Aspies For Freedom

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/80192.php

As Autism Diagnoses Grow, So Do Number Of Fad Treatments
Main Category: Autism News
Article Date: 21 Aug 2007 - 0:00 PDT

Ineffective or even dangerous fad treatments for autism, always a problem, seem to be growing more pervasive, according to researchers who studied the problem.

"Developmental disabilities like autism are a magnet for all kinds of unsupported or disproved therapies, and it has gotten worse as more children have been diagnosed with autism," said James Mulick, professor of pediatrics and psychology at Ohio State University."

"There's no cure for autism, and many parents are willing to believe anything if they come to think it could help their child."

Mulick chaired a symposium on "Outrageous Developmental Disabilities Treatments" Aug. 20 in San Francisco at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association. The symposium included presentations by several of Mulick's students at Ohio State who participated in a graduate seminar on fad treatments in autism.

Tracy Kettering, a doctoral student in special education at Ohio State, said a Google search for the phrase "autism treatment" yields more than 2.2 million matches.

"You get hundreds of different types of therapies that come up, and many have quotes from parents that claim a particular therapy 'cured' their child," Kettering said.

"It's no wonder that parents want to believe. But very few of these treatments have any evidence to support them."

The number and range of fad treatments has seemed to grow in recent years as more children have been diagnosed with autism, said Mulick, who is also editor of a book on fad treatments called Controversial Therapies for Developmental Disabilities: Fad, Fashion, and Science in Professional Practice.

Mulick said when he began treating autism in the 1970s about 3 children in 10,000 were said to have autism. Now, reports are 1 in 166 children have the condition. The number of cases has mushroomed because of better diagnoses, and a changing definition of autism that includes a broader range of disorders.

Some of the newer, more popular fad treatments for autism involve special diets or nutritional supplements. Megadoses of Vitamins C and B6 are popular, as well as supplements with fatty acids like omega-3s.

A casein and/or gluten-free diet, which involves eliminating dairy and wheat products, has also gained favor with some parents.

While many of these treatments have never been adequately studied, that doesn't mean they aren't promoted.

"One of the characteristics of fad treatments is that they are discussed in the media and on the internet, where many parents can be exposed to them," said Anne Snow, an Ohio State psychology graduate student.

And while some fads are simply ineffective, others can even be dangerous, Mulick said. Chelation therapy, which involves taking medicines to remove the heavy metal mercury from the body, has reportedly led to the death of at least one autistic boy receiving that treatment. Chelation therapy was also touted years ago as a new treatment against some forms of cancer but was eventually shown to have no helpful effect.

Many parents try multiple approaches, hoping at least one will help. Kettering said one survey she found suggests that the average parent of a child with autism has tried seven different therapies.

"We're not saying that all of these treatments don't work or that they are all dangerous," Kettering said. "But the research hasn't been done to suggest that most of them are effective or even safe."

Many of the treatments may have just enough basis in scientific fact to attract attention, even if the treatment itself is unproven.

For instance, most scientists believe that many cases of autism are caused by genetic mutations, and some mutations can be caused by various chemicals that we encounter in our everyday lives, Mulick said.

But still, there is no evidence that any particular chemical causes mutations that lead to autism, as some have claimed.

"There's a shred of truth in the rationale presented for some fad treatments, and that is enough for some people to go with," he said.

Another reason that fad treatments persist has to do with the natural course of autism, Mulick said.

Autism, like many conditions, has cycles in which symptoms get worse and then get better. Parents tend to search for treatments when symptoms are getting worse, and when their children get better as they do in the normal course of disease parents credit the new therapy.

"It's natural to have this bias that the therapy you're trying has had some positive effect," he said. "People want to believe."

While other treatments are still being investigated, right now the only therapy that has been shown to have a long-term positive affect on autism is called Early Intensive Behavioral Intervention, Mulick said.

EIBI is a highly structured approach to learning, in which children with autism are taught first to imitate their teachers. But this treatment is very time-consuming and labor intensive. It involves one-on-one behavioral treatment with the child for up to 40 hours a week for several years.

"It's expensive and difficult for many parents to use," Mulick said. "That's got to be one reason other treatments look attractive to them."

Mulick said other treatments and therapies are being studied. However, it takes years to test treatments for autism because of the nature of the disease and problems with proving effectiveness.

"Autism studies are a long, time-consuming, and expensive process," Mulick said. "And some of the fad treatments being used today would never be approved for testing they are just too dangerous."

In addition to Mulick, Kettering and Snow, other presenters at the symposium included Ohio State graduate students Cristan Farmer, Megan Norris, Andrea Witwer and Jill Hollway.

Ohio State University
1125 Kinnear Rd.
Columbus, OH 43212-1153
United States
http://www.osu.edu

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*beeb* this is erkolos speaking!

I haven't really read the news earlier, but it seems like alot of stuff show strong scepticism towards chelation and other alternative treatments. By the look of those presented at the News forum at AFF I have often got the impression that most people believe in chelation.

What about autism diets? Are they quackery too?

Seems like alot of autistics do infact have food intolerances, but does that mean that they get more "autistic" if not having a diet?
Apparently some people call aggressive behavior by autistics "autistic behavior". I think that's an inappropriate way of looking at it. As suggested by the previous news article I posted some people think that constipation caused by food intolerances can infact cause frustrations in autistic children, not that they get any "more" autistic.

