Oct. 20, 2020

Can what you eat worsen your ADHD?

"Suzy was a bright and hardworking student. However, even though she was conscientious and generally cheery, her grades began to fall during her senior year, and she started to feel depressed. She also constantly had an upset stomach, which she had...

"Suzy was a bright and hardworking student. However, even though she was conscientious and generally cheery, her grades began to fall during her senior year, and she started to feel depressed. She also constantly had an upset stomach, which she had just accepted as a way of life. She’d had an ADHD diagnosis since she was younger, but while Ritalin had helped her focus on her work in the past, the effect seemed to be dwindling as she built up a tolerance.

I noted that her diet seemed to have shifted toward more comfort food. Her meals were cereal with milk, a sandwich, pizza, or pasta. She was eating a lot of dairy and gluten, and it’s no coincidence that both of these dietary components can exacerbate the symptoms of ADHD."

Uma Naidoo is a nutritional psychiatrist and author of This Is Your Brain on Food: An Indispensable Guide to the Surprising Foods that Fight Depression, Anxiety, PTSD, OCD, ADHD, and More.

She shares her story and discusses her KevinMD article, "Can what you eat worsen your ADHD?" (https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2020/08/can-what-you-eat-worsen-your-adhd.html)