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This intervention is designed to reduce or eliminate gluten and casein from the diet.
The gluten-free diet requires the individual to avoid sources of gluten, such as wheat, oats, rye and barley.
The casein-free diet requires the individual to avoid sources of casein, such as milk, butter and yoghurt.
The proponents of the diet believe that this can lead to improvements in areas such as IQ, communication and social skills.
The theory behind this diet is weak and unproven. And there is limited evidence as to whether GFCF diets are actually effective.
Reviewers have found the evidence to be inconclusive. Despite this lack of evidence many people embark on a GFCF diet with high expectations that there will be beneficial effects.
However, these diets can involve significant inconvenience and cost, as well as significant limitations on what the individual can eat.
Because of this, we cannot recommend the use of such diets.
However we do strongly recommend that that further large scale, high quality research is needed.
Please see the Advanced version of this page for more information about this intervention, including relevant research studies and details of how we ranked them.
Please read our Disclaimer about this intervention.
Last Updated : 04/11/2009 Back to Top