nutritional treatments for ADHD?

We have not tried a special diet for adhd treatment but I have heard of others who have had some success with this. I have a picky eater and it’s a challenge to get her to eat even what she likes! She likes very little breakfast foods but will eat macaroni and cheese at any time of the day. She often has that for breakfast. She is on a strict chocolate restriction and we avoid red dyes. Generally speaking, even before our adhd diagnoses for both my kids, I use fresh foods and avoid processed things. For example, the mac and cheese is homemade baked type with real cheese and milk. I haven’t really noticed any differences but the doctor thinks it has helped. She noticed that my daughter had a lower blood pressure on her last visit compared to the time before when she had drank chocolate milk at lunch at school.

[quote:aa5b0acbc8=”JenM”]We have not tried a special diet for adhd treatment but I have heard of others who have had some success with this. I have a picky eater and it’s a challenge to get her to eat even what she likes! She likes very little breakfast foods but will eat macaroni and cheese at any time of the day. She often has that for breakfast. She is on a strict chocolate restriction and we avoid red dyes. Generally speaking, even before our adhd diagnoses for both my kids, I use fresh foods and avoid processed things. For example, the mac and cheese is homemade baked type with real cheese and milk. I haven’t really noticed any differences but the doctor thinks it has helped. She noticed that my daughter had a lower blood pressure on her last visit compared to the time before when she had drank chocolate milk at lunch at school.[/quote]

This may sound Draconian but if you want to stop her from being a picky eater make her go to bed hungry a few nights Eventually she’ll come around.

I am suspect of our food supply and all the chemicals and hormones that are in our food. Milk is now not as wholesome as it once was and meat is loaded with hormones. Much of our produce is grown with pesticides and chemical fertilizers. Another problem is that processed food is lacking the nutrients and enzymes vital for proper development.

As the American diet went from healthy to unhealthy so have the incidences of OBESITY, diabetes, cancer, Alzhiemr’s birth defects and neurological problems

I suspect you are right that many of our health problems are due to a lower quality of food supply and too many over processed foods. (Have you heard about the “slow food” movement?) Also, I think many well-meaning governmental directives in terms of nutrition have simply been dead wrong. Take the attempt to steer us away from animal fats like butter to margarine, canola oil, etc. Now studies are showing that too much polyunsaturated fat, especially in the absences of animal fats, is worse for your heart than anything! The best solution seems to be a balance of both animal and vegetable fats… and of those, virgin olive oil seems to be the best bet, though getting true virgin olive oil is not as easy as you’d think, since in this country that term doesn’t really have any meaning, so just about any oil can be labeled “extra virgin.”

It sounds to me, JenM, that you do have your daughter on a special diet if you are limiting chocolate and red dye, and using mostly fresh foods with her. Of course, her compliance with the diet is another issue, especially when she is at school or otherwise out of the house. But there is only so much you can do. I think a lot has to do with how you approach it with kids, however, trying to explain the thinking behind your restrictions, for one thing, how it will benefit her, etc. Dr. Taylor does have a book on his website about how to get kids to comply with a special diet, and there is a great booklet available from the Feingold diet people on how to shop as to avoid the worst offenders for ADHD kids. I think that one is also listed on Dr. Taylor’s website.

According to Dr. Taylor, being a picky eater is another classic symptom of ADHD. So is having food allergies, and that could be part of the problem. Once the cycle starts, the stomach and intestines start to react everytime a problem food is eaten, the child feels the discomfort and tries to avoid it by not eating, and the cycle just gets worse. The intestinal wall may also be quite dry and thin and therefore easily pierced by yeasts and other “bad” inhabitants, and then even more food molecules can enter the bloodstream, causing even more food allergy symptoms, etc. This can lead to really serious health consequences down the road, but it’s easy to see how it gets started… too much antibiotic use and not enough enzymes and other probiotics in our food supply. Maybe it’s not coincidence that many ADHD kids were treated multiple times with antibiotics due to early ear infections — I know my son was! I think he’d had four complete courses of antibiotics by the time he was three years old!

There also seems to be a close connection emerging in the research between bronchial allergies, asthma, food allergies and ADHD, though it doesn’t seem like they’d be related. I suspect the common factor is, again, the gut and it’s ability to handle and assimilate the food we put into it. In ancient times, doctors believed that food was the best medicine; maybe it’s time we returned to that belief, and started to eat more like our ancestors did — fresh, whole foods, homegrown when possible, plenty of enzymes and probiotics, and lacking that, our supplements should be from whole food sources whenever possible. Nature knows best, it seems to me.

Didn’t do anything too special, but I have to say that the difference in my kids between when they eat well and they don’t is dramatic. Especially in regards to protein. A high protein diet at regular intervals seemed to be the best thing. They have both been picky eaters and seldom want to take time away from their fascinating pursuits for something so mundane as eating. (And of course, meals are a great place for oppositional behavior, too.) So I definitely think there is a connection with the protein levels in the diet, and logically a difficulty digesting proteins would lead to similar results.

I agree about the protein. It has come up on the board several times-these kids tend to be carboholics!!!!!

