Performance Chiropractic Blog

Summary:  Some parents and doctors alike, claim that reducing sugar (soda, cereal, candy etc), food additives and dyes, and adding omega fish oils will help ADHD and won’t need medicine.  The study is saying that it probably doesn’t help, however for some maybe it can.  As always its a mixed and controversial subject.

A new review of links between diet and childhood attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)serves up something for everyone — including parents who believe diet must make a difference and skeptics who say there’s not much evidence that particular diets work.

The report, which summarizes decades of research on approaches many parents try –sometimes with a doctor’s support — ends up endorsing the idea that a healthy diet probably helps kids. But it’s not particularly encouraging to parents who go in for complex diet schemes or who hope the right foods can eliminate the need for medication and therapy.

The review in Pediatrics, from researchers at Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago, says:

• Most studies show no link with sugar, but can’t rule out that some very sensitive kids are affected. Still, so many parents are convinced that sugar is a trigger that “no controlled study or physician counsel is likely to change this perception,” now, the authors write. (In one small study conducted two decades ago, mothers who thought their kids drank a sugary beverage reported surges in hyperactivity not seen by moms correctly told the drinks contained artificial sweetener).

• Diets that eliminate food dyes and preservatives might help “an occasional child,” but are not the answer for most. (This is part of the Feingold diet, which has been around since the 1970s).

• Elimination diets that help identify food allergies are “complex, time-consuming, and sometimes too burdensome,” but often worth trying for “selected patients with diligent parents.”

• Supplements of omega-3 fatty acids are unproven but show promise. (Benefits appear “small but significant,” other researchers reported recently. Translation: They help, but not as much as stimulant drugs do.A simple, healthy diet, full of fish, vegetables, fruits and low-fat dairy, shows the most promise. The authors point to an Australian study showing lower rates of ADHD among teens who ate that sort of diet than among those who ate a junky “Western” diet full of fast and processed foods, red meat and soft drinks.

But parents should know that even that common-sense conclusion comes with a caveat: The researchers who originally reported that finding said that they could not say lousy diets caused ADHD – and that it could be the other way around. That is, hyperactive, impulsive kids might crave and eat too much junk food.

Would changing their fast-food diets improve their ADHD symptoms? The new report can’t say.

Finally, here’s something else the report can’t say: That any diet is as good as, or better than medication and behavioral therapy for treating ADHD. In most cases, diets are never tested directly against those treatments — which have been proven to help kids and teens with the disorder andremain the treatments mainstream doctors recommend first, despite side effects and costs.

Where does that leave diets and supplements? They might enhance standard treatments or provide options when those treatments don’t work or when families reject them, the report concludes.

Tags: 80005 chiropractic, adhd, arvada nutrition

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 24th, 2012 at 11:08 am and is filed under children, nutrition. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.