Dairy Products and Autsim/aspergers

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Does anyone know how much abstaining from dairy helps? Has anyone here had any success with doing so?

i dont know, ive heard it does. which sux cuz i love dairy!!

If you are one of the 36.7% of people on the autism spectrum with unusually permeable intestines, ( compared to 4.8% of the general population ), then it might make a great deal of difference to you because not only does an unusually permeable gut allow the passage of many more large molecules such as the food opioid peptides in dairy/casein and gluten, ( wheat, etc ), directly into the blood and to the brain, but those very same food opioid peptides themselves stimulate increased intestinal permeability, ( triggering production of zonulin in the gut ) such that people with unusually permeable intestines, ( a third of autists ), will absorb unusually high quantities of those opioid peptides.

A very recent study ( the most recent in fact ), of 72 children on the spectrum, showed that excluding casein and gluten over 12-24 months had an effect on attentional and social capacities compared to those not on the gfcf diet.

I have been excluding gluten for three years, and I would say that the main effect has been on my mood; very little depression, whereas on gluten I become increasingly prone to alienated and negative thinking which gradually overwhelms me.

I have excluded dairy on and off since then too, and excluding it for more than 3-4 weeks, ( 5-7 days for casein and gluten to leave the gut, and then 3-4 weeks for casein to leave the liver, 26 for gluten ), does seem to have an effect on exactly those things that the study found. I don't know what effect it would have cutting it out on its own.

My ability to attend to small, painstaking, long-term daily/banal tasks which otherwise seem tooo boring, interminable, complicated, etc is definitely increased. I actually enjoy them! ... And my ability to look people in the eye gets better too.

I think that both of these effects are because on a gfcf diet, without those opioids, I am less in my head, more in the world, less "spaced-out"/attached to my inner mental activities, more aware of the outside world in a "welcoming"/"able to process" way, etc.
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PS. Of course, being opioids they are addictive, and although I have managed to exclude gluten for three years now, because I really really did not want to be depressed, I keep finding reasons to start eating dairy again ... wanders like zombie to fridge muttering " ... cheese ... butter ... cheese .. butter ... ".

I'm currently a week into trying cf again ( probably the tenth time at least since going completely gf ) ! :lol
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i had read about it and tried excluding dairy from my (8yo) son's diet. i have noticed a few things.
1: it helps with the crazy jumping around and constant self talk( bam bam bam, oh yeah it produces vitamins, here, take this, spongebob!) that was driving ME insane. it really calms him down and he is more focused on whatever he does.
2: i have to stop buying any milk or he goes ninja on my fridge and drinks it from the bottle like it was the last chance everrrrr of getting anything so deliciouuuus......dude it's just milk.
so i can say i agree on both points. it helps to cut it out, and it IS addictive to some people apparently.....

Okay, what major food products contain gluten? And... how long should it take before I see a result?

Gluten is present in wheat, rye, and barley, ( and often present on commercial oats as a result of processing in the same factories ).

This means that most breads, cereals, pizzas, pastas, biscuits, crackers, and other flour products have gluten in them. Gluten, and modified wheat products containing gluten, like modified starch and hydrolysed vegetable protein, are also present in a lot of packaged and processed and fast-foods, including flavoured crisps/chips and corn chips, many soups, sauces, and batter/deep-fried foods, aswell as in standard soya sauce, many vinegars, and other malted foods, like many brands of corn-flakes.

However the following foods, fresh or plain/unprocessed, are both gluten and casein free:

All unprocessed meat
All unprocessed fish
Eggs
Plain or simply salted nuts and seeds
Fresh fruit and most dried fruit ( but not the flour-dusted dried-fruit varieties )
All fresh and most tinned and frozen vegetables, including avocado
Pulses such as chickpeas, lentils, beans, etc so long as are not in a sauce with flour in
Honey, sugar, and other sweeteners
Potatoes ( most commercial varities of french-fries have wheat dextrose in unfortunately but plain/fresh baked potatoes are fine with a fresh tuna filling or similar )
Rice
Corn
Buckwheat, and certain other cereals like tapioca.

When eating out go for plain foods such a steak or fish or omelette ( and ask for them without sauce unless are able to confirm ingredients ), and sausages if do not contain flour, ( which is unfortunately often not the case ), with simple rice or potato, and salads without a dressing ( unless can confirm ingredients ).

