Fw: Diet Changes May Ease Autism Symptoms

[Guest guest]

Wednesday June 13 10:15 AM ET

Diet Changes May Ease Autism Symptoms: Study

By Griffiths

LONDON (Reuters Health) - A small study conducted by US-based researchers is providing preliminary scientific support to the idea that changes in diet can improve symptoms in some people with autism.

Autism is a neurological disorder that impairs thinking, feeling and social functioning. It typically appears during the first 3 years of life and can range in severity and symptoms, from mild to devastatingly severe impairment.

Heredity is thought to play a major role in the disease. Dr. Ted Kniker has been investigating the theory that poorly degraded food proteins leak from the gut into the blood, having a drug-like effect that changes brain activity.

In the first part of his study, reported by Reuters Health in early May, Kniker, of the San Autistic Treatment Center in Texas, found that 5 out of 28 children and adults with autism showed improvements in their symptoms after elimination of dairy products and wheat glutens from their diets.

In the second part of the study, the researchers eliminated several other foods, including buckwheat, soy products, tomato, pork and grapes from the patients' diets. ``The improvements were really exciting,'' according to Kniker, who collaborated in this study with colleagues at the Autistic Treatment Centers of Texas.

``Symptoms changed dramatically in 39.3% of patients during the second phase of the 3-month intervention period,'' he said. Eight out of 28 patients showed clear improvements, as measured by a variety of quantitative scoring methods, including the Autistic Treatment Evaluation Checklist.

``Only three patients deteriorated, but we hope that these individuals will improve in time. In the first part of the study, five patients deteriorated, but two of these returned to their baseline levels in the last month of the study, so it could be that the others who deteriorated are still eating potentially allergenic foods,'' he said.

Kniker argues that autism is not usually a defect in brain development, but is more likely to be a brain dysfunction that is secondary to extraneous factors, such as dietary factors, immune dysfunctions, infections or toxins.

``In future studies, we will improve our strategy by identifying all potentially troublesome foods by blood tests, dietary elimination and challenge procedures, rather than imposing an arbitrary diet,'' Kniker stated.

Commenting on the study, autism expert Professor Hall from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine agreed that ``further carefully conducted randomized trials of this dietary approach to treatment are worthwhile.''

But he noted that ``whether or not treatment is effective does not necessarily imply that an abnormal response to food is part of the cause of autism. Any abnormal response to food could be a result of autism.''

Kniker cautioned that standard behaviour management, psychological and educational approaches to the treatment of autism will still be necessary, because improvements in cognition and mood can lead to new stresses and demands on patients.

``As we noted in the previous study, some individuals who showed improvements in brain function showed deterioration in behaviour, as they found it hard to deal with these dramatic changes,'' he said.

Kniker will present his findings at a meeting in Sicily at the end of June.