Nutritionally treat Autism?

[Left coast liberal]

X-posted in Health:

My son has made great strides when we finally got his food allergies under control. The difference was immediately noticeable.

I know there is a lot of snake oil out there but maybe there is something to this?

http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-19093-Seattle-Special-Needs-Kids-Examiner~y2009m9d5-Treatment-strategies-for-curing-autism-nutritionally

[TrogL]

1. No

As simple as that, "no". No. No. No.

Asperger's is a problem with the wiring in the brain. It cannot be "fixed".

Most people who post this kind of nonsense don't understand statistics. They have no idea how to do a controlled study. And especially, they wouldn't know an "undivided middle" logical fallacy if they tripped over one.

[Left coast liberal]

2. I know. That is what "opinion" and "my experience" is all about.

I am not going to try and make you think any which way. And, you not agreeing with me doesn't change my experience.

My son has a severe speech delay, Apraxia. His focus and concentrate significantly improved and he started speaking after we figured out his food allergies when he was 41/2 years old.

I was not trying to "fix" him but I would like to help him speak. Is that so wrong?

It always surprises me that people get so angry about it. Why is that?

And, please don't give me the old line about "it is unfair to get parents hopes up" because that is whooee!

If you are a special needs parent you need hope by the bucket full, just to get yourself out of bed each day, you need hope to build a happy life for your kid, you need hope to keep paying through the nose for therapy that the shithead insurance companies wont cover.

So, don't give me this flak about something as simple and common sense as changing diet! Just because you holler "DOESN'T WORK" doesn't make it so. There are plenty of stories out there where people have been helped. It may not help everyone, the same way but it is another thing to try and, really, what's is going to hurt.

We're all on the same side here.

OX

Peace!

[TrogL]

3. "there are plenty of stories"

That's the problem - they're just anecdotal stories with no data, no science to back them up. The "shithead insurance companies" won't pay for a therapy that isn't medically sound. And "medically sound" means controlled studies under controlled situations under peer review. Some quack chelating 5 kids then waving a piece of paper around saying he saw a 1% improvement in 2 kids out of 5 isn't good enough. That's not even statistically significant.

Sherlock Holmes is often (mis)quoted as saying "once you have eliminated all other possibilities, what remains must be true". This is the core of the fallacy of the undivided middle and many other logical fallacies.

A: We prayed to the white hippotomus for rain.
B: It rained.
C: Therefore praying to the white hippotomus worked.

B is the undivided middle. The only possible reason for rain is prayer, specifically to a white hippotomus. Let's ignore weather systems, let's not even take into account the idiot who just doused us with the water bomber. Nope, it's got to be the white hippotomus.

Sorry, you know how pissed off I get with religion.

Let's try a medical example.

A: My son had a cold.
B: We put him in an iron lung for three months. When he came out, the cold was gone.
C: Therefore the iron lung cured the cold.

Let's ignore the fact that unless the son's immune system is completely, uttterly shot (by which time pneumonia would long since have killed him) his own immune system would have long since figured out how to fight this particular strain of influenza all by itself. No iron lung required. But these idiots will go on national TV and backs of these fucking "cure autism" magazines claiming an iron lung will cure cancer or some damn thing. I think they're called barachoic chamber or something like that).

Now let's do it differently. Take 30 kids who all came down with colds the same day. You should be able to gather a cohort out of one elementary school. Take snot and blood samples. Put 15 in irons lungs for 3 months. Don't allow the other 15 any medication whatsoever. After 3 months see who has colds. Probably nobody. Maybe a couple of the control groups did. So the iron lung proponents start crowing that iron lungs cure colds. Guess what! The process doesn't stop there. All they can say is "we have some interesting numbers". They don't have proof. It's time to get out the microscopes. Remember the snot and blood samples - that's what they're for. So they look at blood and snot before and after. Here's what they discover.

Everybody originally had influenza strain #1344. Some had antibodies for #1345.

They kids who got well now have antibodies for #1344. Oddly enough, they were the same kids with antibodies for #1345. Presumably they were immune so didn't get sick a second time.

The kids who are still sick have antibodies for #1344, are sick with #1345 and have antibodies for both.

The kids in the iron lung got well and have antibodies for #1344. Some had #1345 as well. The rest got sick the next day.

So the iron lung proponents start demanding that everybody put their kids in iron lungs to prevent colds and petition the congresscritters to pass legislation to make insurance companies pay for it. Scientists point out that hand sanitizers and face masks work better. Chaos ensues. They post their data, results and conclusions in a doctor magazine.

So another scientist gets together another cohort and tries it again - pretty much same results. He publishes too. By the 15th study, it's pretty much established that unless somebody comes up with a study reversing those results, and can prove he hasn't faked his data, and somebody else can do it to, the only people honking the horn for treating colds with iron lungs are those who intend to make a whole lotta money at it fleecing folks who should know better.

So.

Prove to me that you have eliminated ALL other possibilites. That's right. Every damn possibility that something other than changing diet caused an improvement. There have been plenty of examples of delayed development resolving itself without change in diet. I was developmentally delayed and right about that age finally got my shit together - without diet change or chelation or iron lungs or wierd potions or any of the other shit in those stupid fucking magazines.

Show me peer reviewed studies in a proper medical journal, not some quack in the back pages of a porn magazine.

And if you start going on about "big pharma" and all the other conspiracies you read about in those magazines, I'll dismiss you just as easily as we dismiss the birthers.

[Left coast liberal]

5. Fuss and fume all you want. I know what happened in our situation.

[elleng]

6. Thanks for sharing, L c l.

[SheilaT]

7. Thank you Trogl.

While I hesitate to tell someone who is convinced that treating autism nutritionally works is wrong, you've done a good job of explaining how so many people get it wrong.

My oldest son has Asperger's. He also has alopecia areata, an auto-immune disorder that causes hair loss. It is so frustrating to meet people who have children with this disorder who then put the kid on some kind of vitamin or special diet regimen, and lo and behold, the alopecia went away. What they don't fully understand is that alopecia areata is something that can come and go at random, and none of the scientific studies of it and food or vitamins or whatever hold up. A year or so back I got into a heated set of exchanges with a woman who is utterly convinced that leaky gut syndrome is the number one cause of alopcia areata, just because her kid happens to have both things at the same time.

I could just as readily conclude that alopecia causes Asperger's, or that Asperger's causes alopecia because of my son. Nope. He happens to have both conditions at the same time.

The other thing that is so infuriating to me about the "This special diet, or these magic vitamins cured my kid" is that there's somehow and undercurrent of blame if another parent doesn't immediately jump on the special diet or vitamins and thus are doing the kid irreparable harm by not doing whatever regimen someone else is convinced works.

To repeat Trogl: Autism is brain-wiring differences, and all the prayers and special diets in the world won't change that.

[Spider Jerusalem]

4. It has nothing to do with 'food allergies'

it's called a 'developmental disorder' for a reason; developmental delays are not uncommon in autistic spectrum disorders, and speech may not occur until relatively late (c. 5 years of age). Correlation is not causation.

[Kajsa]

8. Thank you, LcL!

Yes! :hug:

Three of the most damaging words in the English language,

" What's the use?" ( four words if you count the contraction)