Good snacks are raw carrots, bananas and other fruit, "safe" dried fruit and nuts, dry ham, ( check isn't cured with wheat dextrose ), peanuts, plain crisps, and rice cakes which are great with honey, peanut butter, vegetable patés, avocado-mush, fish-paste, etc.


You could expect to see a difference after 5-7 days of complete gfcf diet, as they leave your intestines, and again at 3-4 weeks as casein leaves the rest of your body, and again at 26 weeks as gluten finally leaves your liver.

I saw a dramatic effect after just four days of a gfcf exclusion "fast"; it was amazing, and unforgettable.

Hope that is of some help.

NB. An excellent site both for information and support and advice on a gluten-free diet and other exclusion diets is the Gluten Free and Beyond forum at: http://www.glutenfreeandbeyond.org/forum/ and its sister site, "The Gluten File" at: http://sites.google.com/site/jccglutenfree/ In fact it was someone on there who posted the recent study on intestinal permeability in people on the spectrum, which I might not have seen otherwise.

Good luck.
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Last edited by ouinon on 29 Oct 2010, 2:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Ouinon, it seems so much is on the forbidden list, it's almost impossible to avoid it.

If you could, tell me, what DO you eat? A list of "okays" would be helpful in this situation.

What I eat? As above:




I don't eat corn, and am cutting down on high-fructose foods generally, but apart from that I eat almost everything on that list ( ... it's a big list, there are a lot of different foods on it! :lol ) .
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Oh that's the "Okay" list. Sorry.

No problem. I should probably have bolded the "However" which headed that list in my answer to your question. In fact I'll do that now!
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We are now approaching our one year anniversary of being GF/CF and I can't tell you how amazing it's been. My son was diagnosed this time last year with ASD and I decided to try it for him...and also my younger son and myself since I was still breastfeeding my youngest. At that time, I was completely unaware of my own Asperger's, but had very similar digestive and behavioral problems to my older son's. My son started talking around 2 weeks from the start of the diet. He also stopped chewing his hands, arms and feet. He still stims, but like me, he is good at doing it subtly without creating attention. I never minded any of his stimming really...just didn't want him to hurt himself and he is much more comfortable now. Before GF/CF, we both went back and forth between chronic constipation and diarrhea. All gone now! I can't believe I spent the past 30 years having so much stomach pain and the solution was this simple. And yes, I did just call the diet simple. At first it was very hard but we are so used to it now, I don't miss the milk or wheat at all anymore. I've listed a few things below that my kids and I love. I have to hunt a little online for coupons since some of these foods are pricey. Amazon has good deals if you buy in bulk.

My favorite GF/CF foods/brands are:
Udi's bread
Almond milk
Better Batter
Coconut yogurt and ice cream
Pamela's cookies
Pamela's bread mixes (works great in the bread machine and I even use them to make salad croutons)
Brown rice pastas
Enviro Kids rice bars
Applegate Farms chicken nuggets
Nulife foods (you have to order from their web site but EVERYTHING is good)
Lara bars

There are more, but I can't think of them all. We actually eat a lot of whole foods like meat, fish, veggies, fruits, nuts and seeds. The GF/CF list above is just to supplement our regular diet.

Avoiding dairy (and gluten and soy) helps me a LOT. My moods are more stable, meltdowns less frequent, self injury far less, much more settled and comfortable physically. Oh, and rather than running to the bathroom up to 20 times a day (!), things are much more normal.

I really think I should try this diet. :/

*says the person who just had a bowl of cereal with milk*

Maybe I can tell my mom about it and see what she thinks. It might be hard to cut out milk, but I've got a big test coming up in the next month or so and every little bit helps... I've struggled with fatigue, gut aches, and 'blood sugar' issues for as long as I remember.

I wanted to add... can anyone recommend to me any good books or links where I can go to find out more about the GFCF diet? From what I've read, the results are sometimes mixed. But hey, it's worth a try. It sounds like it could be pretty healthy if done right.

I am a vegan, and have not noticed the difference (in autistic characteristics) from before and after the transition. I am healthier, but still as autistic as I always was.