defining a diet and therapies.

Yknow, I need to put the disclaimer up for this post.

I'm not a doctor, I'm not a doctor, I'm not a doctor. This particular post has no goal of advocating a specific diet. This post is intended to explain some issues with alternative diets such as VLC, LC, and PN (Paleo Nutrition) with some references to individual desires to use them as a therapy.


Generally a question will come along such as:

"How will a gluten free diet help my child with ADHD?"

"How will a paleo diet help with my mild Asperger's?"

"What do I do about a specific diet for autism (classical -actual- autism, not Asperger's, nor PDD-NOS, Rett's, nor CDD) ?"

"How about my metabolism, or thyroid conditon?"

The list of questions is endless in minor variations. The primary problem is in defining what, exactly, is meant by the "X diet" - and the search for the all important extensive studies.

I'm going to be blunt. While there are several specific studies of certain aspects of various diets, and research supporting some of the theories, there is not and probably won't be (anytime soon), an extensive, 500 person 3 year study of whatever you think you mean by "X diet."

There *are* enough studies, from the classic WW2 famine study onward, to support various forms of the low carbohydrate, paleolithic foods influenced diet in general.

But what is this diet? What are the relevant factors?


Let's take a basic example, of a person using a paleo diet as a springboard for a gluten-free lifestyle because there's some evidence/suspicion that the gluten is making a condition (suspected celiac, ADHD, minor non specific IBS) worse.

After 3 months, this diet which went so WELL at first, is having issues and behavior or health is going down.

Well, eating local produce, it turns out that this three months has gotten you into the middle of apple season where you live, and your apple intake has quintupled, or septupled. The fructose load has skyrocketed!

Perhaps it's something else, where the carbohydrate level has tripled. Or the lactose or casein levels.

Some of this stuff can even effect your eggs to the point where you end up with different reactions to commercial eggs at different times of year.

And you can't tell why- it could be the vitamin D! NO ONE knows, though there are some theories with merit. No one knows because it's chaotic, and the math for network systems hasn't been applied to all the studies. I'm not sure it can be without much more in depth multivariable studies.


What you can do is look at the basic thrusts and tracks of many of the low carb, autism, and paelo family of diets.

1: No gluten. This gets into- no grains. And thus no grain enzymes, no gluten, no storage molds, no rancidity, no conversions of starches into other sugars (such as happens through cooking or malting)

2: Controlled levels of carbohydrates in a generally raw or unprocessed, balanced, inclusive food. Meaning you get carbohydrates from a carrot, a raspberry, or some other source where the carbohydrate is part of a whole food.

3: low and controlled levels of glucose and fructose. Fructose especially is dangerous as it bypasses some of the control mechanisms in the body that other carbohydrate types like glucose and proteins have to go through. (go to the paNu blog and search fructose, and read what the Doctor has to say)

4: extremely limited or no dairy- losing the lactose and casein that can also cause problems, individually or systemically, with several types of disorder.

5: exercise. at a minimum, some 15 minute sweat inducing power interval type of workout (like 100 kettlebell swings and some situps) that increases the overall metabolic rate.


You need all 5. You can't - just can't- isolate to gluten, or fructose, or bean enzymes, or lactose. The reason is we don't know which specific control items in which combinations are damaging.

It's far better to focus on a broader sense of the map than to narrow to one specific item- replacing gluten with 6 apples a day. replacing all dairy with high processed fakery. (fakery is bad. Fakery is processing, processing is bad. minimize it)


There's nothing unhealthy about leaving the high sugars, grains, beans, and dairy products behind. No one can prove that- if you eat the right foods- axing these will harm you. Every argument relies on "if you don't eat enough plant fiber in salad greens, if you eat too much of X fat, if if if- iuf something, you will be less healthy"

All you have to do- all you have to do- is not "if" yourself.