Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Article showing food link for 60% of ADHD kids

http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2810%2962227-1/fulltext#

This is just the summary, but I wondered if anyone has any thoughts or experiences to share here.

Grinity

Just this:

G.I.G.O.*

It's a technical thing. Learned that back in the dark ages w.r.t. compiling code.



* Garbage in, garbage out.

I think that we all too often eat "food" that isn't really, well... food. Anyone that can't do that for other reasons (diabetes, food allergy) soon learns just how horrifyingly "fake" most food in cans, bags, and boxes actually is.

Maybe a lot of kids with AD diagnoses are simply 'sensitive' to dietary interventions because they are actually canaries in this coal mine.

MAYBE we should all pay more attention to what they are telling us.

You are what you eat. Drink more water. Modern medicine is nothing short of amazing.

Is this the article piece : Helicobacter pylori? I didn't see "ADHD" from following the link.

Yeah I like natural health and nutrition and marvel at modern medicine. I think a lot of nutrition advice tells us to cut out this or cut out that from our diet. I agree better with the advice I read during pregnancy, "try to eat everything you're supposed to eat daily, and you won't have room left to eat much of what you shouldn't eat". Eat more fruits and vegetables, fresher is better. I avoid pastas and use wheat bread. I still save room for too much ice-cream. I'm confused if gluten is bad for everybody or if it's just an allergen. I plan to take one of those online nutrition classes next. I just wonder if they'll tell me anything I haven't already read.

We eat fairly healthy in my family. We're vegetarians, though we probably get a little too much cheese. We have non-American food several times a week, and I've noticed a significant improvement in our overall health since we started this. My mom was in town visiting this week and we had a lot of "American" food and am already feeling rundown. Given, she doesn't pick the healthiest places to eat at, but I'm surprised at how quickly I felt it.

My daughter, when she was younger, would react horribly to having candy that wasn't a simple piece of chocolate (even just 1 small piece of candy). Anything that had food coloring or a lot of processing would cause her to get extremely hyper. We also noticed the same when people gave her overly-processed foods that wasn't candy.

I don't get the sense that on our family's "healthy" diet she can pay attention much more easily, but at least she isn't driving us nuts as often as she would with all the crap in her system. But we never ate all that bad to begin with - even when we did eat meat. I would imagine that just a general feeling of rundown would keep someone from being at the top of their game. But she's 12, so it's kind of impossible to tell at the moment what would be causing her attention problems. I'm getting the sense that System of a Down is more of a distraction than a queasy stomach.

We haven't tried any of the bad processed foods with my son except for the occasional cookie. He's only 16 months old, so still mostly organic fruits and veggies and plenty of breastmilk for his protein. He likes cheese too though, so he gets that also.

Srry La Tex - try searching for:

Effects of a restricted elimination diet on the behaviour of children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (INCA study): a randomised controlled trial

My concern about these kinds of studies is that they can be used as a weapon against parents. I can hear it now," Johnny can't pay attention because his mom packs chips, if he had a better mom he would be able to stay seated......"

Just as a healthy diet can help control diabetes, heart disease and other health issues, I believe that the same will hold true for ADHD. In fact, diet alone may help many people. I just hope it doesn't take our eye away from the fact that ADHD is a real medical condition that is related to the chemistry in the brain, and it is not a result of bad parenting.

And, many researchers have found that exercise is an important intervention for those with ADHD. Wish more of our schools would work in more of these throughout the day......

The studies are promising, I just worry about how the general public and some school administrators will "spin" the information. ADHD is such a highly charged and loaded diagnosis. I find that certain people look for scapegoats.

I put this in the category of "it's worth a try but don't expect miracles."

I am concerned about demonizing the parents. I have a kid with multiple severe food allergies. He eats a very healthy diet (meat, grains and fruits/veggies) because almost every processed food has something that he can't have. Normally, we bring all of our own food everywhere. When we go to restaurants, he is allowed to order soda (something that we don't have at home) because he usually can't have anything from the menu. I can't tell you how many dirty looks that I have gotten because my kid is "just having a soda for dinner" when he actually ate before we left the house. Believe me, it gets very tiresome to have well-intentioned people lecture you about what your child should be eating when they don't know the whole story.

