A fresh approach - Diet - Life & Style Home - brisbanetimes.com.au
Anne Susskind | May 10, 2007
A radical diet may hold the key to treating autistic children.
After three days on a gluten- and dairy-free, fresh food diet, Karen Wheelwright's severely autistic, four-year-old son Luke "woke up" and made eye contact.
To her amazement, a few days later, her non-autistic two-year-old twins, who she'd put on the same diet to avoid cooking separate meals, also showed marked behavioural improvements - in her daughter's case a lessening of night terrors and fear of dogs, in her son's an easing of his growing pains. Both showed less separation anxiety at child care.
Along with other parents and several doctors, and some of the world's leading experts in biomedicine and nutrition, Wheelwright, a certified mental retardation nurse, will outline her experiences at the Mindd International Forum on Children's Health, an expo-conference in Randwick from May 18 to 21.
It's a controversial proposition they will present, rejected by most in the mainstream medical profession, that by radically changing our dairy and wheat-rich diet to eliminate casein and gluten (found in high concentrations in processed milk and bread), and cutting out processed foods and replacing these with fresh produce and other sources of protein, we can change our children's behaviour patterns.
With the addition of individualised supplements under the guidance of a trained "biomedical practitioner", speakers will argue, we can significantly improve the lot of autistic children, children with ADHD, asthma and allergies.
The conference will also hear that careful diet can help all children, even those with no pressing problems, to help them achieve their physical, emotional and intellectual potential.
Simply put, the rationale is that, to differing degrees, children lack the intestinal bacteria (perhaps due to hereditary factors, perhaps antibiotics, perhaps both) and enzymes needed to digest food, absorb nutrients and eliminate toxins, particularly casein and gluten, which break down in the gut into compounds with "opiate agonist" (or drug-like) properties.
Children with autism are said to have "abnormal leakage" from the gut, allowing these substances to pass into the central nervous system and disrupt brain function - in effect fog up the brain, because they mimic the effects of endorphins.
The "cellular malnutrition" throughout the body that also results from this gut dysfunction in a child is exacerbated if the diet includes processed food with additives, preservatives, emulsifiers and too much sugar.
Conference organiser Leslie Embersits, whose children suffered from a range of disorders including speech delay, motor skill issues and digestive disorders, was able to throw out her prescriptions for Ritalin and cortisone after a dietary overhaul.
"It's necessary to go back to cellular health," she says. "Autism, affecting one in 125 Australian children, is a multisystem breakdown. From a biomedical perspective, ADHD, allergies, asthma, food sensitivities, dyslexia and learning delay are on the same continuum, characterised by high toxicity and low nutrient levels.
"With this goes weakened immunity, poor digestion and metabolism. In developing children, brains and nervous systems are affected.
"It's the brain-gut connection. We all know that when you go to the pub and have a beer it affects behaviour. Why do we think it's OK for children to eat blue icing and sprinkles and not get affected?"
Dr Antony Underwood, a paediatrician in private practice in Gordon, has specialised in the biomedical treatment of autism for eight years. He begins with blood and urine tests to determine the child's biochemistry, then devises a diet program with nutrition supplements for each child. Overall, two-thirds of those with autism have responded markedly, some so much that the label autism is no longer appropriate. About a third do not respond.
[...]
The mainstream medical establishment is sceptical, arguing that there is not sufficient evidence for the claims. A spokeswoman for the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, developmental paediatrician Dr Natalie Silove, says the college has no formal position statement on the link between autism and diet though its British and American equivalents do.
"They say there is no evidence base to any link whatsoever," she says. "There is absolutely no evidence to substantiate dietary interventions in autism. That's the bottom line. It's a lot of pseudo-science . . . [and] anecdotes. A healthy balanced diet is important for everybody, which includes fresh fruit, fibre, vegetables and all that, but a specialised dietary intervention is not indicated in autism."
[...]
The official position makes Pymble GP and allergy specialist Dr Marilyn Dyson see red. She has been working with children with ADHD, allergies and learning difficulties for the past 15 years, and also in the area of autism for the past five. She has, she says, more than 136 articles providing the research base for what she does in her practice, a combination of dietary measures and supplements, such as zinc, and usually some vitamin B12, specifically designed after a series of diagnostic tests and X-rays.
"I am concerned [by the information on the website]. Where is the harm? Diet can't harm them. There is a growing number of doctors, more than 50 in Australia, who are practising this approach and seeing continuing improvements in these children and getting some children out of the autism spectrum.
"Fifteen years ago, it was the same with fish oil. They said we shouldn't be wasting time and effort. Now they are saying, yes, the DHA [docosahexaenoic acid, a type of omega-3 fatty acid] in fish oil reduces the chance of Alzheimer's."
Dr Robyn Cosford from Mona Vale has treated hundreds of children with dietary change, specific vitamins, herbs and supplements. Her lowest expectation is behavioural improvement.
"My expectation is to see improvement in intellectual functioning," she says. "Most children come out of the autism spectrum."
