"A Modified Ketogenic Gluten-Free Diet with MCT Improves Behavior in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder"

"A Modified Ketogenic Gluten-Free Diet with MCT Improves Behavior in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder"

Dr. Lee The English title is "A modified ketogenic gluten-free diet with MCT improves behavior in children with autism spectrum disorder" (Lee et al., 2018). This MCT-using study with autistic children was conducted over 3 months, with 15 children aged 2–17 completing the diet. The team used two clinical autism scales — ADOS-2 and CARS-2. Overall, autism symptoms improved by the numerical scores. Specifically, 6 participants improved by more than 30%, 2 had moderate improvement, and the remaining 7 showed mild or minimal improvement. On the CARS-2 items, the children on the ketogenic diet showed statistically significant improvement on body use, fear, anxiety, and imitation (Figure 5-8(b)). However, repetitive behaviors and restricted behaviors didn't change. The team then reported relationships between blood markers and autism scores. As HDL — high-density lipoprotein, the "good" cholesterol — increased in percentage terms, the percent-change in ADOS-2 score increased (Figure 5-9(c)). Likewise, larger increases in albumin were associated with greater percent-change improvement in ADOS-2 (Figure 5-9(d)). This means that blood lipid composition is related to autism symptom improvement: HDL-cholesterol and albumin levels — markers usually associated with metabolic syndrome or hypertension — also positively influence autism improvement.

Everyone takes notes diligently.

Dr. Lee The next figure compares ADOS-2 autism scale scores before and after 3 months on the diet. In Figure 5-10(a), "Baseline" — before the diet — is near 8 points; after the diet it falls to about 6 points. The ** in the figure indicates statistical significance, meaning the difference is not due to chance but is attributable to the diet. Figure 5-10(c) shows the social–emotional sub-score of ADOS-2. Here, too, the score fell from about 15 (severe symptoms) at baseline to the 12s after 3 months.