A Rationale for Using Diet to Treat Autism

Autism is multi-factoral in nature, in other words, it has more than one cause.

Each Autistic person is unique in how they aquired the Autism symptoms that they have. And the only thing they truly share is the list of symptoms that commonly appear together, such as, no or very little language, poor motor skills, extreme social delays, tantrums, stimming, extreme innattentiveness, insomnia, lack of fear in dangerous situations, poor judgement, impulsivity, low awareness of pain, etc. There are some symptoms that also appear, but are overshadowed by the more extreme symptoms like lack of communication and tantrums, so that few have paid a lot of attention to the fact that many Autistics have lots of GI problems, inflammatory problems, circles under the eyes, are pale, and have wrist drop and ankle drop (symptoms of lead poisoning.) Because an Autistic person has poor communication combined with a low body awareness, and is often late in toilet training, these symptoms can go under the radar even though they might be red flags in a non-Autistic person.

Its easy to think that they are pale, underweight or uncoordinated because they are such picky eaters that often they limit their food choices to five or fewer foods. And these foods can have "bizzare" patterns to them, for instance, one child will only eat foods that are beige in color. But more Doctors are thinking that it is the GI symptoms, allergic symptoms and thrush-like symptoms that are causing the child to eat less variety of foods to begin with. They have sumrised that healing the childs body and brain will help them to tolerate more foods more easily.

The child is trying to limit foods to those he feels better eating, but he/she has no idea which foods those are, because of the opiates produced by the toxins in the foods, they are not able to be as aware of their body as a normal child is. Some foods increase the opiates, so the pain of GI symptoms appear to lessen, when really this is part of the original problem. Some foods are bland and have an easy texture to tolerate, because the child has a very sensitive mouth and GI tract due to a candida infection, but the same bland foods, like breads and cheeses, have more of the candida in them that is causing the problem. So the problem, if left to the child's tastes alone, may only get worse and worse.

There are some very good books out now about the problem of chronic inflammation in causing everything from heart disease to mental illness. So the next thing I will discuss is doing a different kind of dietary intervention (this is also something the lay person can do--parents or caregivers.)This would be an elimination diet, specific to the individual. The elimination of wheat, dairy, yeast, and food additives are things that any person can do for many different health reasons, and many non-Autistic people have GI and inflammatory symptoms from eating these foods. However, when a person or child has an irritated GI tract, or their immune system is over-reactive due to various reasons, they can become allergic to a specific food.

It is our immune system that constantly monitors the foods we injest, the air we breathe and everything we come into contact with, and decides if it is "me" or "not me." Self, or not self? It says, "Do I let this in, or do I reject it?" And if it decides the substance is "not self" the immune system can destroy anything--any part of the body, (in type 1 diabetes, it is the pancreas) even itself (as in AIDS.)

In my opinion, an allergy begins when the immune system is activated in a way that is dysfunctional. If a tissue in the body becomes irritated by something over a long period of time, that tissue, be it the lungs, or the mucous membranes of the mouth or eyes, or the skin, can over-react to that something, even if it is beneficial, like food. For instance, the lining tissue of the lungs can become inflammed from exposure to cigarette smoke, but often it requires the addition of preservatives in cigarettes, to create the immune response that leads to emphazema. It is not the nicotine alone, usually, or the nicotine patches would cause an allergy to nicotine.

Another way is from the mother's immune system. The child inherits some of the mother's immune responses, good or bad, to foods and other things in the environment. The third way is triggered by a toxin interfering with the normal development of the immune system's vocabulary. We are born with only a partially developed immune system, part of which is inherited, part of which has been learned in the womb from the mother, and part of which needs "training" by exposure to various things after birth, and by continued training via the mother's colostrum (the immune factors in mother's milk.) This process isn't complete for many years after birth.

Sometimes a peanut allergy is genetically inherited and sometimes it is learned from exposure to the mother's immune response, and sometimes it is caused by toxins suppplied with peanuts in the form of pesticides sprayed on the crops, which cause the developing immune system to go haywire as it is fine-tuning its response to various substances. Most pesticides work to derail the nervous system of the insects it is designed to thwart. These chemicals often do not pose a problem for adults who have a fully functioning immune system, and to whom the exposure is relatively small due to body size. However, they might be a signal to an immature human nervous system that this food, containing a tiny amount of poison, is actually a poison itself, and should be rejected. The very young child will reject bitter-tasting foods because the bitter taste often is the signal of a toxin or substance that their immature GI system is unable to handle yet. With many presentations of a particular food (up to 20-40 times) by a trusted adult, a child's immune system will begin to accept a new food as safe. This is much better of a system, than having all children being born with an openness to just about any food--since toddlers are almost impossible to follow around and limit every second of every day. Perhaps years ago, this tendency prevented many accidental food poisonings (not all, but certainly the child would be less likely to eat spoiled food, left out, or toxic plants, for instance.)

The body sends many uncomfortable signals and responses to indicate to a child to reject a food. For one thing, the child has about 100 times as many taste buds as an adult. And the uncomfortable inflammation of mucous membranes, headaches, runny eyes and nose, nausea, even vomiting, can cause the infant or young child to limit the foods he/she eats drastically.

A common problem that seems to have occured with Autism, is that a heavy metal was used to preserve a weakened or killed deadly disease organism and was injected into very young babies during the time before weaning when normally a baby is using their mother's clostrum to fine-tune its very premature immune system. The baby's immune system over-reacts at the same time it has been exposed to a neuro-toxin (mercury), and so is partially impaired. This is very sad, because the same reason mercury works to hurt bacteria in the immunization vials, is the same reason it hurts the child's nervous system. Mercury is a neuro toxin. That's why it was used to begin with. It kills cells--any living cells--human or otherwise, particularly growing and dividing cells. (Like the kind in a growing child--and before age 4 -- a time the brain is doubling in size!) If it was any less toxic, it could be used similarly to kill cancer cells.

This is further complicated by the fact that the baby is being exposed to more than one weakened disease at one time--up to three in one exposure. This would normally never happen in real life-- a quadruple threat to the immune system at a very immature age--a heavy metal toxin exposure, a viral exposure, and a bacterial exposure at once. Infant human bodies were simply never designed to have to deal with this type of intense threat at once.*

Somehow the finely tuned immune response (it has to be finely tuned in order to "learn" what is food, what is not food, what is "safe" and what is not safe, and what is part of its own body--and what is not) gets its wires crossed.

*In real life, this combination would surely kill a child. Where any single bacterium or virus might only kill some percentage (say, 50%) of babies before the advent of immunizations, and so pass on some kind of genetic advantage to future generations.