Celiac Disease Presenting as Autism

The Journal of Child Neurology published an article called “Celiac Disease Presenting as Autism.” Julie Matthews has a synopsis on the article on her website Nourishing Hope for Autism. A five year old who was diagnosed with severe autism was later was diagnosed with celiac. It was discovered he had severe nutrient deficiencies of vitamin A, vitamin D, and vitamin E as well as fatty acids (omega 3, 6 and 9.) In addition he had low Coenzyme Q10 and folate.

According to the abstract:

“This case is an example of a common malabsorption syndrome associated with central nervous system dysfunction and suggests that in some contexts, nutritional deficiency may be a determinant of developmental delay. It is recommended that all children with neurodevelopmental problems be assessed for nutritional deficiency and malabsorption syndromes.”

With a gluten free diet, vitamins, fatty acids (omega 3,6 and 9) and fresh juice which made vitamins easier to absorb…

“The patient’s gastrointestinal symptoms rapidly resolved, and signs and symptoms suggestive of autism progressively abated.”

Other research reports:

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  • Tamara - This is interesting…I have no doubt my daughter would have been diagnosed as autistic, had I not pushed for Celiac testing first. And even that was only a fluke finding, I was up late one night trying to connect all of her vague symptoms together, and thank goodness for google search that turned up Celiac!

    She still has some lingering spectrum symptoms, but not enough to be diagnosed. For that I am thankful!ReplyCancel

  • Our Family Is His - Can you come work for our doctors? I need someone like you to be down here because everyone is CLUELESS. We research, we find out what's happening, we fix it. But that's just a bandaid because we don't know the cause of the issues. The Mayo Clinic is interested in helping us, so we are on the road to seeing them (literally, will be flying out once their GI looks at all his tests and records). I show these things to doctors, they compare to his symptoms, they look at me like deer in a headlight.ReplyCancel

  • erinmidwife - Also some of the proteins/gluten (also in dairy) can cause neurological impairment in those who cannot digest the proteins. My son effectively went from being a very verbal baby to mono-syllabically communicating a few months after he began to eat foods regularly (at about 12 months). After removing gluten and dairy from his diet at 18 months he almost immediately began talking more and speaking in actual words.ReplyCancel

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