Expert: Celtica - 12/30/2008

Question
hi,
My 9 year old son has autism.  Because of some bad medication side effects, I want to do the gluten-free casen-free diet, but my wife is reluctant.  For a 2 1/2 day trial, my wife left town and I did it and there was improvement in my son's moods, verbal, and also a reduction in the tics (caused by medication).  But my wife only saw this for a few hours after she got back and we went to a friends house and immediately broke the diet.  Too many factors changed, and the trial period was too short to say with certainty that the diet worked, but I saw encouraging signs.  My son is now on rice milk, but we are doing a half way job on this diet.  To convince my skeptical wife to give it a fair trial, can you point me to any studies or statistics that would be considered unbiased?  Also, do you have any idea how long it takes to see ill effects after eating something you shouldn't?   We broke the diet the first time, my son had a meltdown about 30 minutes after eating macaroni and cheese.   Today, after a slice of cheese pizza, my son started having much bigger tics about 10-30 minutes later, but they are better now.  Can you shed any light on this?

Answer
Hi Dean,

I wasn't aware that I didn't answer your question (I thought I had, but I found it again in my "pending questions" list today)- so I'm very sorry about the delay if I really didn't answer yet.

At the bottom of this article
http://autism.healingthresholds.com/therapy/gluten-free-diet

is a list of links to several studies all showing that the gf/cf diet apparently has some effects at least for some people on the spectrum.
I have heard of K.Reichelt before (and I even had the chance of hearing him speak at a conference a couple of years ago), a MD and researcher from Norway (I think), who has conducted himself or contributed to some of these studies, and is one of the leading researchers in the field.
(see also http://www.gluten-free.org/reichelt.html)

From my own experiences I can tell you that gf/cf really works for me and for some people on the spectrum, though certainly not for all, and apparently it works for your child, so why not give it a try ?

Even if your wife is sceptical, it certainly won't hurt your child - the effects can only be either beneficial or simply none at all. If you're worried about not getting enough calcium or vitamines (as the wikipedia-article suggests which *is* biased!), you can always add some supplements to your child's diet.

Of course, it can take a while to get used to eating gf/cf (not only for the person who is on the diet but as well for their family - I guess it might be easiest if all of you went gluten free), and it's probably more work indeed as you usually cannot have most of those convenience foods people often eat (and you really have to get used to studying closely the ingredient lists on everything you eat), and it might require buying more expensive foot items (but not necessarily so), but it's well worth it, and it's much easier than people usually think.

For me, avoiding gluten and milk means having much more energy, less anxiety, less rigidity, less ocd tendencies, feeling less brainfogged and feeling less beside myself. I have less difficulty with concentration and can therefore function and communicate a bit better. I also have less problems with sleeping, and fewer problems with my gastrointestinal tract.
I can eat small amounts of gluten without any ill effect (which means, effects only show if I eat gluten for a few days in a row, which, however, makes me get worse slowly but steadily, the first signs are usually more problems with sleep, and more anxiety), but the effects of milk products are pretty immediate, resulting in bowel problems and brain fog/feeling beside myself, extreme tiredness, anxiety and increased difficulties in communicating and functioning (it's usually pretty obvious to those around me if I cheated on my diet - you can't really talk to me then). If your son experiences similar effects, it's no wonder he had a meltdown or more tics after having milk/cheese.

However, gf/cf is certainly NOT a wonder cure. I'm still as autistic as I ever was, but it certainly has improved the quality of my life massively.

If you want to go gf/cf, I would recommend getting your son tested for food allergies first (wheat, barley, rye, dairy, eggs, soy, corn, sugar, peanuts, additives and preservatives and other common allergens you can think of).

WARNING: If you child has real allergies (anything that shows up in a skin or blood test), withdrawing certain foods and reintroducing them later can result in very bad and dangerous allergy reactions so you need to be extra careful ! Don't do this without your familiy doctor !!! Generally,talk about this to your family doctor.

Hope this helps, and again sorry for the delay !
C.