# Questions about Autism and eliminating Dairy, Wheat and Gluten from diet?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-autism-and-eliminating-dairy-wheat-and-gluten-from-diet/424634>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [October 30, 2007, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-autism-and-eliminating-dairy-wheat-and-gluten-from-diet/424634 "2007-10-30T21:41:09Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\
**Post date:** [November 16, 2007, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-autism-and-eliminating-dairy-wheat-and-gluten-from-diet/424634/21 "2007-11-16T04:05:55Z")

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[QUOTE=Typo Knig]

My advice to parents: give CF diet a whirl _if_ you want, and see if it helps _your_ kid. If so, cool! If not, no big deal - it’s not reported to work on all kids. If you want to try GF (which is much more of a pain in the ass), go for it. Lord knows I haven’t. Again, not a big deal either way. If you don’t feel like trying dietary changes at all, that’s fine. Dietary changes are a lot harder to implement that you might think. Especially since food allergies are often co-morbid with autism.

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When I finally said “I’m sick of being sick” after having been on half a dozen different types of antacids, treated for ulcers, told I had IBS - I decided to cut out the two most common food sensitivities - gluten and dairy - simultaneously. I have a friend who is both gluten free and dairy free, so I had a fairly good example.

I couldn’t do it. Partly because I then came down with raving insomnia and sort of freaked out (not from the dietary changes, I think the insomnia was unrelated). So I went back to my normal diet and when I started up again, I gave up the easier one - gluten.

Now, I’m not strict - but gluten free these days is pretty easy. Dairy was hard. Soy milk/rice milk - not remotely the same. Gluten free cookies - not too bad.

(Gluten free bread, not the same - but I’ve learned to cope).

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**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\
**Post date:** [November 16, 2007, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-autism-and-eliminating-dairy-wheat-and-gluten-from-diet/424634/22 "2007-11-16T05:58:08Z")

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**Typo** , skepticism is almost a religion for me, but the bottom line is that large double blind studies don’t mean much to an individual. If it is true for you and yours then it is true for you and yours. As you say, that is not evidence to support advising it for anyone else but so what? You are not telling anyone else to do it and, other than the fact that restrictive food preferences make mealtimes already a nightmare for some parents of autistic kids and so these restrictions have to be commonly very unfun, there is no harm in a family giving this one a whirl. As a doc I can’t advise it, but I see no reason to advise against it either.

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