CNN posted an article today,
Study: Gluten-free diets do not improve autism behavior, written by Trisha Henry, CNN Medical Producer. "Researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center in upstate New York put the gluten- and casein-free diet to most stringent test today, according to lead author Dr. Susan Hyman."
The study involved 14 children diagnosed with autism. The study claims that their results prove that changing an autistic child's diet will not improve their behavior. These conclusions are based on putting 14 children on the diet for four weeks, and then giving them a casein and gluten food item.
I'm not sure what irritates me the most about this study. Is it that they did a study with 14 children and make this claim on that basis or that CNN is reporting it as a fact that should be accepted by everyone.
I'm not a scientist, but I do know that the results of one,very small research study is not enough to make assumptions of this magnitude. In my opinion, presenting this study's results as fact will do a lot of harm in the autism community. The fact that CNN has reported on it will also hurt our community, too.
This study has also been reported on by other major news sites on the internet. I think this is a very detrimental study and I am disappointed in the news organizations that are reporting on this. They are legitimizing this study. This is a study that only had 14 children participating. This is a study that excluded children with gastrointestinal issues. Then, it turns around and says that the diet doesn't help children with autism. I ask you this. How many children were turned away from this study because of allergies or gastrointestinal problems?
Recommend
Comments (18)
I have a story to tell: when HSb was little he had continual ear infectiosn that even an antibiotic prophylactic could not stop. We eventaully put tubes in his ears. Well immediately his entire demeanor changed. When I mentioned it to some individual they responded, "Well of course, he is not longer in pain." It had never actally dawned on me that the child was constantly uncomfortable because of the ear problems. Looking back I realized how it changed his disposition. I would also hazard to say that the tubes did not solve his issues but by taking away the pain in his ears it allowed him to concentrate on other things, like therapy.
I would say that that is the same for the gcf diets. It is not the reason that the children progress, but what it does is take away the discomfort and pain associated with a wheat diet. Thereby the children can concentrate on what they need to learn in therapy. So as with tubes in the ears, it doesn't cause the better behavior but allows the child to live pain free to access the therapy they need. Also, if you wre constatnly uncomfortable wouldn't you misbehave or have meltdowns too. As adults we have tantrums when we don't feel well, think of it as a young child with autism, then extrapolate.
Of course the study excluded children with celiac disease or allergies to wheat! I'm not sure how it would have made sense to include them. Like @aspergers2mom said, children who have allergies to gluten or are otherwise unable to digest it are going to be uncomfortable, and this discomfort will have an effect on their behavior. In such cases, eliminating gluten from the diet improves behavior because it eliminates the discomfort/pain of eating something you're allergic to.
The thing is, we would see this effect in ANY child who was allergic to gluten, not specifically children with autism. By only studying autistic children who do NOT have other allergies/gastrointestinal issues, the authors would be able to see if a gcf diet has some direct effect on improving autism behavior, unrelated to simply alleviating allergy symptoms.
I don't think the article is being unreasonable. The study authors say that they've found no link between gluten/casein and behavior in autistic children without GI problems, but they certainly aren't saying that it'd be the same for children who DO have GI problems. In fact, they note that "more studies need to be done looking at the effects of diet and the
specific subtypes of autism." So it's not really a "case-closed" situation where they're saying no additional research is needed.
Just think about the last time you had an excrutiatingly painful toothache or headache. Could you accomplish much, be focused or in a good mood that day. The GFCF followers have a pretty healthy diet, at least the kids that I am familiar with. They simply don't consume junk and therefor have a better overall feeling of well being. I think as a whole we could benefit from eating healthier. It just makes sense.
Blame the reporters, not the study. I mean, right in the article it says "Hyman and Mandell both say more studies need to be done looking at the effects of diet and the specific subtypes of autism." and that this is the deepest look the subject has gotten so far.
I don't know if special diets help with Autism any, but 14 kids is not a large enough sample pool to prove anything.
This is an outrage. Anyone who know anything about the immune system would tell you Gluten is MAJOR inflammatory immune mediator. I would highly over look this study and conclude the authors of this study are near sighted!
If you want to read some more on this topic I have several articles on this on my blog.
http://autismtreatmentdoctor.com/
Dr. Compton
Dr Compton is just promoting his clinic. I don't see how a chiropractor without qualifications in endocrinology, neuorology or general medicine can be promoting himself as offering treatment and cures in these specialities.
People with a problem with cling on to any straw at all that they think might help. A lot of people would rather believe urban myths, anecdotal experience or anything promoted by someone with Dr. in front of their name (no matter how qualified or other) rather than solid, reproducible scientific research. However, I don't see how either side can claim that gluten-free diets work or don't work with a sample size of 14 people.
........Changing your diet will NOT change a neurological disease. i can't see why anyone thought it would have been the cause in the first place.
An order to test a theory, science needs funding. Which means they create a theory. Then they pitch an idea for a small study involving a small amount of people. Funding is given if the paperwork is right & the tests are performed. If the results are all negative, because with that many people there should be one child at LEAST that improves even just a little. From that they take the numbers of the children who improved, even by the tiniest bit, & they try to fund another study with more people. But if no one improved then there's no need for another test because someone would have improved. & don't forget, even if it is slow progress the tiniest bit of progress would show up, either with a brain scan, EEG, etc.
Personally i think it has to do with body temperature at a very young age, even as young as in the womb (or maybe it all starts there, i dunno). Fevers in the womb or as babies have been known to cause brain damage & other problems & i believe it's something of the same here. Maybe.
