Autism Diets Article Part 2: Leaky Gut Defined

Laura Schmitt NE

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Autism Diets Overview – Part 2

If you missed part 1, review it first over here


When discussing Leaky Gut, some big words like “permeability” and “dysbiosis” are often tossed around. These words, on their own, can be very confusing. To simplify, we are talking about imbalance. What is the imbalance in the gut? It can vary with the individual, but it is usually an imbalance of good bacteria to bad bacteria, or an imbalance of mucous (too much mucous production, for example), or an imbalance of yeast (yeast over growth). Further imbalance is caused from any one of these when the resulting overgrowth of bad bacteria or over production of mucous creates an environment where the intestine is not properly absorbing nutrients. Without proper nutrient absorption, malnutrition can ensue.

The “leaky gut” refers to a faltering in the tight junctions of the intestinal membrane. This can be caused by any of the above imbalances as well as other offenders such as stress, genetic disorder, NSAID medication, alcohol consumption and more (look to understand this better by reading Elizabeth Lipski’s Digestive Wellness). When a leaky gut is present, food particles can pass through the intestinal lining and into the blood stream. When the gut is healthy and doing it’s job with good balance, the food we digest will pass through with a systematic approach to it’s breakdown. At certain points, nutrients will be absorbed, liquid will be absorbed, foods will be broken down further and more. When the leaky gut allows food particles to exit into the blood stream where they are not intended to, it can create a cascade of problems.

For starters, the immune response system will notice these food particles and flag them as “antigens”, or bad guys. The immune system determines that they will attack these food particle invaders whenever they see them from that point onward. Now, let’s just imagine that this food we are identifying as an “invader” is one of your child’s favorite foods, and a healthy food at that! Well, that IS a problem indeed because now we are opening up the can of worms called food sensitivities. It is because of the leaky gut that many people develop a wide variety of food intolerances or sensitivities. These are not true allergies, and once the intestinal system has had a chance to heal and recover, many (in some cases all) of these foods can be rotated back into the diet without their previous negative symptoms.

If we ignore the leaky gut process, or simply treat the symptoms as they appear by taking medications to diminish the GI response without getting to the root of the problem, this allows the immune system to continue it’s attack on those flagged antigens in our daily foods. Imagine, now, your immune system at battle every day, every meal. Over time, this can compromise the effectiveness and response of the immune system. It can also cause tissue and cell damage to the area of the immune response. These immune responses create inflammation and we all know what that can cause…pain! Inflammation in the body does not stay isolated to one area, either. Ongoing inflammation can even be found in the brain. Some of the factors that can lead to increased inflammation include toxins in our foods and environment, deregulated immune function, food sensitivities, candida, and faulty sulfation. Julie Matthews delves into the importance of faulty sulfation as it relates to detoxification in her book, Nourishing Hope for Autism.

For some individuals, this ongoing inflammation can lead to immune response and for some, auto immune response. What is the difference, you may ask? Auto immune response is when your body begins attacking itself. We see this in Celiac disease when the microvilli of the intestine are destroyed as a result of eating the offending protein, gluten. For many others who struggle with ongoing leaky gut issues and intestinal impermeability, auto immune disorders are far from uncommon. With my own experience, we witnessed my daughter’s body respond to ongoing food sensitivity and gut dysbiosis with continued increase in immune and then autoimmune reaction. Toward the end of her reactions, as we neared the discovery of autism diets and her own specific food sensitivities, her body was responding with all over petechia rash, which her doctor described to me as her body’s immune system being confused and attacking it’s own cells. This was only one of many reactions for her, and it serves as one example of many symptoms that can flourish when an intestinal system is left unhealed. Some other common examples are rheumatoid arthritis, asthma, celiac disease, a long list of GI disorders, skin disorders, and more. With the group of individuals who fall under the umbrella of ASD, they are more likely to have difficulty with proper sulfation and proper GI regulation than their non ASD peers.

The good news here is that many parents are finding great success and healing that surpassed their expectations by implementing Autism Diets and Clean Eating practices into the lives of their loved ones. These successes are often combined with supplementation as needed, such as probiotics, and ongoing efforts from the family support network, but all of these steps work together to help heal what is a full body disorder.

In future newsletters, I will delve further into the individual diets and their successes, criteria, and benefits. Next time we’ll cover the Peptide Opioid response before delving into the most popular of the Autism Diets, GF/CF.