Researchers study diet and autism

[Celebration]

http://www.physorg.com/news137342504.html

Researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston have embarked on one of the first double-blind, clinical studies to determine whether gluten and dairy products play a role in autistic behavior as parents have anecdotally claimed.

..........snip................

"There's a lot of misinformation, so that's why this study is so important," said Fernando Navarro, M.D., assistant professor of pediatrics at the medical school and lead investigator of the study. "Hundreds and hundreds of parents think this works but we need serious evidence."

.............snip.................

"A lot of children with autism have gastrointestinal problems such as constipation and diarrhea. Whether these problems are related to brain development is open to question," said Katherine Loveland, Ph.D., co-investigator and professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, pediatrics and biomedical sciences at the health science center. "There are neurotransmitters and neuroreceptors in the gut that correspond with those in the brain. There are some scientific reasons to think that some kids may benefit from this diet."


Researchers will study intestinal permeability (leaky gut) through urine collection and behavior through psychometric testing.

Not sure how a diet like this can be double blind (???) but oh well.

[kestrel91316]

1. I don't know why they are bothering with this. It's common knowledge that

autism is caused by those EVIL childhood immunizations!!!!!

For the sarcasm-impaired: :sarcasm:

[Warpy]

2. It can be done

At MIT, test subjects were fed a very dull diet of carboyhydrates and amino acids plus whatever variable they were testing at the time. Back then (20 years ago), it was manipulation of the 8 essential amino acids. At least, that was the major nutritional study that was going on during my brief time there.

Subjects stayed in an inpatient research unit at night and during their off time from classes.

[SheilaT]

3. Parents can be subject to

a lot of, I don't know, but I'll call it wishful thinking about the links between autism and diet or autism and vaccinations or diet and some other kind of disorder.

Let me explain. Both of my sons have an auto-immune disorder called alopecia areata. It causes hair loss. Both of my sons (now 25 and 21) have it in the most extreme form, called alopecia areata universalis which means they have no eyebrows, eyelashes, body hair of any kind. The oldest lost his hair at age 4, the younger at age 10. I've attended about 12 or so of the national conventions of the National Alopecia Areata Foundation, and at every one there are parents who are utterly convinced that their child's alopecia is caused by some missing nutrient or some trivial toxin in the environment or leaky gut syndrome or, it goes on and on. Yes, there are individuals out there with leaky gut syndrome who are also autistic or have alopecia areata, but it's not the cause of most of those disorders.

And it would be very difficult, if not highly unethical, to conduct the kind of experiments that could possibly figure this out definitively.

[hedgehog]

4. I wonder if it could be the other way around - that a defect in neuro-receptors

and/or neuro-transmitters causes both the autism and the gastro-intestinal problems.