YES. I agree with Mich 100%.

DeeDee

knute974
I really feel for you on the food allergy situation. I have food allergies, although fortunately to odd ones that are easily avoided - but it makes me extremely sensitive to kids and their parents with more serious ones. In our pre-k, it was amazing to me how obnoxious parents were inadvertently and on purpose to kids with allergies - two camps - either they thought it wasn't really "serious" just a food crazy mom, or just thoughtlessness/forgetfulness. Not that I think you have to remember everything about the 20th kid in class, but how hard is it to email when its a birthday when there is a kid who can't eat the cupcakes!!!

I do wonder about people who feel compelled to say things (or even give dirty looks) to perfect strangers or even people you kind of know. And yet, ABC keeps airing those hidden camera shows, where people are verbally assaulted, robbed or whatever in plain view and no one does a darn thing! So basically judgmental but yet not getting involved!

DeHe

"Why on earth do they not just put that brat on meds?" can just as well be used as a weapon. The fact that intolerant and judgmental people exist is not a reason to bury our heads in the sand and ignore new information that has the potential to help a lot of kids. A majority of kids with ADHD possibly being helped by dietary changes is FANTASTIC news that deserves to be considered.

My youngest started projectile vomiting and crying in pain when she was just a few days old. After the medical scans came back negative for a blocked intestine, the doctor suggested it might be an allergy to milk and soy. Since I was breastfeeding that meant eliminating milk and soy (and as a result most processed foods) from my diet. It was a big adjustment but I am so grateful my doctor knew food could be the culprit. If a similar change can help kids with ADHD, I agree it is fantastic news!

As I stated in my post, the studies are promising. I am not proposing that they should be ignored. Given that I have a family with life threatening food allergies to very common foods (milk, nuts, soy, eggs among others), diabetes, and acid reflux, I understand the importance of eating well. But I also have been around schools long enough to know that many have a talent for using such information in counter productive and hurtful ways.

And again, exercise should be considered too.

For my son, who eats a restricted and healthy diet and gets a lot of outdoor time and exercise, medication is the only thing that makes an appreciable improvement.

A number of years ago, (maybe 10) a colleague of mine convinced a parent of a particularly troublesome student to change his diet to eliminate processed foods and the night shades to see if his behavior would improve. He took these steps after talking extensively to the parents and determining that even the mom noticed that when ever the child ate apples, or potatoes or things like that his behavior went down the tubes. My colleague had been researching the affects of processing foods and eating different things together for his own health and saw dramatic changes.
Having had this same child in my classes, I was absolutely amazed at the difference in the boy's behavior, memory and attitude after a week of a more healthy diet. He continued on the restricted diet for about 2 months and then decided to see if it really was the food and ate an apple one day. He was right back to his out of control self - he even noticed it and went immediately back onto the diet.
So, while I think this study definitely includes more people than I had previously heard of, the understanding that our food causes different reactions in different people is not really all that new.
It would be great if it got more attention paid to it, especially from the food manufacturers!

More discussion in the LA Times about the report:
http://www.latimes.com/health/la-he-diet-adhd-20110314,0,477984.story

This might be way off topic but I've always wanted to tell somebody who might care. Why on earth do they advertise medicine on tv? Shouldn't your doctor be the one telling you about them? Or google? It's medicine, not shoes; it should be what you need, not what's advertised on sale this week. <<Pouts and fumes.>>

Ok, on topic. I read on a blog that gifted children have high nutrition needs because thinking burns fuel. Like an athlete type needs more carbs, fats, and proteins a gifted brain needs more (healthy) calories (not empty ones) because they're burning fuel while focusing so much.