Really, no slightly informed person who has a functional sense of logic believes n cehlation("Hmm, I know. Let's try to remove something irrelevant several years after it's already been eliminated! That should help!")

Ah, well. People would tell that the government is trying to cover up that they infact HAVEN'T removed the thimerosal from the vaccines mainly to spare money, otherwise they would say that (their) children are proof of autism recovery...

... I am making a list of treatments at the norwegian board which parents have claimed to help their kids.

I agree with you what you. Food intolerances will impact on behaviour but as far as I know food intolerances don't cause autism. Maybe science might eventually find other answers. I have heard autism is genetic and then  an immunological  response acts as a trigger.
I take omega 3 capsules and find them helpful, but these capsules have the potential to be of benefit to anybody.

I think it is mainly alternative doctors who will tell you that.

I prefer to see my whole sentence quoted erkolos .
I was stating what I have heard - no studies have proved this link.

I have a friend with an autistic son - both Mum and Son are on the gluten/casien free diet, and she reports it's helped.  Even if he's not 'less autistic', he's probably a lot healthier for not eating a load of rubbish.  I'd try the diet myself if I had the willpower to not eat cakes and milky tea...

Diets can help autism. The effect isn't direct, though; it's more of treating a comorbid condition.

Apparently, autism is highly correlated with various types of food intolerance and digestive problems. When a child has both autism and digestive problems, there's more stress in the child's life from the digestive problems, which in turn exacerbates the autism symptoms. When the diet is changed to exclude foods which cause problems, or to be simply healthier in general, the stress levels go down, and so do the autistic symptoms.

Autism becomes harder and harder to handle the more the stress level rises. That's why treating just about any comorbid condition--physical or mental--can make autism seem to improve.

The underlying autism is still there--it's just more manageable, and incidentally, more easily treatable, because the child can now learn more easily, and thus learn to compensate for autistic weaknesses more easily.

I have no digestive problems myself, so a special diet wouldn't help me (though it's been tried); but my mother, who has Asperger's (but won't admit it), was much improved after she began eating a gluten-free diet for her celiac disease. In her case, it wasn't her "weirdness" that improved, but her tendency to go into overload from working in a noisy environment and her general anxiety and energy level.

I agree that the general stresses of life are quite enough to contend with.

I find that when one of my other disorders is playing up I simply do not have the energy or inclination left to 'behave'.

*Confession time*: much to my hubby's embarrassment, I had a melt-down at the supermarket checkout last week. My heart conditions had been largely confining me to bed for days, and I was persuaded that I would feel better if I got out for a while. I didn't. I haven't had a public melt-down for YEARS. *shame*

A gluten-free diet helps me, but that is mainly because my guts react so badly - I inflate to 22-months-pregnant-with-quads size within 20 minutes of ingesting any, and then have diarrhœa for weeks. ANYONE feels bad when that happens.

I am diagnosed with milk-protein intolerance and stopped getting any milk when I was 13. I have some scepticism towards diets because my parents claim that I improved while I myself did not feel any better except that I wasn't bullied when I began at lower secondary (hopefully I don't still have the english names for schools messed up, I called lower secondary "Youth school" earlier).

However, I was known to fart alot at primary, while that was not as much the case at lower secondary. I still have some constipation now and then maybe more often than others.

But I wonder how people should act in relation to food intolerances. If I e.g. am offered a chocolate at school (which contains milk) should it be "ZOMG!!! NO IT WILL BE MAKEING U ALL MESSED UP!!" or should I be able to decide whether or not "I can handle it"?

Depends on your degree of intolerance, doesn't it?...

... or how sensetive I am too it?

I know a local girl with AS I have met with the same food-intolerance diagnosis. She tells that she like me didn't believe in the milk-protein-intolerance "crap" before one day she ate youghurt (containing lots o' milk) and she suddenly had alot of these "tidy-preferences" and everything had to be in an order she liked, if you know what I mean.

I myself take a chocolate or a glass of milk if I feel rebellious, which is seldom, but don't notice anything at all.

I remember an episode of The Emergency or Gray's Anatomy where someone almost died of something called "protein-shock" because he ate something he had protein-intolerance towards whem he hadn't ate such in years, but I don't anything about protein-shock!

I think the gluten-free diet would be a good thing to try. But I wonder, I have one question: How do people manage to find gfcf foods at reasonable prices? The selection at the 99 cent store and food 4 less is very limited.

Mum said she had a lot of trouble getting me to eat solid foods and that I wasn't keen on giving up the boob. The clinic sister told her she "had" to wean me at 11 months because I'd stopped growing.

As soon as I started eating solid foods, I started getting eczema and as for the bottle, I hurled it across the room. Mum was shocked that a baby not even a year old could do something like that, especially as she said I didn't seem to be very bad-tempered at that age. So maybe it was some kind of subconscious thing that I didn't want to eat solids.

My daughter had awful colic - six weeks she barely made eye contact and hadn't smiled. My nurse suggested I cut back on dairy products in my diet, this didn't help so I went to a paediatrician, he told me I had to eliminate milk products altogether to see if this made a difference. I did eliminate all milk products from my diet and continued with breast feeding. Within about 6 hours of eliminating dairy her colic gone, she began to make eye contact and smile. The  colic would come back, if I had dairy products in my diet.