ADHD dietary taboos

There are currently no 100% universal absolute dietary taboos for ADHD, but domestic and international consensus and extensive clinical follow-up have confirmed that refined added sugars, artificial food additives, and foods that individuals are intolerant of will most likely aggravate symptoms such as inattention, impulsivity, and irritability.； In addition, different medical systems have their own dietary adjustment directions. Specifically, whether and what should be banned depends on the individual's physical reaction. There is no unified standard.

Last week, a mother complained to me, saying that her 9-year-old child with ADHD went to an amusement park over the weekend and ate two bunches of bright blue marshmallows and a glass of iced Coke. He went crazy in the afternoon and couldn't hold himself back. He sat for half an hour on homework in the evening without writing a word. He was far different from his usual state of controlling sugar and additives - he could at least sit for 40 minutes to finish his math homework. The contrast is really obvious.

Many people say that "eating sugar causes ADHD" is this a rumor? In fact, it is not entirely true. Before 2019, many small-sample double-blind experiments said that sugar has nothing to do with ADHD symptoms. However, a large-sample study published by JAMA Pediatrics in 2023 tracked 1,200 ADHD children aged 6-12 and found that children who consumed more than 25g of added sugar per day (almost half a bottle of Coke) had impulsive symptom scores that were 32% higher than those who ate less sugar, and their attention span was 21% shorter. But the key point here is "added sugar", not the fructose in natural fruits, nor the carbohydrates in staple foods. Moreover, there are indeed a few children who are not sensitive to sugar and will not react to the occasional cream cake. There is no need to completely eliminate it. After all, children must have a happy childhood, right?

Compared to the controversy over sugar, there is much greater consensus on the negative effects of artificial additives. Since 2010, the European Union has required that all foods containing six artificial colors, including tartrazine, sunset yellow, quinoline yellow, azorubin, carmine, and allura red, must be labeled on the packaging as "may have adverse effects on children's attention and activities." Preservatives and artificial sweeteners such as aspartame and sodium benzoate have also been confirmed by multiple studies to be positively related to ADHD symptoms. However, I have seen exceptions. There is a 10-year-old boy who has loved chewing pigmented hard candies since he was a child. His metabolism has been checked and there is no problem, and he does not make a fuss after eating. There is no need for a hard ban. Instead, the boy secretly saves money to buy them and eats more at one time, which is troublesome.

Another pitfall that many parents tend to follow is food intolerance. It has been mentioned in the functional medicine system that many children with ADHD are accompanied by chronic food allergies (that is, IgG intolerance), the most common ones being milk, eggs, wheat, and nuts. I have previously been in contact with a 6-year-old baby who blinked, shrugged, and couldn't sit still. An IgG check revealed that he was severely intolerant to milk. He stopped all dairy products for 3 months. His tic symptoms completely disappeared, and his hyperactivity score also dropped significantly. However, there are also many parents who read the "ADHD fasting list" and directly wean their children off milk, eggs and all pasta. As a result, the children are not nutritious and cannot keep up with their height and weight. Instead, they are uncomfortable and unable to sit still. Oh, by the way, don’t think that not letting them eat anything is just for the benefit of their children. I have seen some parents not even let their children touch sweeter fruits, and only give them vegetables and white rice every day. The children are depressed every day, and their concentration is even worse, which is not worth the gain. If you really need to make adjustments, you should either get a formal food intolerance test first, or spend 10 minutes a day keeping a food diary for two months, and observe the fluctuations in your child's attention and mood that day after what he eats. If there is a clear correlation, then stop. If there is no problem, eat normally.

Traditional Chinese medicine also has different adjustment ideas in this regard. ADHD is generally classified as "strong heart and liver fire" and "deficient kidney yin", so it is usually recommended to eat less spicy, warm and tonic foods, such as fried foods, longan, lychee, red ginseng, and astragalus. I once had a parent who heard others say that astragalus replenishes qi, and made her child drink astragalus water every day. As a result, her child didn't fall asleep until 1 a.m. for a week. She was very sleepy during class during the day, and her concentration was even worse. After stopping, the child was fine. However, this also depends on the physical constitution. If the baby has a weak constitution, usually has cold hands and feet and eats less, it is okay to eat appropriately, so don’t generalize.

It’s actually simple to say. The dietary taboos for ADHD are never a fixed list of forbidden foods. If your child eats whatever others say he can’t eat and it doesn’t cause any problems, then he can eat it.； Others say it's okay, but if your child eats it and it makes him fussy and can't sit still, then touch it less. The conclusions drawn from one's own observations are much more reliable than the "authoritative list" randomly collected. After all, there are no standard answers to raising children.