La Texican - I'm not sure how pharmaceutical companies came to advertise drugs. It is a relatively new thing. I suppose could be an effort to "provide" information. But I agree with you, it makes me a bit uneasy. On the other hand, the web has helped me in pushing for an accurate diagnosis for my DD and if I hadn't pushed, she would most likely still be on the steroids the doctor prescribed, rather than benefiting from a much less invasive treatment plan. So - sometimes it does help to educate the public so that they can advocate. I don't know, it is complex.

mich and la texican

Actually, it was part of a 96? 97? intensive lobbying effort by the pharmaceutical industry in response to generics. They wanted it to produce exactly what happened - patients walking into dr's office asking for name brand drugs and believing that the name brand is different/better than the generic. With some people and some meds there are issues of fillers being different but in reality most of this is about profit. With also set up a fascinating tension between insurers and pharma in fighting for protections from Congress.

Mich is right that it is very complicated because it is now much easier to learn about drugs. It definitely gives patients the ability to challenge dr's choices, which as we know now are very much influenced by pharma marketing to them. Studies show even a dr's acceptance of pens and paper, not just trips to the Bahama's influence the choice to prescribe. But fundamentally, the initial bill was about the loss of income when big moneymaking drugs come off patent protection.

DeHe

Has anyone read the full article? I hadn't initially realized just how restricted the diet was. Rice, white meat, vegetables and fruits. And that's it.

Unless I am misreading things, it seems to be more of a food allergy question than a kids are eating too much junk food question.

I'd love to know if you read this differently.

I haven't read the full article but the LA Times piece discusses the restrictiveness of the diet:

I couldn't find the full article for free, but I do think this isn't the usual 'sugar and food coloring sensitivities cause ADHD behaviors.'

What I got from reading between the lines was that they took all the kids off almost everything for 5 weeks and saw which ones responded. Then they kept playing around with adding foods back slowly for the responders and let the nonresponders go back to normal eating.

I just think the results are usually higher numbers for a project like this.

I'm trying to play devils advocate, and all I can think of is that maybe the super-strict limits that had to be enforced had a behavioral effect? Maybe the kids were shook up enough that they felt like they HAD to behave? I doubt it, what else could it be - besides food reactions?

Grinity

I do believe that food alone can have profound effects. I was breast-feeding when we were trying to sort out DS's food allergies. I ended up being on a severely restricted diet for almost a year. Similar to the study, I ate turkey, chicken and pork, fruits and vegetables and various grains (OK -- I cheated and had wheat occasionally). When I finished breast-feeding and added foods back into my diet, I noticed that certain foods affected my mood and energy level. Wheat saps my energy. Anything with flax seeds, makes me have severe mood swings. I won't bore you with more details but you get the idea.

The hard part is following a restricted diet in the first place. With food sensitivities, as opposed to true food allergies, it's hard because you are asking a kid to abstain from eating things that they have always been able to eat. Once you get through the restricted part, I agree with Kerry that if the kid can make the connection between food and how they feel, they will advocate for themselves.

I will toss out this anecdote about food and ADHD. I have ADHD that was untreated as a child but have experimented in recent years with diet. One thing that made a notable difference to me was cutting out all bread (wheat, basically).

I found after a week of not eating it that my thinking and mood was �smoother� not in a dramatic sense, but in a consistently more stable sense. Like my mind was better balanced. Also, when I would occasionally break the diet and eat a sandwich, I noticed almost immediately a mild tingling seemingly behind my eyes and an increased fuzziness in my brain from that point forward if I continued eating bread.

I�ve done this trial multiple times with the same results so I believe the results are valid at least in my case.

The flip side to this is that certain things partially medicate ADHD symptoms, so drinking caffeine for me helps with some of the symptoms. If I cut out caffeine, I get the benefits of a more stable mood and better rest, but then my ADHD symptoms worsen.

Another somewhat related story is that if I eat anything with ginko biloba I get mild to severe panic attacks. It was quite scary since I'd never had a true panic attack before in my life--the kind that make you want to run in mental fright out the door away from yourself, basically--and it took several episodes to make the connection that it was the ginko biloba (I was eating health bars with ginko in them). It's something worth remembering because today with all the herbs and heatlh food being promoted with all sorts of ingredients whose effects have not been well studied.

