What Diet Can and Cannot Do

In this issue, we address four crucial topics related to the therapeutic role of the diet.First, Drs. Chumpitazi and Shulman, from the Department of Pediatrics, Baylor Collegeof Medicine, and the Section of Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition, Texas Children’sHospital and Children’s Nutrition Research Center, Houston, Tex., USA discussthe role of carbohydrate in causing abdominal pain.Next, Drs. Feuille and Nowak-Węgrzyn, from the Division of Allergy and Immunology,Department of Pediatrics, Jaffe Food Allergy Institute, Icahn School of Medicineat Mount Sinai,Kravis Children’s Hospital, New York, N.Y., USA, address the topic of oral immunotherapy,which has demonstrated efficacy in desensitizing subjects to offending food proteins.However, this is still an investigational therapy for food allergy.One of the most fascinating aspects of diet therapy is addressed next by Dr. Frank M. Ruemmelefrom the Sorbonne University, the Descartes University and the Hôpital Necker Enfants Malades,Pediatric Gastroenterology Service, Paris, France.The topic is induction of remission of Crohn’s disease by diet. The idea of using nutrition isin contrast to former practice, when patients with Crohn’s disease were given bowel rest andtreated with intravenous nutrition and corticosteroids, which came along with a list of quite dramaticand sometimes irreversible side effects. Finally, a potpourri of topics is discussed under one heading addressing the questions that doctorsare always being asked by parents and sometimes by colleagues.Dr. Cruchet and colleagues, from the Nutrition and Food Technology Institute (INTA), Chile Universityand the Luis Calvo Mackenna Hospital, Santiago, Chile, address the subject of truths, myths and needs ofspecial diets with respect to attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, nonceliac, gluten sensitivity, vegetarianism and autism.