NY expert panel finds restrictive diets don't help children with autism

From The New York Daily News:

For years, parents of autistic children have promoted restrictive diets as a way to manage behavioral problems, but a new controversial report by an expert panel says there is no evidence to support that claim.

Autism support groups, however, aren’t buying the panel's findings, and have called for more tests on how to treat the gastrointestinal issues of autistic children, reports ABC News.

The study, which was published Monday in the journal “Pediatrics,” did confirm some parents’ observations that certain stomach issues are linked to autism-like behaviors, but found “no available research data” to support the idea that restrictive diets would help those issues.

The most common restrictive diet usually involves cutting out casein (a prominent protein found in cow’s milk and cheese) and gluten, reports ABC news. But since this study only included 15 children and lasted for just 12 weeks, many groups say the findings aren’t good enough.

For parents like Rebecca Estepp, however, the only proof she needs is right before her eyes. She put her son on a restrictive diet about nine years ago, and while she says it didn’t cure his autism, it has led to better behavior, reports ABC News.

But that kind of anecdotal evidence doesn’t fly with doctors and scientists. Until they can find more concrete results, experts recommend sticking to traditional forms of care, like hyperbaric chamber treatments, which have shown promise in some cases.

The wide array of behavioral issues seen with autism cases only compounds the problem of figuring out what diets (if any) could help a patient.

“Studying [patients] in large groups of people who are heterogeneous -- very different from one another -- is not the best way to learn what is going on with these diets,” Dr. Martha Herbert of Massachusetts General Hospital told ABC News. “You will wash out any effect in a subgroup by blurring them in with others who have different problems.”

Other doctors say the key is to narrow each group of autistic children as much as possible for every study.

“There's a very broad spectrum of autism from very severe handicaps to very mild handicaps… we have to break these down to the smallest extent possible,” Dr. Arthur Beaudet, who was part of the study, told ABC News. Beaudet says that by narrowing the groups, studies may yield more effective results.