Pru - not surprising that you find caffeinated drinks helpful. Caffeine is a stimulant that works in a manner similar to Ritalin. Nicotine is another stimulant that some untreated people with ADHD use to self medicate. I don't recommend the later!

There's lots of new research about wheat sensitivities, allergies etc. You aren't the only one that does well without it! Don't know anything about ginko biloba - but again, many "health" foods and herbal remedies can be as potent as more traditional drugs. The reaction you had sounds terrible.

Slightly off-topic, but I have been trying to give my DS11 some caffeine in the morning to see how he responds (no ADHD diagnosis yet, but pretty certainly 2E of some kind).

I haven't found anything he is willing to drink. We tried green tea (tastes like grass), Chai tea (tastes weird), black tea with sugar (OK but I don't like it in the morning), ice tea (ditto, plus it has too much sugar), hot cocao with a bit of coffee in it (did you put something in my hot chocolate?).

I purchased some 100mg caffiene pills (supposed to be similar to a cup of coffee), but feel nervous about trying them. Especially since the label says in CAPITAL letters "do not give to children."

Any suggestions?

I personally would not give them for the obvious warning. If things are serious enough to warrant testing, you will want to keep caffiene out of his system. When tested for ADHD I had to first stop all caffeiene and wait two weeks for the test because it takes that long to get out.

I have been thinking about getting ds to drink caffeine also because he gets migraines. I've tried straight ice tea (he won't drink it)and Arnold Palmer's half-and-half (half lemonade, half ice tea (again, he won't drink it). Those might work for you. I have heard you can buy caffeineated water, but I haven't seen it for sale around here.

Some "Vitamin Water" flavors have caffeine. I'm not sure how much compared to tea.

Thanks! I checked out the VitaminWater web site. The "energy" type has 50 mg caffeine (about 1/2 cup of coffee) and doesn't seem to have any really bad stuff (except sugar) - I'm going to give it a try.

Pru, yes that's a good point - I won't give him any caffeine within 2 weeks of his testing (not until early May).

My dd likes green and white teas but it sounds like that's not working for you. The other thing she likes is "mocha milk:" milk with a little coffee in it (more milk than coffee). We do non dairy milks which have some sweetener as well.

Mocha milk sounds good -- does your DD drink it hot or cold?

Probably luke warm . She mixes hot coffee with cold milk.

I don't have a lot of time, but I wanted to chime in. We are starting this process next week. My son has always had lots of food sensitivities, and allergies, since birth. I nursed him for almost two years because I had nothing to wean him to. He now drinks hemp milk, which most people give me trouble about, you know, I'm feeding my kid thc or something. (insert eye roll and chuckle here.)


Anyways, he is having a hard time focusing lately, and the psych that administered his iq test is writing a book on thtis very subject. He believes as much as 80% of ADHD can be helped by dietary modification. He's starting us on this journey, although I'm not sure what else we can cut out, we are already dairy, soy, egg, wheat, peanut, tree nut, potato, celery, barley, chickpea and most bean free. My son does eat a lot of oat products, which can be cross contaminated with gluten, which is a big trigger for some kids.

Anyways, I can keep everyone posted if you want. Sorry this is so choppy, Im on my iPad with my 9 month old twins crawling all over me.

I'd love to hear how it goes and it sounds like you have your hands full! When I was eliminating soy and dairy for DD's allergies my cousin came for a visit. She was on a gluten free diet for Celiac disease so it was a challenge to come up with a meal we could share. I don't envy you trying to do that every day while juggling 9 month old twins.

I have friends with children whose behaviours improved drastically when diet was modified. In some cases, all the ADHD-like behaviours either stopped or were greatly reduced. Of course this doesn't mean it will be the same for others. But with these friends they too discovered they couldn't handle things like amines or salicylates or whatever and once they eliminated stuff from their diet, their own behaviours/health/etc improved exponentially.

