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Many patients’ parents may be wondering about the possible links between gluten and any number of conditions, syndromes and ailments. Here, Alan M. Leichtner, MD, senior associate in Medicine in Children’s Hospital Boston’s Division of Gastroenterology and Nutrition, weighs in.
Anecdotally, there have been cases where kids with symptoms of ADHD or autism have gone on gluten-free diets and gotten better, but there are no studies showing that the gluten-free diet has an impact on anything other than celiac disease. The medical data simply aren’t there.
The confusion many parents have stems from the fact that celiac disease can cause a number of other things, including behavioral disturbances. Kids with celiac disease are classically irritable, distracted kids, which may be misinterpreted as signs of ADHD or autism. By removing gluten from a child’s diet, he no longer feels miserable and behavior may improve. It’s not ADHD or autism that has been addressed, it’s the undiagnosed symptoms of celiac disease.
I’d be even more concerned with somebody who’s got good health and cuts out gluten because they think it will make them feel a little bit better. We supplement grains in this country with B vitamins, so a totally gluten-free diet isn’t nutritionally complete. Remove gluten and you could be cutting out a key source of iron, zinc, niacin, riboflavin or thiamin. The big concern is that it will get to the point where parents are self-diagnosing their kids. The best thing you can do is ask your patients’ parents to pay attention to what their child is eating and keep promoting fruits and vegetables and trying new grains.
The irony is that people with celiac disease would likely never choose to go on a gluten-free diet unless it was medically indicated. And here you have perfectly healthy people going gluten-free just because they think gluten is bad for them. |
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