Gluten and Casein Free Diet
My stepson has Asperger’s Syndrome, which is an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). For all of you who haven’t heard–I didn’t know until a few months ago–eliminating wheat and dairy from their diets can have a positive effect on people with Autism Spectrum Disorders.
One of the many symptoms of ASD is leaky gut. This causes digestive problems. People with ASD often have severe diarrhea or constipation. Besides these digestive problems, leaky gut also allows the toxins in some foods to pass directly into the blood stream. These toxins eventually make their way to the brain causing cognitive problems. The proteins in wheat and some other grains (gluten) and dairy (casein) perpetuate the problem of leaky gut. These hard to digest proteins make it impossible for the gut to heal itself.
Removing these proteins from the diet can help ASD people heal their digestive problems and often helps a foggy mind to clear. Gluten needs to be eliminated for at least six months and casein for at least one month.
It’s best to remove one food item at a time from your child’s diet. We’ve started with diary products because this is the easiest thing to remove. We’re slowly weaning him off wheat.
My stepson has been off dairy for two weeks now. The only difference we’ve seen is that his congestion has cleared up. That’s a big difference for me because his fine motor skills are poorly developed. This means he has difficulty doing things like tying his shoes, writing and wiping his nose. Usually he has snot all across his face and if you tell him to clean it off, he gets angry. Now that he no longer has a runny nose there are a lot less tantrums being thrown around the house. We haven’t noticed any difference in his behavior yet.
We’ll keep going and see what happens. You can find out more about diets for autism here.
Photo by visualpanic
My family was lactose-free for a while, but recently we introduced it back in, with a twist. We’re actually eating raw milk products — unprocessed and unpasturized. It’s been working great for us! All raw milk products have stronger flavor (particularly, milk and cheese) and they cause no problems with our digestion. My 4-year-old could not previously tolerate milk or cheese, but now she’s devouring it. There are some health risks involved (but everything does) so everyone should do research and make decisions based on what feels comfortable. That said, we’re discovering that the problems may lie in the processing of foods, not necessarily the foods themselves.
ari
Thanks for the comment Ari. I agree that the problem is in the processing of the food. I’ve been doing a lot of reading about raw milk recently. We’re considering using it when we re-introduce dairy products into our diet.
Raw milk saved me. My son gets all fermented. Works for us.
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