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When 6-year-old Nelson Grove was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in 2004, it turned out to be a blessing for the family. His mother, Tracy, reacted by putting the family on a "failsafe" diet with no artificial colourings or preservatives, no canned food and no processed meat.
Within a week, not only did Nelson calm down but so did his younger brothers Vincent, then 5, and Leonard, 4. And Tracy was able to stop taking medication for asthma. "My middle boy went up eight reading levels in eight months, my eldest child's writing changed after two weeks, and my youngest got the alphabet correct each time when before he would get it wrong," she says.
The family's experience suggests our skyrocketing rates of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and other behavioural disorders such as autism may be linked to reversible changes in our diet.
Officials are sceptical. An expert panel convened by the Australia New Zealand Food Authority (ANZFA) concluded that "well-designed studies have failed to show a consistent relationship between a wide range of behavioural problems in childhood and the consumption of food additives".
Even the trends in behavioural problems are controversial. Those at the chalkface, such as North Shore resource teacher of learning and behaviour Janet de Witt, say that "anecdotally, everyone in education would agree that there is an increased frequency of those kids, both autistic and ADHD. I think it's a real increase."
Prescriptions for ADHD-calming drugs Ritalin and Rubifen have increased from about 3000 in 1993 to 71,351 in 2005. In the United States, the reported incidence of autism has increased more than 10-fold in 30 years and now affects 0.5 to 1 per cent of the population, and ADHD 3 to 10 per cent.
But Tony Hanne, an Auckland GP who specialises in ADHD, believes there has been no increase in rates of these conditions, only a change in detection.
"There were all sorts of famous people who almost certainly had ADHD," he says. "On the whole, society was more suited to them. There is no doubt a structured classroom is much better for ADHD kids than an interactive one. They generally do much better with old-fashioned teachers keeping them in control."
Charlie Harrison, of Tauranga, who runs the website adhd.org.nz, says parents today do not tolerate children who are "always into things" as he was when he was young.
Hanne says ADHD is primarily genetic and runs in families, like autism, a more extreme condition in which people cannot communicate normally and have trouble with abstract concepts. ADHD sufferers are simply "excessively distracted", with poor short-term memory and impulsiveness.
"It is possible to demonstrate by imaging techniques definite measurable differences in the brain in certain areas," Hanne says. "All sorts of things will aggravate that but will not cause it. Obviously, good parenting will help.
"The trend is to have higher expectations [of children] but less structure to support them - less family structure, social structure, moral structure, spiritual structure. The better the quality of care from two parents, the better these kids will cope. The stuff about 24-hour childcare horrifies me."
ADHD is also associated with trauma in pregnancy or birth, and with mothers who drink or smoke during pregnancy.
But there is evidence it is aggravated by substances that get into the child's body from other sources, such as antibiotics, lead in the environment, possibly vaccinations, as well as food.
The debate is not over whether food has any effect but how big the effect is. Hanne says 20 per cent of ADHD children can reduce their symptoms with a strict diet.
The US-based Centre for Science in the Public Interest reviewed 23 studies in 1999. Seventeen "found evidence that some children's behaviour significantly worsens after they consume artificial colours or certain foods such as milk or wheat".
The Anzfa Expert panel found that although 19 per cent of Australians believed they had special food needs or allergies, the number who reacted adversely to foods was less than 2 per cent.
But Debbie Fewtrell, a former Kerikeri GP who specialises in treating childhood behaviour disorders biomedically, says in her experience with autistic patients, only a third show no effect from diet, a third show "improvements that the parents want to carry on with but it's not 'wow'," and in the other third "you get the 'wow' factor.
"Some of these children, with a combination of diet and an individualised biomedical programme including supplementation, may progress sufficiently to recover completely. Early intervention is important."
Regan Sayer, 5, is one of the "wow" cases. His mother Julie Preece says he developed normally until he was 21 months, then lost much of his ability to talk, became socially introverted and began throwing long tantrums every time the family's routines changed slightly.
"We used to drive into our driveway forwards. Once, we drove in backwards and he had a tantrum that lasted 45 minutes," she says. He was diagnosed as autistic.
