Kelly Preston has opened up about the death of her 16-year-old son Jett.

The 50-year-old The Last Song actress - who has been married to 58-year-old Savages star John Travolta for 17 years - thinks that chemicals in food contributed to her son's autism, as well as the severe seizure that caused his death in 2009.

Speaking on an episode of The Doctors - which airs in the US on Wednesday - Kelly said, "[Jett] was autistic. He had seizures and when he was very young, he had Kawasaki Syndrome (which can cause inflammation of the arteries and usually affects children between the ages of two and five years old)."

Jett died after suffering a seizure and hitting his head on a bathtub at the family's home at the Old Bahama Bay Hotel on Grand Bahama Island in the Caribbean and his mother believes chemicals caused it: "I strongly believe as a mother, as does my husband, that there are certain contributing factors that lead to autism and some of it is very much the chemicals in our environment and in our food."

Kelly also blames her difficult "fast and hard" labor for Jett's problems, and antibiotics she took while breastfeeding him, which gave him thrush at the time, an infection of Candida yeast that has been linked by some studies to the symptoms of autism.

Kelly - who is also shares daughter Ella, 12, and son Benjamin, two, with her husband - said she wants to empower other parents and promote an organic lifestyle with fewer chemicals.