Diet Necessary for Autistic Children

The Autism News | English

By Kompas

Researchers from the Diponegoro University here, S.A. Nugraheni said that strict diet is indispensable to dealing with children suffering from autism.

“This step is not usually considered by parents with autistic kids,” she said here after delivering an address on ’Autistic  Children’s Behavior’ in Semarang, Thursday.

According to her, based on the research, most autistic children, particularly in an advanced stage, respond well when given the low levels of food grain, milk, and similar products.

“Several other studies also noted that certain types of food autistic children need to avoid include foods that contain gluten, casein, glucose, and fats, but no authentic evidence had been found to support this,” she said.

Because of that, the university took the initiative to examine the effects of gluten and casein-free diet to change autistic  children’s behavior, assisted by M. Hakimi and Y. Prawitasari from the University of Gadjah Mada (UGM) in Yogyakarta.

“We carry out a counseling session for parents of autistic kids by using modules and books about gluten and casein-free diet once in every two weeks for three months,” she said.

He said that counselling is necessary to constantly monitor  whether gluten and casein-free diet is still available, and the observation showed a positive and significant behavioral change.

According to her, there was a though previously on how  psychological factors play an important role in causing symptoms of autism, but studies in metabolism indicate that many autistic children experience a variety of metabolic disorders.

“Metabolic disorders found in many autistic children, include those caused by various types of food, excessive growth of fungi and ’yeast’, indigestion and heavy metal poisoning,” he said.

Besides, there are also abnormalities in autistic children’s intestines, namely small holes in intestinal mucous membranes and the increased intestinal permeability,also known as leaky guts, she said.

Gluten (protein from wheat) and casein (protein from cow’s milk), he continued, are proteins difficult to digest peptides), mainly because of the leaks that caused intestinal mucus to enter the blood circulation.

Source: http://english.kompas.com/read/xml/2009/10/16/07343995/Diet.Necessary.for.Autistic.Children

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