I think dietary changes should be a must for lots of people, not just ADHD, autism, and so on. My friend has bad asthma, nasal polyps, migraines and all this other stuff. Once she went on a Failsafe diet, all those things disappeared and came back when she reintroduced the foods during challenges. She lived with all those problems for years which really took their toll as her sleep was very poor due to coughing, blocked sinuses, headaches and so on. Now she has none of those and her quality of life is of course much better.

My siblings have been diagnosed with IBS but all their colonoscopies, blood tests and gastroscopies have come back clear. They're now about to start the elimination diets and I'm so pleased because I'm certain it is due to something they're eating. Everyone we know who has tried an elimination diet have all said they wished they'd done it sooner, and spared themselves a lot of pain and misery.

I am coming to this late... But my entire family is on a strict elimination diet & for the most part we haven't managed to re-introduce anything much that was eliminated without reaction. As a result our diet is somewhat limited but EVERYONE is healthier, happier, calmer, more stable and focused than we have ever been or have been in years. Oh and weight has just effortlessly come off both DH and I, which, given the number of homemade cookies we are eating, is not due to reduced intake but our bodies just coping better.

DD1s OT suggested we take her off dairy and wheat to see what happened. We didn't do it because I was pregnant and had hyperemisis at the time and it was just one thing too many. Ironically it probably would have been the "cure" I needed. DD3 was miserable from the day she was born, severe reflux, overly sensitive to everything, it was a rough time for everyone. But it was when we tried to get her onto solids that things got really interesting as she started poo-ing green mucus (we stopped and it went away, started and it came back, we did this three times, same result each time).

I had a friend whose kids have severe intolerances, so I knew that was likely what was going on. I first tried to see if eliminating salicylates helped and it not only helped DD3, it helped me too, for the first time ever she was reflux free and started to cry less. So then we embarked on the full elimination diet. Given it had been suggested that DD1 do it and DD3 and I had to do it, we decided DH and DD2 should come along for the ride. The most dramatic results have happened for DD3 and I, then DD1, but DH and DD2 are also clearly better off.

Some of our responses are physical -

I no longer wake up with my joints aching (just think of the $500 I didn't need to spend on a specialist ultrasound of my ankles!). Each morning my feet used to feel like I had broken them overnight.

DD3 can eat without pooing mucus or getting eczema, she cries less and sleeps more.

My skin is healthier than it has ever been, I sleep better, my sinuses are better.

DD1 only complains of tummy pains now when she has had a diet malfunction.

Some of the effects are mental/emotional -

DD3 is WAY less cranky.

DD1 & 2 are calmer and quieter, enough such that school has noticed the difference.

I am calmer, happier, more balanced and my brain fog (which I thought was induced by 9 years of breastfeeding and sleep deprivation) is gone, though I am still breastfeeding and chronically sleep deprived.

Basically it's all good.

Whenever we have challenged foods (dairy, gluten, salicylate, amines, preservatives, colours, flavours) we have had clear reactions, some within minutes or hours, some within days, depending on the food and the person. My kids both go NUTS when they have dairy. DD1 is horrible to her sister (and everyone else) when she has amines. Everyone gets tummy pains on gluten. And so on...

DD1 has not been diagnosed with ADHD, but I suspect that we will probably have her investigated shortly and I will be talking to the paed in advance about whether we need to take her off the diet before testing in the same way that we would have to take her off meds if she were on them. If so, she is likely to be bouncing off the ceiling and have everyone, including herself, in tears before the appt.

My three kiddos have definite preservative/additive/dye sensitivity. I can tell almost immediately when they have had something not "natural" A website with tons of interesting info ... feingold.org

The RPAH diet we are using (which is written for food shopping in Australia) is generally considered to be much more up to date in terms of what foods are strong sals, amines, glutamates, etc. At least amongst health professionals here.

http://www.sswahs.nsw.gov.au/rpa/allergy/resources/foodintol/handbook.cfm