Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been talking about the importance of a healthy balanced diet and how eliminating some foods, such as casein, gluten and complex carbohydrates, can be beneficial to autistic children. A healthy diet can help combat deficiencies and elimination diets can stop autoimmune reactions and allow an inflamed gut to heal.

Autism and Nutritional Deficiencies

Research into autism has found that some autistic children have nutritional deficiencies, particularly in the B vitamins, Vitamin A, calcium, zinc, selenium and magnesium, so it may be worth getting your child tested for deficiencies.

However, it can be difficult to get a child to eat a healthy diet and almost impossible to get them to consume all of the right essential nutrients, especially if they are a fussy eater!

The good news is that there are vitamins and supplements out there that can remedy this and help ease some of the symptoms of autism. Here are some vitamins and supplements which have been found to be helpful in treating autism:-

The B Vitamins

• Vitamin B1 (Thiamine) – A thiamine deficiency can starve the brain of the fuel it needs to function properly, causing damage and inflammation to the brain. As autism is a neurological disease, a Vitamin B1 supplement can be beneficial, particularly where a child has suffered from gastrointestinal disorders which may have effected absorption of this vitamin.