On Fewtrell's advice, the family cut out wheat, dairy products, colourings and preservatives. "He changed overnight. Within a week he was a totally different child," Preece says. The tantrums stopped, he started school this year without a teacher aide, and the family is spending Christmas in Sydney. "Those kinds of changes, going out of their normal environment, we weren't able to do before."
Fewtrell has prescribed vitamins and minerals to fix imbalances in Regan's body. The family has also used speech therapy, "brain gym" exercises to connect the left and right sides of the brain, and applied behaviour analysis (ABA).
"That type of teaching switched on a light for him and he suddenly started to absorb knowledge," Preece says. "He will always be a bit quirky but he's improving all the time. It's a developmental delay - as he gets older he is catching up more and more with his peers."
It's not an easy path. Tracy and Neil Grove have also cut out wheat and dairy products, as well as colourings, additives and preservatives. On the day the Herald called, their fridge was almost empty apart from about eight containers of rice milk and a special margarine called Nuttelex which they import from Australia.
Their children even react against traditionally healthy foods such as fruit (except pears). They can't eat the oranges, lemons and walnuts on their lifestyle block at Kumeu.
"It's hard to stick to," says young Nelson Grove, now 9. "They sell junk food at school so it's hard to stop. We can't buy anything at the tuck shop. We are allowed chocolate that my Mum makes with carob."
"I home-bake everything and the kids at school are wanting [the Groves'] lunches," says Tracy. "I make them look cool by buying cellophane bags and put items of their food in there and put a big sticker to seal the bag - Spiderman, etc."
The Groves follow a "failsafe" diet popularised by Australian author Sue Dengate, which cuts out artificial colourings, most fruit, processed foods such as sausages which contain preservatives, tea, coffee, nuts (except cashews), coloured toothpaste, aspirin-based medicines and many other items.
Dengate's Auckland representative, Linda Beck, has developed a shopping list of failsafe foods - mostly plain foods such as most vegetables, rice, pasta, preservative-free bread, Weetbix, rolled oats, fresh meat and fish. "It's a matter of going back to a more old-fashioned diet - what our grandparents ate, as opposed to all this packaged stuff," she says.
Leila Masson, a paediatrician who is setting up an Auckland medical practice focused on biomedical treatments for autism and ADHD, says breastfeeding can also help babies to develop their immune systems. "It's becoming more accepted, even by mainstream institutions such as Harvard, that autism is an inflammatory and probably auto-immune disease," she says.
"Advising people to have a healthy diet and stay away from toxins is not taking a gamble. Every mainstream paediatrician says we don't recommend that, but if it was my child I'd definitely try it."
Rosamund Hill, an Auckland neurologist with a 3-year-old autistic son, is doing everything she can - eliminating wheat and dairy products, adding supplements of vitamins, amino acids and calcium, and paying $8000 a month for 40 hours a week of one-to-one behavioural therapy with six therapists.
Although she does not think it was a factor in her son's case, she thinks parents should refuse to let their children have the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccination together. "I have seen case histories of children, and spoken to other doctors whose children decompensated [regressed] so drastically after the MMR that you can't deny that in some cases it happened," she says.
"I think it's giving too much at once in a child whose immune system is different. You are allowed to vaccinate children in a different protocol - you can give the measles, mumps and rubella separately."
Masson avoids prescribing Ritalin or Rubifen because of side-effects, such as nervousness and sleeplessness if the drug is taken for a long time.
But Hanne says Ritalin helps to calm 70 to 80 per cent of his ADHD patients, compared with only 20 per cent who may benefit from a new diet. "The general plan is to stay on it until late in the teens," he says.
Fewtrell, however, is an keen advocate of diet. She says autistic children are "toxin accumulators" who can't eliminate toxins well because of their genes.
"Genes take thousands of years to change," she says. "But environmental and dietary changes in the past generation have been enormous, particularly with respect to the number and amount of chemicals."
In May, she is organising an Auckland conference for parents and health professionals under the auspices of the Australasian MINDD (Metabolic, Immuno, Neurologic and Digestive Disorders) Foundation. A training course for doctors will run alongside it.
"Previously I have not done anything for the public because there were so few practitioners to provide the goods," she says. "So we are catching up with that now."
For information on the conference or biomedical diet, email: autism@xtra.co.nz.
