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Nutritional Aspects of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder |
ADHD/ADD |
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"Candy
corn is not a vegetable." "What's he done this time?" How many times have I heard a parent say this after I've commandeered the school phone to call home about their child's behavior. While it is no picnic to teach a class populated with ADHD kids, life is infinitely harder for Mom and Dad, the long-suffering people Dr. Abram Hoffer calls "battered parents." And with good reason.
Most if not all ADHD kids are stimulation addicts. They are little adrenaline junkies, craving the very rush that poisons their cranium. Adrenaline is the catecholamine neurotransmitter of sturm and drang, of storm and stress. Over stimulation can mean overproduction of adrenaline. Excess adrenaline is oxidized into adrenochrome, an LSD-like bad trip hallucinogen that, to use a 1960's phrase, flips you out. Commonly, such adrenochrome-whacked kids also crave dietary overstimulation, particularly colored and sugared junk food, which further assaults their brain. All the time, day after day.
If you have an ADHD child, all this will instantly resonate with you. "That's him!" you will say. It also perfectly describes a boy I helped to raise for eight years. As a preadolescent, he was having worse than usual behavioral problems at school and at home. Interestingly enough, the child had been taking physician-prescribed little bits of niacin, though totaling less than 150 mg/day. Not a bad beginning, since the RDA for kids is under 20 mg/day. But it wasn't enough to be effective, and the lad was slated for the Ritalin-for-lunch bunch. But pharmacy was no answer, for when tried, drugs generally made him worse: more angry and still more confrontational, bordering on paranoid.
The boy did not want to take much niacin because he so strongly objected to the flush. Knowing that the dose had to be increased far over 150 mg/day for any hope of success, his Mom finally tried giving him 500 mg niacinamide three times daily (1,500 mg total). There was noticeable improvement. At 3,000 mg/day, the youngster was doing even better, but developed nausea from the niacinamide, and the dosage was cut way, way back. In time, the boy had a violent psychotic episode severe enough that his parents had to hold him down while the now 13-year-old lad screamed death threats at them.
After that, to increase the B-3 dose without nausea, the now highly-motivated mother went to plain niacin, flushes and all. With about 500 mg every few hours, the boy was a new person. He was the most cheerful, cooperative, affectionate youngster imaginable. Adding vitamin C and B-6 to his regimen helped even more. His school performance soared, and the teachers loved him. When his liver enzyme tests read high, the niacin dose was again reduced, but not by so much this time. At age 15, his maintenance dose was about 3,000 mg/day. He graduated high school, was gainfully employed, and then went on to college. This is exactly in line with what Dr. Abram Hoffer has repeatedly demonstrated effective for over 50 years.
Behavior is at least as much biochemical as anything else. Unresponsive, uneducated physicians routinely overlook the nutrition connection. That's fine for them; they see the child as a patient for only minutes. Parents cannot escape: they go home at the end of the day to a child that may be hostile, antsy, and out of control. Behavior modification and counseling, while laudable ideas, all too often fail because ADHD kids are unreceptive to behavior counseling because the behavior itself is biochemical. As you cannot implant happy thoughts in a victim of arsenic or cyanide poisoning, so you cannot adequately counsel kids with adrenochrome coursing through their bodies.
