GETTING WELL FROM ADD & ADHD

Amanda Beckner CN, HHP, Ph.D

I can't tell you how many children and adults I work with that come in with a diagnosis of ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) and ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) - These disorders are considered the fastest growing childhood disorder in the United States, affecting 10 percent of all school-aged children.  Boys are far more likely than girls to be diagnosed with ADD or ADHD.  Even though this is considered a childhood disorder, adults are labeled with this as well.  Both disorders are said to cause a variety of behavior and learning disorders for the individual.   What has been proven in many cases however is that most children labeled with this disorder are usually above average intelligence and highly creative.   In a matter of weeks just by changing their diets I have found the symptoms they are suffering from with these disorders are gone.  You can completely change the chemistry of the brain and how the central nervous system is being affected by eliminating food additives, chemicals, dyes, excess sodium and sugars that are found in our foods.  By creating a balance in nutrient and how the body processes these is a major part of healing.  
Best foods for these disorders are fresh fruits and vegetables (except apples, almonds, apricots, berries, cherries, oranges, peaches, raisons, plums, prunes, peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers- these foods naturally have salicylates, which inhibits brain function in ADD & ADHD), cold water fish, complex carbohydrates, organic turkey and chicken breast. Also eat peanut butter 1 to 2 tablespoons per day, peanuts have a natural emulsifier that works with brain chemistry and helps serotonin levels, which enables better thought processing and sleeping ability.
Eliminate fried foods, dairy, alcohol, caffeine, sugar in the simple form, fatty meats and farm raised fishes or non organic poultry, as well as all processed and chemical laden products.
In every case of working with clients with these disorders they have eliminated all of their symptoms for these so called diseases.  We are what we eat!
Amanda Beckner CN, HHP, PhD

Junk food in ADHD

You already know how I feel about ADHD -- it's a fabricated disorder created to sell expensive, damaging and addictive meds to kids as young as kindergarten.

In most cases, "ADHD" can be cured with a better diet, fewer videogames and a swift kick in the rear.

And while it might be tempting to start some kids off with that kick in the rear, the latest research shows you might want to try a better diet first.

Researchers recruited 100 kids from Belgium and the Netherlands between 4 and 8 years old, and randomly assigned them to either a highly restrictive diet with no processed foods, or gave their parents a little bit of easy-to-ignore advice on healthy eating.

The kids on the diet got rice, meat, vegetables, pears and water. Later on, some of them also got potatoes, fruit and wheat.

Not all of these foods are good for kids, and some of those choices are downright awful... but they're far better than what the kids had been eating, because five weeks later they were like different children.

While the kids whose parents just got healthy eating advice were essentially unchanged, 78 percent of the kids on the restrictive diet lost an average of 24 points on the 72-point scale used to rate ADHD symptoms.

Some of these kids also suffered from a more specific form of brattiness that includes tantrums, defiance, stubbornness and irritating behavior done just to see how quickly they can get your blood to boil.

It's called "oppositional defiant disorder" or "ODD," and while every kid behaves this way from time to time, "ODD" kids seem to specialize in it.

Once they were on the diet, however, ODD behavior practically ceased, according to the study in The Lancet.

In a second phase of the study, some foods were reintroduced back into the diet -- and, sure enough, the kids turned back into little monsters.

So there you have it: More evidence that the doctor's office is the last place you want to bring an ADHD kid.

Visit the local farmer's market and a good butcher shop instead.

Processed foods can do more than up the volume on rotten behavior -- they can also make kids dumber than a potato chip.

Keep reading...

Processed food makes kids dumber

Let a kid eat junk food, and he'll end up with a Cheez Doodle for a noodle.

It's not exactly cutting-edge science, but a new study finds that kids who eat the most crap are dumber than the others.

Well, it almost finds that. I'll get to the flaws of this thing in a moment.

Researchers looked at data on 3,966 kids born in 1991 and 1992 whose parents answered dietary questions at the ages of 3, 4, 7 and 8.5 years.

The children were also given intelligence tests at the 8-and-a-half-year mark, and the kids who ate the most processed food had lower IQs than kids who ate the most "healthy" food.

It wasn't a huge difference -- just 5 points, or an IQ of 106 versus 101, both perfectly normal, according to the study in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

But that's only because the researchers had no idea how to conduct this study the right way.

They didn't compare garbage-eaters to kids who ate real food -- and with so many kids raised on McJunk, maybe that would have been impossible.

But they did something even worse -- because they lumped fats and sugar together in the "processed foods" category, then compared kids who ate them to children who ate a "traditional" diet that probably had a little bit of everything, and a "healthy" diet high in vegetables, rice, fish and pasta.

Side note: I can't tell you how much it burns my bottom when researchers label one group "healthy" before they even start their study -- if that's not an announcement of a predetermined outcome, I don't know what is.

But forget all that, because if you want to raise a real little Einstein, choose "none of the above."

Skip the brain-rotting sugars and processed foods -- but don't pass on the fat, because fresh meat and fatty fish have everything a noodle needs: omega-3 fatty acids and B vitamins.

Then, teach your kids what chicken looks like without a breaded coating, and what meat looks like when it's not on a bun -- and don't even bother teaching them what a Cheez Doodle looks like.

Feed your children well,

William Campbell Douglass II, M.D.

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