Some very interesting research has been released lately in relation to gastrointestinal struggles in Autistic children. The CDC recently stated that children with Autism are 3.5 times more likely to suffer from chronic constipation than their typically developing peers. Aiden is one of those kids, he suffers with significant constipation trouble. In 2006 two researchers, Valicenti and McDermott, conducted a study involving 150 children, 50 with ASD diagnosis and 100 typically developing children split into two control groups. They found that 70% of ASD children suffered with GI issues, compared to the 40% of typically developing children in the control groups. Of that group 36% of children with ASD suffered from food allergies, compared to 5-8% of neurotypical children who develop food allergies in the control group. This is something to stand up and take notice of. If you have a loved one with ASD, please strongly consider involving them with a gastroenterologist.
Children with ASD can suffer from all the typical gastrointestinal struggles such as gastritis, GERD, colitis, IBS, constipation, motility, food allergies/sensitivities, and overgrowth syndrome. It is important to understand why and this brings me to the meat and potatoes of this post. To understand the issues we must fist understand the digestive system. As you know food enters your body through your mouth, you chew food and swallow it. The food travels down your esophagus, to your stomach, and then passes through your intestines until it turns into waste. If you remotely paid attention in basic biology you have a firm understanding of your GI tract and how it generally works. But where we notice an interesting discrepancy is in absorption.
A big trend in the Autistic community is a Gluten free Casein free diet or GFCF diet. Some people swear by it and others see no change at all, some even report a worsening of symptoms. So why so diverse of a response? Well that answer is simple, we are all different. It is important to realize a very controlled study was conducted of 35 children with ASD. In that study 3 of 35 children benefited from a GFCF diet, three of them actually got worse, and the rest showed no change in behavior. Over 2.5 million years the human has been "evolving", but according to science we only see gluten introduced at the "end" of our evolutionary cycle. Gluten was only discovered because we transitioned from a nomadic hunter, to settlers and farmers. We began growing wheat, barley, rye, etc, and therefor we began ingesting Gluten. It is important to note here that Autism is now being linked to auto immune disorders due to strong family histories of auto immune disorders in relatives of Autistic individuals. I have psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis, my relatives have psoriasis, my mother in law has auto immune disorders, and my mother has eczema. I focus mainly on my side of the family since Autism markers are found on the X-chromosome, not Y. This indicates the genes are passed to the child by the mother, not the father.
How does the immune system have anything to do with digestion and Autistic GI issues? One of the most highly affected chromosome's in ASD is Chromosome 16. One of the responsibilities of 16 is opening and closing of absorption pathways through a chemical called Zonulin. In situations of ASD or other auto immune disorders the Zonulin may not work properly and keep these pathways open, permanently. This compromises the integrity of the intestinal barrier resulting in a term called "leaky gut". When the gut leaks there is an activation of the immune system, the white blood cells rush to the area to fight, what they perceive to be, an infection. This fight results in inflammation and causes a restructuring of the intestinal wall. Gluten cases a Zonulin release, not seen in Casein. Both Gluten and Casein molecules are larger than other typical food molecules and to help the body the Zonulin may freeze the intestinal pathway open to pass these molecules. This activates the immune system. In scientific studies, the only other situation that causes this mass scale response is a bacterial infection. So the body processing Gluten causes the same mass scale immune system response as the body fighting a bacterial infection. This strongly supports one of Autism's prevalent theories and it works like this: During the fight the white blood cells are damaged. This causes those blood cells to become inflamed. After the fight these blood cells are not restricted to this area and can travel all over the body, one of those places is to the brain. This, in effect, transfers the inflammation to the brain causing a worsening of Autistic behaviors. To hear more about this finding please watch this very interesting and eye opening informational video and article. Fair warning it is about 30 minutes long and a lot of this is geared toward medical professionals. I had to really focus to follow the information, but it also contains worlds of other interesting information that maybe beneficial to you. I strongly recommend watching.
On a more generalized scale a review published in Pediatrics medical journal of 15 studies of 2,200 children provides firm evidence that children with ASD are highly prone to developing GI issues. It goes as far to say that children with ASD disorders are 3 times more likely to suffer from constipation or diarrhea. Children with Autism also appear to have double the risk of abdominal pain. To see more information please visit the article published in Medline Plus.