I know 14 children is not enough to conduct a good study. I also know when it comes to my younger austic brother the diet makes a WORLD of a difference. Before we were aware of Ty's condition, we allowed to him to drink 4-6 glasses of milk a day and eat ice cream as a reward for eating good, and his behavior got worse with each thing. He even regressed in his speech and walking. After this, we researched and found out he had Asperger's syndrome. Now, if he eats cereal in the morning, and a grilled cheese for lunch, he can barely make it through the day. His behavior is very negativity affected. Ty has also been allergy tested and he is not allergic to gluten or casein. It may not be for everyone, but for him the diet makes a difference. And with his GI tract, it hasn't been tested if he has any problems or not, but considering the amount of medicine a child has to take with Autism, I would assume almost every child would have a sore stomach. Ty only takes 3 different medicines a day because of his being so mild, but no small child can take that many medications on a daily basis and be perfectly healthy in their stomachs.
@loveslikethisx33@xanga - Just out of curiosity, what 3 meds does Ty take and what are they for? My oldest son is 13 & considered mild pdd. We have him on 2 meds. I often wonder what else is out there that helps. Not that I'm looking to "drug up" my son, but if there are other meds out there that would help him I would be willing to consider them as I know the 2 he's on has made a big difference for him.
I really don't think you can prove anything conclusively either way. Studies are always disproving each other. All those medications that the FDA have previously approved are now being recalled and taken off the market. Weather men are wrong almost all the time.
My youth pastors son is autistic, was really bad, but since his glutten free diet he is much better! So I don't agree with this "study"
@loveslikethisx33@xanga - @lizgreene - Please forgive me for butting in...
My daughter is not autistic, but she had severe ADHD with co-morbid LD. We put her on this diet. www.feingold.org Many parents of autistic children have also claimed excellent results with it. They don't advocate throwing away medicine, but do say that after a month, parents should have the child evaluated and meds adjusted. Check out some of the stories. (My daughter is third from the left.)
my friend's child has a mild form of autisim and he started the child a few months ago on a gluten-free diet and i can see a huge difference in his behavior. He is doing so many things that he didn't do before like voicing his opinion about stuff like getting out of bed in the morning or how he feels about people singing or what he eats. before he had a speach problem and never spoke about anything. he is improving with his new diet and just because it didn't work for the other 14 children doesn't mean it doesn't help other children.
@Art_Is_War423@xanga - Interesting, because celiacs also have neurological disorders that seem to be helped by removing gluten. http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/113/6/1672
Also, 4 weeks is not long enough to see vast enough of an improvement. The gut takes time to heal. Read more on Leaky gut syndrome here: http://www.drweil.com/drw/u/QAA361058/what-is-leaky-gut.html
I don't believe these diets are helpful for Autistic children. However, I agree with you that this study is NOT good enough to suddenly call this belief a fact. They need to do a much longer, much extensive, and much more inclusive study on this. They're just being lazy. Lazy does not equal fact. It just equals cut corners. Which is not a good thing when trying to conduct scientific research of any sort.
I'm going to come on here in defense of the scientists for a moment, even though I know that the hard sciences usually have limited training on experimental techniques. I'm not saying that all or any of these happened, but there's a good chance that at least one of them did.
1. These kinds of studies are extremely expensive. Perhaps they brought in as many people as they could afford, even knowing for a (scientific) normal curve they would need 30 people, 60 if it's between-studies.
2. The news has a horrible reputation for finding studies like this, after they were released to a scientific magazine (etc.), and blowing them completely out of proportion. They take corellative studies and say there's a cause. There could be flaws in the studies. They sometimes focus on parts of the study that the scientists didn't. They do this without consulting anyone from the study.
3. There could have been drop outs. Maybe they started out with the correct amount of people but after something comes up, or they find out they're not in the experimental but the control group, or they move away or the child becomes too over-excited to continue the job then they can't include those results in the study. It could have been a matched study to begin with and when one match drops out then the other has to as well, killing two results with one stone.
4. They didn't use children with gluten allergies because that's an extraneous variable, one that could turn into a confounding one and ruin the entire study. They're doing what a good experimental study does--erase all extraneous variables until the only variable that's in the study is the only one you want to look at. In the future they will add more people and more variables until they do factor studies or simple designs that include gluten-sensitive children as well. But it has to be controlled, and they will look a the simplest variables first. The problem with the allergy part is as someone mentioned above--it's painful. People will concentrate on pain first and other things second--there's no way to remove that variable from this study design so they removed the problem, which is what they are supposed to do.
A note on the talk about medications being pulled off the shelves, therefore you can't trust any study, this isn't necessarily true. All medications have been used in studies. If you use any medications, then you are part of this system. The problem with going from the study, which is basically a theory on paper, to real world is the expansion of both time and numbers. Most medications have to come to a p<.001 (or there are harmful effects for less than 1 out of 1000 people) or even less than that. They work with numbers that they assume, through much previous testing within the math field, that equate to a normal curve. Sometimes, though, when you expand to the number that is putting this medication onto the market you find an effect there that wasn't present in the study. Sometimes these medications have effects over the years, past 5, which is what most medication studies test to (although not all, especially in the face of a disease scare) but once they hit the market and it goes past that time and starts showing negative side effects they'll pull it off the market. We should be happy they're still watching, especially if the studies showed no ill effects and it was tested to the parameters that are set for people's safety.
Sorry this got so long.
I always though that autism is cause by the environment that the kid grew up. If I'm not mistaken, the most critical age for every kid to absorb everything around them is around age 3 to 7. So during those age, it's highly desirable to have the kid surrounded with their peers and kids who are 1-3 years older than them all the time. This gives them inital social interaction that will be embedded in them throughtout. And to further develop their communication and their interpersonal skill, the kid needs to be around by their peers and those who's a couple or a few years older than them all the way throught their adolescent. And I believe at that point, they are competence.