My 13 yr old has naturally started eating more protein with the growth spurts. He also seems to be doing better. Makes me wonder

Certainly seems a pretty harmless thing to try

DH and I did South Beach for several months. He lost a ton of weight and his cholesterol dropped. I lost all of 7 lbs(need to lose far more)and my cholesterol actually went up

I got discouraged and stopped; since I do the cooking, that meant DH stopped

Six months later we are trying it again. DH gained all the lost weight back and I really miss how good it made me feel. Whether the numbers showed it or not, I felt better on South Beach-more focused would be a fair statement

Hey guys, interesting posts. My son (the 11 yr. old ADD kid just recently put on Adderall XR) is for sure a carboholic. He is NOT a picky eater and eats lots of good things (broccoli, cauliflower, leafy greens, etc) but much prefers potatoes, breads, mac and cheese. School lunch is just the worst thing kids can eat. I work at a school and I’m just amazed that what they serve actually passes with the guidelines they must follow. Poptarts are new on the menu this year at our school. POPTARTS!!! :shock: Red dye, sugar, all that bad stuff. I have started packing my son’s lunch just for that reason and he knows that poptarts and the juices they serve with breakfast are off limits. It’s a wonder any of the kids in school can focus. I do believe there is a link between good nutrition and ADD/ADHD. Keep the posts going as this is all very interesting.

Another interesting twist to this subject. In the past few months I’ve had reason other than my daughter to research serotonin levels. It’s amazing how many things this neurotransmitter affects including appetite. It also affects the types of foods you crave. I couldn’t tell you where I came across this info because I don’t research to be able to prove things— just for my own knowledge— but I did find this in several sources. But, sometimes people crave foods that will elevate blood sugar levels to give energy and focus (even short term) to compensate for what is missing or low in other areas — neurotransmitters. Most adhd research these days points towards neurotransmitters being a cause which is why certain meds work for some people. So, if this is the case it confirms what many suspect which is the importance of nutrition. But, it also raises the question of what came first! It comes down to the chicken or the egg type thing!

Anyway, yes this is an interesting discussion! My kid lives for macaroni and cheese!

I guess if I am restricting certain foods then my kids are sort of controlled by diet. My 13 year old is allowed chocolate once a week. She confessed to me yesterday that she had chocolate at school but learned her lesson because she came home and felt really sick. As far as cooking from scratch and using the most natural ingredients I don’t look at that as anything special. I grow my own herbs and vegs when I can and when I buy as much fresh foods as possible. But, that is how I grew up and it was something I did long before my kids were diagnosed adhd. If it helps them that’s a good thing!

That is very interesting about the serotonin levels. It makes you wonder anyway how that all works. Wish I had more time to research this stuff. I did tell my son that over my summer break I am going to read, read, read and try to study up on ADD. We just had a house fire a couple of weeks ago so between working on remodeling the house and reading, my summer should go by quickly!

I’m trying to steer my son in the direction of good nutrition and got him off of all caffiene. It’s fun to watch him now look at labels and study them. Sugar too is another unnecessary evil. I live for summer when we can have a garden and have all that fresh food.

Hey everyone,

Thanks for all the input, it’s great to get some feedback :D ! All the comments on picky eaters mac and cheese, etc. are bringing back memories of my son’s early days, when just about all he would eat was cold cereal, hot dogs, and macaroni and cheese (the kind in a box). Could there be any worse diet for an ADD kid :lol: ? I was a single mom, so forget about making it all from scratch :oops:

Anyway, I guess he’s paid me back, since he’s the one who got me started on the algae, probiotics and enzymes, etc. last year. Oh, that was one other thing Dr. Tayler mentioned, the connection between a healthy digestive tract (which is the site of most of our immune cells also, it turns out) and allergy symptoms. My son also has asthma (not an uncommon co-factor) and bronchial allergies, but I never suspected food allergies because he never showed any overt symptoms. But then, maybe that was because his ADD was never the hyper type. Anyway, turns out ADD kiddos often have a “drier” than usual body, both inside and out, hence the tendency to dry, rashy skin, and the digestive tract can also get dried out, hence it is more easily irritated, can then be “punctured” by yeast growth, which allows food particles into the blood stream, causing yet more allergic reactions to foods, and so on. So it’s a vicious cycle. Most of us Americans do not get nearly enough probiotics and enzymes in our food supply, since we pasteurize the heck out of just about everything! And that’s not counting the multiple courses of antibiotics, which call the good and the bad…

I started taking the Celltech probiotics and enzymes over a year ago, and have just started noticing that my digestive tract (which was always pretty good) is unbelievably healthy now. We’ve all heard it said that we should have a BM once a day, but several naturapathic doctors I know say that is a BARE MINIMUM, and not really a sign of good health at all. Many AD/HD kids have constipation and go far less than that, it turns out. If we eat three times a day, we should have bowel movement about that often. So I can’t believe it, but that’s what’s happening, after a long time of supplementing. I wonder how many of us really have a truly healthy digestive tract? And how many of our health problems, of all kinds, start with that problem? Just thinking out loud….