some ASD rambles.

[emmacrew]

I don't know how the "OMG THE MMR VACCINE MAKES KIDS AUTISTIC" folks (and boy, there are an awful lot of them) explain things like the UW study where specialists from their early autism treatment program watched video from the first birthdays of a number of children, and were able to tell from those videos which of the kids had grown up to get ASD

Comments

[aylara]

Just so you know, leaky gut is an actual real thing. It's more scientifically tied to things like celiac disease. Basically, in celiacs, wheat damages the intestine quite horribly and starts tearing holes in it. Usually, though, celiacs know and have extreme adverse reactions to wheat, like cramping and diarrhea.

That's part of the theory that it triggers rheumatoid arthritis in people. It's an abnormal immune system response to these larger food particles that are leaking through the gut. For some reason, in people like me, we don't really have any adverse reaction that we notice, but the damage is still being done. The body tries to assimilate the food particles, but it can't because they're not digested enough. So then the immune system says, "Hey what are THESE doing here?!" and starts attacking them. And the food particles are lodged in your tissues as your body tries to use them. So then your body starts attacking your own tissues.

For me, it's completely obvious that wheat has a huge impact on my arthritis, but it did also affect my brain function. I was exhausted constantly and my thought processes were slowed terribly and I couldn't remember anything. At its worst was when I had been working at Claire's for only a few months, and so everyone there thought I was honestly stupid. And in most people, it's a weird backward reaction, because they crave wheat and dairy like crazy even though it's messing them up. I know I was that way.

And by the way, I found rice pasta that tastes almost exactly like wheat pasta. Hooray.

[emmacrew]

Oh, I know that's a real thing. But the auto-immune responses you're describing is pretty different from what the people who think that autism is caused by "wounded gut" (their term) talk about.

[aylara]

OK. I'll take your word for it, because I haven't read that stuff. :)