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Sugar and ADHD

Dr. John Ratey discusses diet fads, and the effects of too much sugar and ADHD. Can food allergies look like ADD? See what Dr. Ratey says…

Does Sugar Have an Effect on ADHD?

Dr. John Ratey I think there’s a lot of interest in a lot of the fads that come up and go down around food you know the the Goldstein diet way back when was there and everybody was taking sugar and food additives out of their food that they were feeding their kids who had ADD.
I still think there’s something to it, in some studies fairly healthy studies show a little bit of an effect, but everyone looks to food all the time as a cause especially the sugar high and this is what’s driving the ADD wiry kids worse. Well they’ve done plenty of studies showing that that there’s no effect when they look at it in a blind condition.
Now that’s not to say that there aren’t sick kids and adults who are very sensitive to this changes in glucose and sugar in your body in your brain. That can lead to periods of violent behavior or impulsive behavior or more unfocused kinds of situations especially when there’s.. after the sugar gets metabolized then you have this hypoglycemic area that you really have to watch for some people, and those situations can make the ADD person worse, and by having a few of those strung together then the child can get labeled as such.
I do think that there are some people that for instance that really do have food allergies that looks like ADD, and they you know by doing an elimination diet for some people I’ve seen it work and I’m not one easily to believe that this can happen, but I have seen it and I think there there might be some, whether it’s food allergies or food additives or some kind of effect on the brain that food stuffs really are important to pay attention to.
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