Doctors started investigating the effect that diet, ( food intolerances aswell as vitamin and mineral deficiencies ), had on mental health, ( mood and cognitive functioning ), as long ago as the 1920's. Certain doctors found that they could cure depression and anxiety, brain-fog, manic and hypo-manic behaviour, exhaustion, fatigue, chronic headaches, behavioural disorders in children, including violent outbursts, screaming and hyperactivity, aswell as some forms of paranoia, hallucinations, etc, with diets which excluded common foods such as wheat, and/or dairy, and/or egg, and/or corn, sugar, pork and potatoes, etc.
Nobody used the word autism, the word didn't even exist when this all started. They simply described ( among many other kinds of patient ) , children brought to them with violent outbursts, ( what we might now call meltdowns ), withdrawal, confusion, crying and anxiety, repeated self-harm, aswell as adults who were used to being appreciated for their "walking dictionary" abilities in a time before computers, who found themselves sinking into deeper and deeper depression, and, after years of being able to remember the tiniest of details, ( something which their employers paid them for ), experiencing what they described as brain-fog, ... and who found that cutting out certain foods etc made them feel dramatically better.
But although some researchers, like Theron G Randolph, ( in the 50's and 60's ) and two other earlier medical men, whose names I've most annoyingly forgotten, ( the ones who started researching this in the 20's ), accumulated thousands of case-studies from their clinical practices, their thesis, with its emphasis on a cheap non-pharmaceutical approach to ill-health, and, even "worse", one which struck at the heart of the american agricultural industry, ( wheat, dairy, corn, etc ), was far from popular, and, perhaps not coincidentally the sort of medical argument based on casework, ( rather than statistically etc studies ) was increasingly deemed unreliable/unworthy of scientific attention.
Dr. Richard Mackarness, in the UK, began using the principles of exclusion diets with his patients in the 60's and 70's. He too discovered that diet could have the most astounding effect on mental ( aswell as physical ) health, both mood and cognitive functioning. He wrote a book about it, called "Not All in the Mind", and the idea continued to spread. At the same time scientists were beginning to carry out research into the underlying molecular, chemical and biological processes/mechanisms involved, and today a lot more is understood about how diet affects mental health, both mood and cognitive functioning.
I don't know when the specifically gf-cf diet became associated with a cure for autism.
Autism is the result of multiple genetic and epigenetic factors, of which diet is almost certainly one, and in some/many cases dietary change can/will have a dramatic effect on mood and cognitive functioning, but that is not the same thing as "curing" autism. I think that in a significant number of cases it may relieve some of the metabolic stress that a great many on the spectrum seem to suffer from, the frequently comorbid depression and anxiety, aswell as certain cognitive abilities such as executive skills, even language and writing, ( as found by a school for dyslexics in Scotland that introduced a gluten-free diet for one boy whose reading skills then shot ahead, so markedly that the school now provides the gf diet for all its students ), and as such is worth trying.
1% of the general population now have celiac disease, and as many as 10-15% of the population have elevated levels of the gliadin antibodies which are responsible for celiac and also non-celiac gluten-intolerance. Mothers with autoimmune disorders ( celiac disease, diabetes, etc ), are two to three more times likely to have a child on the autism spectrum. People on or near the autism spectrum have lower levels of the enzymes/disaccharidases necessary to digest complex carbohydrates, ( incl lactose in dairy, and all complex and starchy carbohydrates ), and also have fragile lipid metabolisms, ( lipids are fats, and are essential for brain functioning ), among other things. Sub-clinical celiac disease/gluten-intolerance can seriously impact on a person's ability to absorb crucial vits, minerals and fats.
.
21 Jul 2010, 10:00 pm
