Research: Food Allergy and Autism Spectrum Disorders: Is There a Link?

Authored by Jyonouchi, H. in Current Allergy and Asthma Reports, Volume 9, Issue 3, p. 194-201, (2009).

Article summary (posted Sep 15, 2009):

Probiotics may help to relieve gut problems in children with autism.

This review article describes proposed causes of gut problems in children with autism and describes the risks and benefits of treatments. There are a lot of data to support that children with autism have a chronic immune response in their gut. Many parents treat the gut problems with the gluten-free, casein-free (GFCF) diet even though there is not a lot of data to support the use of the diet. While there is some concern that the GFCF diet may not provide all needed vitamins to children, this concern is not backed by data. Treatment with probiotics makes sense, but it has not been proven to work in scientific studies of children with autism.

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You can access the original abstract and the complete paper is sometimes available for free via Google Scholar (look for entries that say "PDF" or "HTML" on the right side of the page).
anticonvulsant, autism, autism spectrum disorder (ASD), casein-free diet, diet, gluten-free casein-free (GFCF), gluten-free diet, immune system, parent, probiotics, review article, treatment, vitamin
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