Gluten for Punishment?

Waiting for my children's visit to their pediatrician, I flipped through the magazines that spanned the shelves of their lobby. I was greatly shocked to read the extremely short summation of a recent study of the effectiveness of a gluten- and casein-free diet in children with autism, published in a popular renowned parenting magazine. The magazine claims the consumption of such a restricted diet does not improve behavior patterns and suggests that the challenge and costliness is hardly worth the effort. This blatant misrepresentation about the study may lead parents to believe that nutrition has no bearing on a child's health, behavior or development and could drive parents to treat their children with unnecessary pharmaceuticals that have a number of harsh side effects.

This short study of such a small sample (22 children in four weeks, not revealed in the magazine article) should hardly bear such a definitive conclusion, especially when the hundreds of thousands of parents who have treated their children with the GFCF diet and have success are taken into consideration. Many parents report immediate improvement in sleep patterns, sociability and reduced stimming and problematic behaviors. Other parents report that the improvement is seen much slower and notice a general improvement in the child's well-being and overall health. As a parent of a child on the spectrum who implements a GFCF diet as part of therapy, as well as following it myself, I speak from experience when I say that this change of lifestyle has proven to be the must effective treatment thus far. These foods have cleared the fog from my child's brain and allowed other treatments to be more successful, like speech and behavioral therapies. Eliminating gluten and dairy from one's diet has no adverse reaction on health or development and contrary to what this study portrays, has the possibility to have profound positive health benefits. Similarly, while medication may have benefit in the treatment of autism in some children, synthetic medications and pharmaceuticals are riddled with many known side-effects that can potentially cause lifelong health damage and permanently affect a child's development.

Children on the spectrum are as individual as the fingerprints on their hands and likewise their respective treatments will be highly varied. The decision to treat a child with autism should rely on the parent with guidance from a well educated physician – knowledgeable in medicine as well as balanced and healthy nutrition. When misrepresented studies like these are carelessly placed beside bounce-house advertisements and jello recipes in parenting magazines, a huge disservice is being done to the education of proper nutrition as well as the awareness of effective treatments for autism spectrum disorder.