Can reducing gluten help?

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I tried the elimination diet with my daughter - not easy since she has a select bunch of foods she'll eat most of which are carbs. We saw no change with gluten, casein, soy, HFCS, or food dyes although eliminating the HVCS and food dyes was done for other health reasons anyway.

My kid isn't sensitive to any of these things and she only has to contend with rare bouts of indigestion issues. Food sensitivities aren't our problem but that doesn't mean they may not be yours. I agree with everyone elses opinion here - contact your doctor and do try it with supervision - someone who understands elimination diets and what to look for.

Mushroo wrote: I am all for consenting adults to try whatever diet they think will improve their health/mental clarity. But what is the ethics of putting a child on a very restricted diet unless there is some specific medical reason to do so? (I don't know the answer, just trying to stimulate discussion.)

I don't know enough about it to recommend it but the GAPS diet is not unbalanced. You just have to be very sure of the diet to make it work right. I will consider it for my child once I have time to learn about it completely. Seeing how much he has improved on the GFCF diet, I would be very intersted in seeing if GAPS would help even more.

"Are you sure the reason your son is doing better with his autism isn't because he's just growing and learning to cope better? With his permission, you should experiment by taking him off the diet and seeing if he regresses again. I think a lot of parents mistake their children's own learning and growing for the work of outside causes."


Diniesaur, Yes I am absutely sure. We can tell a mile away if he's had some wheat flour. We have to think about it but it's usually in some condiment or something like that. It's usually oppositional or unreasonable behavior that we see when he's had some flour. He will always be aspie but not so bad on the diet.

That's really weird, aann. I wonder what the biological reason for that is. (I'm majoring in biology )

I've seen a few excellent articles on the internet about it. I'll look when I find the time. Basically the brain is effected by how well the intestines can do their job.