Food Allergy and Autism Spectrum Disorders: Is There a Link?

Probiotics may help to relieve gut problems in children with autism.

This review article describes proposed causes of gut problems in children with autism and describes the risks and benefits of treatments. There are a lot of data to support that children with autism have a chronic immune response in their gut. Many parents treat the gut problems with the gluten-free, casein-free (GFCF) diet even though there is not a lot of data to support the use of the diet. While there is some concern that the GFCFdiet may not provide all needed vitamins to children, this concern is not backed by data. Treatment with probiotics makes sense, but it has not been proven to work in scientific studies of children with autism.