diet autism
Autism and Food
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Many adults and children with autism are working to create personalized nutritional programs based upon their health history, symptoms and test results.
Autism is a complex biological disorder. Symptoms include difficulties with speech; abnormalities of posture or gesture; problems with understanding the feelings of others; sensory and visual misperceptions, fears and anxieties; and behavioral abnormalities such as compulsive/obsessive behavior and ritualistic movements.
What causes Autism?
No single cause has been established, although genetic and environmental factors are implicated. There is growing evidence that nutritional therapy can really make a big difference to children with autism. Many have severely disrupted digestion, so a major focus must be restoring balance here. Also, you’ll need to balance their blood sugar, check for brain-polluting heavy metals, exclude food additives, identify food allergies and possible nutrient deficiencies, and ensure an optimal intake of essential fats.
Diet and Nutrition: What Works
IMPROVE DIGESTION
Many parents of autistic children report that their child received repeated or prolonged courses of antibiotic drugs for ear or other respiratory infections during their first year, before the diagnosis of autism. Broad-spectrum antibiotics kill good as well as bad bacteria in the gut, weakening the intestinal membranes. This can lead to what is known as leaky gut syndrome, in which large molecules that shouldn’t be absorbed through the gut membrane do get through.
So if your child has autism, restoring a healthy gut is vital. You can start simply, by supplementing digestive enzymes, and giving probiotics to restore the balance of gut bacteria. Both measures help heal the digestive tract and promote normal absorption, and have produced positive clinical results in autistic children.
BALANCE BLOOD SUGAR
There is much overlap between ADH/hyperactivity and autism, so for autistic children who show signs of hyperactivity, improving blood sugar balance is a must.
Dietary studies consistently reveal that hyperactive children eat more sugar than other children. Other research has confirmed that the problem is not sugar itself but the forms it comes in, the absence of a well-balanced diet overall, and abnormal glucose metabolism. A U.K. study of 265 hyperactive children found that more than three-quarters of them displayed abnormal glucose tolerance; that is, their bodies were less able to handle sugar intake and maintain balanced blood sugar levels.
In any case, when a child is regularly snacking on refined carbohydrates, sweets, chocolate, fizzy drinks, juices and little or no fibre to slow the glucose absorption, the levels of glucose in their blood will seesaw continuously and trigger wild fluctuations in their levels of activity, concentration, focus and behavior. These, of course, will not help any child’s brain function.
INCREASE OMEGA 3 FATS
Deficiencies in essential fats are common in people with autism. Some research has shown that some autistic children have an enzymatic defect that removes essential fats from brain cell membranes more quickly than it should. This means that an autistic child is likely to need a higher intake of essential fats than the average. And it has been found that supplementing EPA, which can slow the activity of the defective enzyme, has clinically improved behaviour, mood, imagination, spontaneous speech, sleep patterns and focus of autistic children.
INCREASE VITAMINS AND MINERALS
We’ve known since the 1970s that a nutritional approach can help autism, thanks to the pioneering research by Dr Bernard Rimland of the Institute for Child Behavior Research in San Diego, California. He showed that vitamin B6, C and magnesium supplements significantly improved symptoms in autistic children. In one of his early studies back in 1978, 12 out of 16 autistic children improved, then regressed when the vitamins were swapped for placebos. In the decades following Dr Rimland’s study, many other researchers have also reported positive results with this approach.
Still others have, however, failed to confirm positive outcomes with certain nutrients. For example, a French study of 60 autistic children found they improved significantly on a combination of vitamin B6 and magnesium, but not when either nutrient was supplemented alone. This study shows how important it is to get the balance of these nutrients right. It’s likely to be different for each child.
B6 in particular may help, in part because many children with autism or learning difficulties have pyroluria, a condition in which, for genetic reasons, high levels of compounds called kryptopyrroles are excreted in the urine, causing a deficiency of zinc and vitamin B6. All children on the autistic spectrum should be screened for pyroluria. This involves a simple and inexpensive urine test for kryptopyrroles and supplementing with appropriate levels of B6 and zinc, which have brought about remarkable improvements.
Pediatrician Mary Megson from Richmond, Virginia, believes that many autistic children are lacking in vitamin A. Otherwise known as retinol, vitamin A is essential for vision. It is also vital for building healthy cells in the gut and brain.
The best sources of vitamin A are breast milk, organ meats, milk fat, fish and cod liver oil, none of which are prevalent in our diets. Instead, we have formula milk, fortified food and multivitamins, many of which contain altered forms of retinol such as retinyl palmitate, which doesn’t work as well as the fish or animal-derived retinol. Megson began speculating what might happen if these children weren’t getting enough natural vitamin A12.
She realized that not only would this affect the integrity of the digestive tract, potentially leading to allergies. It would also affect the development of their brains, and disturb their vision. Both brain differences and visual defects have been detected in autistic children. The visual defects, Megson deduced, were an important clue because lack of vitamin A would mean poor black and white vision, a symptom often seen in the relatives of autistic children. If you can’t see black and white, you can’t see shadows. And without that you lose the ability to perceive three-dimensionality. This in turn leaves you less able to make sense of people’s expressions, which could explain why some autistic children tend not to look straight at you. They look at you sideways. Long thought to be a sign of poor socialisation, this sideways technique may in fact be the best way for them to see people’s expressions, because there are more black and white light receptors at the edge of the visual field than in the middle.
AVOID FOOD ALLERGIES
One of the most significant contributing factors in autism appears to be undesirable foods and chemicals that often reach the brain via the bloodstream because of faulty digestion and absorption. Much of the impetus for recognising the importance of dietary intervention has come from parents who’ve noticed vast improvements in their children after changing their diets.
The strongest direct evidence of foods linked to autism involves wheat and dairy, and the specific proteins they contain; namely, gluten and casein. These are difficult to digest and, especially if introduced too early in life, may result in an allergy. Fragments of these proteins, called peptides, can have big impacts in the brain. They can act directly in the brain by mimicking the body’s own natural opioids (such as the enkephalins or endorphins), and so are sometimes called “exorphins”. Or they can disable the enzymes that would break down these naturally occurring compounds.
There are many anecdotal reports of dramatic improvements in children with autism from parents who removed casein (milk protein) and gluten (the protein in wheat, barley, rye and oats) from their diet15. Dr Robert Cade, professor of medicine and physiology at the University of Florida, has observed that as levels of peptides in the blood decrease, the symptoms of autism decrease. “If [levels of peptides] can be reduced to normal range,’ he says, “we typically see dramatic improvements.”
If you decide to go down this route with your child, you’ll need to take a go-slow approach. Some recommend a gradual withdrawal of foods, waiting three weeks after the removal of dairy foods (casein) before removing wheat, oats, barley and rye (gluten) from the diet. Initially, your child may go through “withdrawal” and their symptoms may get worse for a while.
Keep a food diary and note your child’s behaviors and symptoms alongside all the foods they’re eating. This can help to identify which of the usual suspects they are sensitive to; citrus fruits, chocolate, artificial food colorings, salicylates, eggs, tomatoes, avocados, aubergine, red peppers, soya and corn. But remember, some of the foods mentioned contain valuable nutrients, too, so you’ll have to ensure that they are replaced rather than just removed. This entire process is best done under the guidance of a nutritional therapist.
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Source: Food For The Brain
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