Anne Susskind | May 10, 2007
A radical diet may hold the key to treating autistic children.
After three days on a gluten- and dairy-free, fresh food diet, Karen Wheelwright's severely autistic, four-year-old son Luke "woke up" and made eye contact.
To her amazement, a few days later, her non-autistic two-year-old twins, who she'd put on the same diet to avoid cooking separate meals, also showed marked behavioural improvements - in her daughter's case a lessening of night terrors and fear of dogs, in her son's an easing of his growing pains. Both showed less separation anxiety at child care.
Along with other parents and several doctors, and some of the world's leading experts in biomedicine and nutrition, Wheelwright, a certified mental retardation nurse, will outline her experiences at the Mindd International Forum on Children's Health, an expo-conference in Randwick from May 18 to 21.
It's a controversial proposition they will present, rejected by most in the mainstream medical profession, that by radically changing our dairy and wheat-rich diet to eliminate casein and gluten (found in high concentrations in processed milk and bread), and cutting out processed foods and replacing these with fresh produce and other sources of protein, we can change our children's behaviour patterns.
With the addition of individualised supplements under the guidance of a trained "biomedical practitioner", speakers will argue, we can significantly improve the lot of autistic children, children with ADHD, asthma and allergies.
The conference will also hear that careful diet can help all children, even those with no pressing problems, to help them achieve their physical, emotional and intellectual potential.
Simply put, the rationale is that, to differing degrees, children lack the intestinal bacteria (perhaps due to hereditary factors, perhaps antibiotics, perhaps both) and enzymes needed to digest food, absorb nutrients and eliminate toxins, particularly casein and gluten, which break down in the gut into compounds with "opiate agonist" (or drug-like) properties.
Children with autism are said to have "abnormal leakage" from the gut, allowing these substances to pass into the central nervous system and disrupt brain function - in effect fog up the brain, because they mimic the effects of endorphins.
The "cellular malnutrition" throughout the body that also results from this gut dysfunction in a child is exacerbated if the diet includes processed food with additives, preservatives, emulsifiers and too much sugar.
Conference organiser Leslie Embersits, whose children suffered from a range of disorders including speech delay, motor skill issues and digestive disorders, was able to throw out her prescriptions for Ritalin and cortisone after a dietary overhaul.
"It's necessary to go back to cellular health," she says. "Autism, affecting one in 125 Australian children, is a multisystem breakdown. From a biomedical perspective, ADHD, allergies, asthma, food sensitivities, dyslexia and learning delay are on the same continuum, characterised by high toxicity and low nutrient levels.
"With this goes weakened immunity, poor digestion and metabolism. In developing children, brains and nervous systems are affected.
"It's the brain-gut connection. We all know that when you go to the pub and have a beer it affects behaviour. Why do we think it's OK for children to eat blue icing and sprinkles and not get affected?"
Dr Antony Underwood, a paediatrician in private practice in Gordon, has specialised in the biomedical treatment of autism for eight years. He begins with blood and urine tests to determine the child's biochemistry, then devises a diet program with nutrition supplements for each child. Overall, two-thirds of those with autism have responded markedly, some so much that the label autism is no longer appropriate. About a third do not respond.
[...]
The mainstream medical establishment is sceptical, arguing that there is not sufficient evidence for the claims. A spokeswoman for the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, developmental paediatrician Dr Natalie Silove, says the college has no formal position statement on the link between autism and diet though its British and American equivalents do.
"They say there is no evidence base to any link whatsoever," she says. "There is absolutely no evidence to substantiate dietary interventions in autism. That's the bottom line. It's a lot of pseudo-science . . . [and] anecdotes. A healthy balanced diet is important for everybody, which includes fresh fruit, fibre, vegetables and all that, but a specialised dietary intervention is not indicated in autism."
[...]
The official position makes Pymble GP and allergy specialist Dr Marilyn Dyson see red. She has been working with children with ADHD, allergies and learning difficulties for the past 15 years, and also in the area of autism for the past five. She has, she says, more than 136 articles providing the research base for what she does in her practice, a combination of dietary measures and supplements, such as zinc, and usually some vitamin B12, specifically designed after a series of diagnostic tests and X-rays.
"I am concerned [by the information on the website]. Where is the harm? Diet can't harm them. There is a growing number of doctors, more than 50 in Australia, who are practising this approach and seeing continuing improvements in these children and getting some children out of the autism spectrum.
"Fifteen years ago, it was the same with fish oil. They said we shouldn't be wasting time and effort. Now they are saying, yes, the DHA [docosahexaenoic acid, a type of omega-3 fatty acid] in fish oil reduces the chance of Alzheimer's."
Dr Robyn Cosford from Mona Vale has treated hundreds of children with dietary change, specific vitamins, herbs and supplements. Her lowest expectation is behavioural improvement.
"My expectation is to see improvement in intellectual functioning," she says. "Most children come out of the autism spectrum."
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