Tuesday, August 6, 2013

do dietary interventions work?





Dietary Intervention: Fact or Fiction?



My pediatrician is a firm believer in "heal the gut, heal the child" and uses lots of dietary interventions as well as supplementation.  Here's what I know:  60-70% of your immune system is located in your Gut Associated Lymphatic Tissue (GALT).  When you are talking auto-immune conditions, wouldn't it make sense to start concentrating here?




Give it time.  If you decide to go the route of dietary intervention, you are talking about long-term health, not a fast fix. Most often, removing gluten from the diet is suggested.  Gluten can stay in your system for four to six weeks and even a small contamination or a single "cheat" can set you back two to four weeks.  In my experience, the first two weeks of the diet feels like the flu.  Tummy trouble, headaches, body aches, and moodiness would not shock me.  It's not a diet that you go on, then wake up one day and feel better.  So if you try it, you have to be willing to stick with it or else you are just wasting your time.

How do you know, Jacki?  Our family has celiac disease running rampant through our intestines, so we didn't decide on a gluten free diet as an intervention for autism, we went gluten free because of long-term health risks such as colon cancer.  My husband was the first to be diagnosed nearly nine years ago.  Three years later, my new pediatrician looked at me and asked why I hadn't considered the fact that our children likely also had the disease.  I decided to go gluten free with our youngest two for the first month (fully intending on returning to my glutenous ways after they were settled in on the diet).  When I reintroduced gluten, I had horrible side effects and felt so lousy.  I realized that even though it was hard, gluten free would be our new lifestyle.  Since then, another of our sons decided, at age eight, that when he ate certain snacks, he felt really bad and wanted to be strict with a gluten free diet as well.  Five out of the six in our house follow a strict gluten free diet. 
Once gluten was removed from our youngest child's diet, more allergies came to the surface as well.  We did an elimination diet again as well as blood and scratch testing and an upper- and lower-endoscopy.   The tests suggested that he was allergic to the sugar in milk (lactose) but not the protein (casein).  Our doctor said after the elimination period, we could reintroduce foods once at a time in small doses.  Instead, we allowed him to reintroduce dairy at a preschool ice cream party.  He passed out, threw up, and got a visit from some friendly EMTs with epinephrine due to what we now know is an anaphylactic allergy to dairy.  So not only is he on a gluten free diet, but he is casein- and soy-free as well.  
I know the diet.  I know it's hard.  I don't know how well it works as an intervention, but I do know that it takes dedication.  If we weren't on the diet for health reasons, I can promise you that we would have tried it because it never hurts to try.  It does hurt to abandon early.

As you embark on your dietary intervention, feel free to email me.  I am more than willing to share recipe ideas!

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