One article that explains the common struggles of ASD individuals and GI issues can be found here. I personally have found this article helpful in explaining chronic constipation, chronic diarreha, and GERD. It also explains ways you can help. Another helpful article, just released in at the end of 2013, can be found here.
Children with ASD can suffer from all the typical gastrointestinal struggles such as gastritis, GERD, colitis, IBS, constipation, motility, food allergies/sensitivities, and overgrowth syndrome. It is important to understand why and this brings me to the meat and potatoes of this post. To understand the issues we must fist understand the digestive system. As you know food enters your body through your mouth, you chew food and swallow it. The food travels down your esophagus, to your stomach, and then passes through your intestines until it turns into waste. If you remotely paid attention in basic biology you have a firm understanding of your GI tract and how it generally works. But where we notice an interesting discrepancy is in absorption.
A big trend in the Autistic community is a Gluten free Casein free diet or GFCF diet. Some people swear by it and others see no change at all, some even report a worsening of symptoms. So why so diverse of a response? Well that answer is simple, we are all different. It is important to realize a very controlled study was conducted of 35 children with ASD. In that study 3 of 35 children benefited from a GFCF diet, three of them actually got worse, and the rest showed no change in behavior. Over 2.5 million years the human has been "evolving", but according to science we only see gluten introduced at the "end" of our evolutionary cycle. Gluten was only discovered because we transitioned from a nomadic hunter, to settlers and farmers. We began growing wheat, barley, rye, etc, and therefor we began ingesting Gluten. It is important to note here that Autism is now being linked to auto immune disorders due to strong family histories of auto immune disorders in relatives of Autistic individuals. I have psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis, my relatives have psoriasis, my mother in law has auto immune disorders, and my mother has eczema. I focus mainly on my side of the family since Autism markers are found on the X-chromosome, not Y. This indicates the genes are passed to the child by the mother, not the father.
How does the immune system have anything to do with digestion and Autistic GI issues? One of the most highly affected chromosome's in ASD is Chromosome 16. One of the responsibilities of 16 is opening and closing of absorption pathways through a chemical called Zonulin. In situations of ASD or other auto immune disorders the Zonulin may not work properly and keep these pathways open, permanently. This compromises the integrity of the intestinal barrier resulting in a term called "leaky gut". When the gut leaks there is an activation of the immune system, the white blood cells rush to the area to fight, what they perceive to be, an infection. This fight results in inflammation and causes a restructuring of the intestinal wall. Gluten cases a Zonulin release, not seen in Casein. Both Gluten and Casein molecules are larger than other typical food molecules and to help the body the Zonulin may freeze the intestinal pathway open to pass these molecules. This activates the immune system. In scientific studies, the only other situation that causes this mass scale response is a bacterial infection. So the body processing Gluten causes the same mass scale immune system response as the body fighting a bacterial infection. This strongly supports one of Autism's prevalent theories and it works like this: During the fight the white blood cells are damaged. This causes those blood cells to become inflamed. After the fight these blood cells are not restricted to this area and can travel all over the body, one of those places is to the brain. This, in effect, transfers the inflammation to the brain causing a worsening of Autistic behaviors. To hear more about this finding please watch this very interesting and eye opening informational video and article. Fair warning it is about 30 minutes long and a lot of this is geared toward medical professionals. I had to really focus to follow the information, but it also contains worlds of other interesting information that maybe beneficial to you. I strongly recommend watching.
On a more generalized scale a review published in Pediatrics medical journal of 15 studies of 2,200 children provides firm evidence that children with ASD are highly prone to developing GI issues. It goes as far to say that children with ASD disorders are 3 times more likely to suffer from constipation or diarrhea. Children with Autism also appear to have double the risk of abdominal pain. To see more information please visit the article published in Medline Plus.
One article that explains the common struggles of ASD individuals and GI issues can be found here. I personally have found this article helpful in explaining chronic constipation, chronic diarreha, and GERD. It also explains ways you can help. Another helpful article, just released in at the end of 2013, can be found here.
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