October 2024

ADHD

• ADHD Explained
• The ADHD Brain 🧠
• Nutrition For ADHD
• Lifestyle Tips For ADHD

Nutrition For ADHD

Women who were obese during pregnancy were found to have doubled the risk of their children developing ADHD. Reducing or eliminating trans fats found in processed food, which contributes to obesity, decreases the risk of having kids with ADHD.

The safest way to counteract the damaging effects of a poor diet in pregnancy on the embryos is breastfeeding. Studies show that kids who were breastfed for six months or longer were at less risk of developing ADHD.

Additive & Sugar

In the last decade, evidence shows that food additives and coloring can affect some children by creating behaviors that mimic ADHD, and their removal can benefit the person with ADHD.

Sugar, if consumed in large amounts, can further disrupt an already dysregulated brain. However, it is important to note that there was no direct causative connection between sugar intake and ADHD. While sugar doesn’t directly cause ADHD, a diet that is high in sugar tends to be low in nutrients and, many times, high in chemical additives that were found to disrupt brain development.

Consuming excess sugar leads to dopamine release in the brain reward center. Dopamine deficiency in the brain is associated with ADHD. Sugar cravings in people with ADHD might be a form of self-medication. Another explanation is that for people with ADHD, who are more impulsive than most, getting an immediate reward is hard to resist. It might be that it is not that sugar causes ADHD, but instead that ADHD leads to the sweet tooth.

Food high in sugar and additives, AKA processed food, provides inconsistent energy to the brain. High and low spikes of energy in the brain challenge the brain’s capacity to self-regulate.

When you seek to eliminate food additives and sugars from your diet, you will need to read the labels of the foods you buy. You will discover that additives, sugar, and corn fructose syrup are everywhere and tricky to track down because they have many different names. My rule in reading labels is that it is not if you can’t identify it as food.

One place where sugar and additives are hidden is in soda. An average soda can contains between twenty to forty grams of sugar and provides a caloric intake of 100-150 calories without any nutrients added to the body.

Gut-brain axis and the role of gut bacteria

Studies into the gut-brain connection, or the gut-brain axis, found that gut inflammation might travel to the brain, leading to dysregulation that can manifest in attention and mood disorders.

Gut bacteria are crucial to a healthy gut-brain axis. They release chemicals and information that travel to the brain, affecting mood, attention, and behavior.

Chronic consumption of sugar and processed food changes the composition of gut bacteria, leading to inflammation and obesity. Both inflammation and obesity directly affect the brain via the gut-brain axis and release toxins into the blood, increasing the body’s toxic overload.

To support healthy gut bacteria, you want to include vegetables of many colors in your diet, specifically those high in fiber.

What about coffee?

Caffeine-containing drinks include coffee, tea, and energy drinks. Coffee is a stimulant that, in some cases, can improve attention, alertness, and motivation. Many children and adults with ADHD use caffeine as a type of self-medication. If you or your child is already on a stimulant pharmaceutical, you want to be mindful of the amounts of coffee you drink, as too much stimulation can lead to an increased heart rate.

Another factor to consider is the time of day you drink caffeinated drinks. Sleep is crucial for regulating the brain, so limit caffeine intake to the morning. If you struggle with insomnia or anxiety, avoid caffeine.

Food sensitivities

Food sensitivity is an immune response to a specific food. It can happen hours after the food is ingested and last for months. The typical response is an inflammation in the gut that can find its way to the brain, instigating brain fog, attention, memory, and mood disorders. When eating a food you are sensitive to daily, you continue to feed the inflammation every day.

An elimination diet is the gold standard for determining what food you or your child is sensitive to. The five most common allergens are gluten, dairy, eggs, peanuts, and soy.

Healthy fats

Sixty percent of the brain is fat, which means it relies on a steady flow of fat to build new cells and repair old ones. One of my teachers once said, “If you want your brain quality to equal that of the oil in the McDonald’s fryer, keep eating McDonald’s.” The fats in your diet directly impact your brain function.

Our ancestors ate a diet with a 2:1 ratio of omega-6 fatty acids to omega-3 fatty acids. While omega-6 is a pro-inflammatory fatty acid, omega-3 is anti-inflammatory. The modern diet ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids is 15:1, which means a barrage of pro-inflammatory omega-6s.

Clinical studies show a promising effect of omega-3 supplementation for people with ADHD. Other studies show an association between ADHD and omega-3 deficiency.

Cold-water wild-caught medium fish, such as salmon and sardines, are good dietary sources of omega-3 fatty acids. Other healthy fats are olive oil and avocado.

Supplements for ADHD

Some supplements crucial for brain regulation are iron, calcium, zinc, magnesium, and vitamin D. Before you run to the closest pharmacy to buy these, please note that too much can cause harm. You want to run a blood panel and check for deficiencies before you start supplementing.

When you consider supplementing your diet with minerals and vitamins, consulting with a practitioner who can recommend a brand and dosage is essential. The dosage recommended on the bottle is not made to support specific conditions.

It is never too late to improve your or your child’s diet. Although diet doesn’t reverse ADHD, it can reduce symptoms. Eating a nutrient-dense, high-quality diet, which is the best source of vitamins and nutrients, is important to all of us, but even more so for people with ADHD. Nutrients that enter the body in the context of food are better absorbed in the body.

Improving your diet has a double effect: you will consume high-quality nutrients and reverse gut inflammation, ensuring that more nutrients are absorbed in your blood and benefit your body and brain.

A healthy diet is beneficial to us all, but for people who struggle with ADHD, there is less margin for mistakes that other, less sensitive people can compensate for.