When my brothers and I
were cranky, Mom used to tell us that "There are good boys and tired
boys, and tired boys cry." She meant there are no "bad"
boys (or girls) by nature. If we were fussy, we must therefore need a nap. As
a former teacher, Mom knew that you seek to change the behavior, not
condemn the person. I have taught every grade
there is. My students have ranged from primary school, long ago, all the
way to the doctoral level. This experience has helped me to understand
the essential role that nutrition plays in the education process. May you
never have a class full of sugared up, chemically fed, vitamin deficient
students. Regardless of age, they are too poisoned to pay
attention. Many, perhaps most, of
the "difficult" pupils in schools today are not "bad" but
nutritionally impaired. School lunch programs attempt to provide
calories and a full belly, and they are clearly better than nothing. It would
be much better to approve and fund only menu items free of artificial colors,
flavors, preservatives and added sugar. The addition of a good multiple
vitamin and extra Vitamin C to each meal would do even more. Over and
over again, large research studies confirm that American kids are NOT getting
even the modest US RDA of many vitamins and minerals. This has to affect
their school performance. What would be surprising would be if it did
not. For some reason, though, "natural foods" and
vitamin supplements are taboo in most nurse-and-dietitian circles. "Just
eat a balanced diet" still rules nutritional politics. How bad is
it? Did you know that
children are not allowed to take vitamin tablets in school without a doctor's
written permission? Yet they can be fed cupcakes and candy right in
class or the lunchroom. Even Rodney Dangerfield
might agree that vitamins and natural food "don't get no
respect." Does comedy show food awareness? "My wife: I won't
say she's a bad cook, but how come the flies chipped in to fix the screen
door? Hey, should meat loaf really glow in the dark? But
seriously..." There is reason to
suspect that Attention Deficit Disorder is really Vitamin Deficit
Disorder. What is so difficult about giving schoolchildren a
multivitamin supplement to make up their deficit? Don't tell me that
vitamins would be too dangerous, expensive or impractical to administer in
school. They give kids the prescription drug methylphenidate (eg. Ritalin; Concerta)
in schools everywhere. Look at Ritalin's dangers, contraindications and
side effects, listed in the Physician's Desk Reference (online or from the Medical
Economics Co., Schools can easily avoid
artificial chemicals in their menus. You want to see for yourself? Visit
the kitchen of your local public or private school and read the labels on the
boxes they get from their food distributors. Yet a school district has
only to specify a standard and the suppliers will jump to keep their
business. Cars have seatbelts and airbags now. How about putting a
little pressure on your Board of Education to go chemical-free in their
served meals? The behavior benefits of
subtracting food chemicals and adding vitamin supplements are
elementary. Many children respond promptly to a chemical-free diet.
Benjamin Feingold, M.D., an allergist, wrote Why Your Child is Hyperactive
to help parents get behavior improvement through foods without drugs. It
works for many, and it's safer than "speed.". Ritalin, after
all, has "a potency between the amphetamines and caffeine... it is now (1990) estimated that over 750,000 public school children are currently receiving
such treatment in the You can create behavioral-social
problems in an animal with a vitamin deficient diet. Many major symptoms
of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder are very similar to those of
niacin deficiency. Natural diet need not
work for every child to still help thousands of them. It is safe to try
it for all. There are no harmful side effects whatsoever from avoiding
added sugar and artificial food additives. Drug dependency isn't
encouraged with good nutrition. Neither are all those adverse reactions
(I counted over 30 just for Ritalin alone) listed in the Physicians' Desk
Reference. There is a copy of the PDR for you to look at
behind any pharmacy counter. I know of case after
case where a kid stops getting food additives and starts taking vitamins,
especially niacinamide, vitamin C, and B-complex, and is off Ritalin in a matter of a few weeks or
less. It is most effective to give vitamins in divided doses with
food. Breaking a common B-complex tablet in thirds can cover all three
meals. Frederick R. Klenner, M.D. recommended giving children their age
in grams of vitamin C (a gram being 1,000 milligrams). We found that
half of that was enough to keep our kids well; that is 4,000 mg daily for an
eight-year-old, divided over three meals and healthy snacks. To paraphrase my mother:
There are good kids and there are misbehaving kids, and misbehaving kids are
probably malnourished.
Copyright C 2006,
1995, and prior years Andrew W. Saul. Revised and copyright 2020. Andrew Saul is the author of the books FIRE
YOUR DOCTOR! How to be Independently Healthy (reader reviews at
http://www.doctoryourself.com/review.html
) and DOCTOR YOURSELF: Natural Healing that Works. (reviewed at http://www.doctoryourself.com/saulbooks.html
)
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