Study: Diet therapy has little benefit for autism

Targeting sensory issues provides short-term aid

There is little or no evidence to support many popular therapies that aim to help children with autism spectrum disorders, according to two new reviews of existing research.

One review found some evidence that therapies targeting sensory issues provided at least short-term benefits, but the second review found little evidence to support the use of special diets or nutritional supplements for children with ASDs.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that one in 68 children in the U.S. has been diagnosed with an ASD.

Writing in Pediatrics, Amy Weitlauf and colleagues from Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee, cite statistics suggesting that up to 88 percent of people with ASD have sensory processing issues.

Weitlauf ’s team examined data from 24 studies that tested the effectiveness and safety of therapies for ASD sensory issues, including 20 randomized controlled trials.

Overall, therapies that exposed children to different sensations improved measures of sensory and motor skills. Exposure to environmental therapies improved some cognition scores. Massage therapy improved symptom severity and sensory issues.

In all cases, however, the strength of the evidence was low — and the studies generally only looked at short periods of time.

In the second review, many of the same researchers looked at special diets and nutritional supplements used to treat ASD symptoms.

They analyzed 19 randomized controlled trials of therapies such as use of omega-3 supplements or glutenor casein-free diets for children with ASD.

There was not enough evidence to endorse any of the diets or other therapies. Furthermore, the omega-3 supplements were tied to harms like infections and stomach issues.