Gluten- and Casein-Free Diet as an Intervention for Autism Spectrum Disorders: a Review

• Autor(a) principal: Costa,Carolina
• Data de Publicação: 2015
• Outros Autores: Sampaio,Ana Sofia, Rodrigues,Iolanda, Miranda,Mafalda, Pinto,Elisabete
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://scielo.pt/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S2182-72302015000100002
• topic: Autism; Gluten- and casein-free diet

The hypothesis that the symptoms of autism spectrum disorders can be affected by excluding foods containing gluten and casein has generated considerable interest among researchers. A review of the literature describing the results of gluten- and casein-free diet as a therapeutic intervention was performed. Based on an analysis of PubMed® citations using the search terms ["casein" OR "gluten" AND "autism"], 64 articles were listed, 7 of which met our inclusion criteria. All, but one, of the papers supported a positive effect for a gluten- and casein-free diet for cases of autism, where symptoms were duly mitigated. Only a few studies have experimentally assessed the potential effectiveness of a gluten- and casein-free diet for cases of autism and the existing studies are based on small sample sizes and on short term treatment duration. Further controlled studies are required to clarify the role of a gluten- and casein-free diet for cases of autism spectrum disorders.