Does Diet Cause Autism?

If you are the parent of a child with autism, chances are great that you are constantly seeking ways to help your child with the unique challenges that they face as they grow. In your quest to understand more about autism, you may look for ways that can help them to adjust and cope with their environment. One of the factors that you may have considered is the role of diet in its development and treatment.

In the past, there has been considerable debate among parents, teachers, physicians, psychologists and others as to whether or not diet plays any role in the development or progression of autism. It seems there are plenty of studies that support both sides of this discussion. So, what are parents who wish to provide the best care and support to their children with autism supposed to do?

While the research still remains unclear, most of us who are familiar with autism know that our kids are more sensitive to many things in their environment. Whether it’s noises, textures, movement - you name it - many things seem to affect our children more than others without autism. While it is unclear if certain foods in our diets may cause or worsen autism that does not mean that we should not take the time to be aware of the effects certain foods may have on our children.

Many parents of children who do not have autism are familiar with the excess energy and erratic behavior that sometimes occur in children when they have eaten too much sugar. If this occurs in non-autistic children, it is simply common sense to consider that our autistic kids may be more sensitive to the effects of sugar and other common ingredients found in foods, such as caffeine, chocolate, food dyes, preservatives and more.

You may wish to keep a food diary to document any reactions your child has to specific foods. Keeping a food diary may help you to discover if specific foods seem to increase certain behaviours or reactions in your child. Over time, if you keep noticing your child has the same effects to a particular food, you may wish to limit their exposure to this item.

While sugar, caffeine and chocolate are known for being likely culprits, other children may have gluten sensitivities  or even low level allergies to other food items such as nuts or milk.  While identifying a specific food sensitivity probably won't "cure" your child's autism, anything that you can do to help reduce your child's stress and sensitivity levels from factors in their environment certainly won't hurt.

 

Diet And Autism

There are numerous interventions parents can undertake with a child who has autism and diet is one area that is particularly important. There is anecdotal evidence from parents that certain diets have resulted in improvement with people with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Scientific research is not as definitive as some reviews and reports support this notion while others don’t.

There is some great information in the article titled Diet and autistic spectrum disorder and we’ve extracted some suggestions here for you.

• Gluten free and casein free: Gluten is a protein contained in many types of breads, pastas, biscuits and breakfast cereals. Casein is a protein in cow’s milk that is contained in cheese, butter, ice cream, yogurt and milk chocolate biscuits. It is suggested that people with ASD have an abnormally leaky gut that creates an intolerance to these proteins which affects mental function and behaviour.

• Food additives: People with ASD are intolerant to many food additives such as colourings, flavour enhancers, artificial sweeteners and preservatives as they can affect their behaviour.

• Phenolic compounds and salicylates: The suggestion is that foods such as cheese, tomatoes, oranges, bananas and chocolate contain enzymes that some people lack that are needed to break down the compounds in these foods and as a result affect the symptoms of people with ASD.

• Yeast free: Eating less foods such as natural and refined sugars, breads, vinegar, cheese, soy sauce, alcohol, coffee and processed meats reduces the growth of yeasts in the gut and avoids the leaky gut scenario that is similar with the gluten free and casein free diets.

Again, as noted at the start, the scientific research is not definitive on this issue and importantly working with your doctor or a dietician from a community health service can provide more information and support in this important area.