Many children on the Autism spectrum can benefit from a low oxalate diet as well since they seem to accumulate oxalates in their bodies. Oxalates are organic compounds that are found in a wide variety of foods. Certain foods like spinach and almonds for example have high oxalates. There is a whole list of high oxalate foods.

A good website with information is www.lowoxalate.info. It is a website run by Susan Owens who is an independent biomedical researcher who has contributed a tremendous amount of information to the biomedical community with respects to oxalate problems. What happens in adults who are accumulating oxalates, they can be predisposed to kidney stones.

One of the first things a person with kidney stones can do is to reduce the amount of oxalates coming from their diet. We have also seen a number of children on the Autism spectrum who also have high oxalate problems. When you think about what happens when these oxalates form in the body, they form crystals.

When you look at these crystals under a microscope they are very jagged and pointy and can be very painful. You can accumulate these jagged, pointy crystals in any tissues of the body, the kidneys, joints, muscle tissue, nervous system and they are aggravating and irritating. Many kids tend to be very agitated, irritated, have poor coordination, poor sleep, behavioral problems, aggressive behaviors, etc.

The low oxalate diet can be very helpful for those issues. The low oxalate diet has also been shown to be helpful for ongoing inflammatory problems in the body including the digestive system. The low oxalate diet is something that can be very useful to look into. There are many types of dietary intervention for children on the spectrum for example the gluten and casein free diet (GFCF) and the specific carbohydrate diet (SCD), etc. Understanding the principles behind the low oxalate diet can be useful. A few cues that you may want to look into this diet is if you have your child on a gluten and casein free diet and have not seen a lot of results. Or if you have transitioned your child to the specific carbohydrate diet and that has not helped resolve some of the bowel inflammation issues and your child continues to be very agitated, aggravated, aggressive, self injurious, have poor coordination, poor sleep, etc. then the low oxalate diet may be useful to look into.

One of the other things you may see in blood work is that oxalates form crystals with minerals and they can interfere with absorption or utilization of certain minerals. If your child continues to show low in zinc or other minerals then the low oxalate diet could be helpful in allowing your child’s body to absorb minerals appropriately.

If you’d like to learn more about the low oxalate diet you can go to www.lowoxalate.info. And I also have a lot of information on my own biomedical education website at www.autismactionplan.org in the biomedical protocols section about the low oxalate diet and the other common dietary interventions for Autism.

I can also answer any questions in the parent forum on this and other biomedical interventions for your child with Autism.