Low-carb/Gluten-free helps with ADHD in study

The ADHD Research Centre in Eindhoven, the Netherlands has some interesting things to say about the treatment of children with ADHD:

Diet can do it.

Medscape, a website affiliated with WebMD, reports on a study by the Centre where groups of children with ADHD symptoms and behaviors were tested on their reaction to an elimination diet.

The study included 100 children with ADHD, all of whom were checked for allergic reactions to foods before the study began.  Half were placed into a control group, half into a test group where their diet was limited to "mainly rice, meat vegetables, pears, and water, complemented with potatoes, fruits, and wheat."  And all the children were monitored by their parents for behavior changes.

Now here's the interesting part:  after 2 weeks, 41 of the children in the test group were showing no changes, so the diet was limited even more to rice, meat, vegetables, pears, and water.  Notice what was left out:  gluten and fructose via the wheat and fruits, as well as excess carbs from the potatoes.

So this diet was pretty darned close to a Paleo diet - with only rice and pears as non-Paleo foods.  And here's the result:

According to the investigators, by the end of phase 1 (weeks 4-9), symptoms of ADHD and oppositional defiant disorder were significantly improved in 64% of children in the diet group compared with no improvement in controls.

So there was a marked improvement based on diet.  And another really interesting thing happened in phase two of the study.  In this phase, the respondents from the first phase (those in the 64% in the above quote) were re-introduced to a "standard" diet.  And the result:

After challenges with either high- or low-IgG* foods, relapse of ADHD symptoms occurred in 19 of 30 children (63%), regardless of IgG blood test results.

So going back to those foods resulted in the children going right back to displaying their ADHD behavior.

What does this tell us?  It seems to say that diet is a factor in ADHD, and that a gluten-free, low-carb diet can be a significant treatment for such individuals.

And what might that tell us about the use of diet to help make our brain power more effective?  That a low-carb, gluten-free diet can be a factor in making our inner workings more productive and normalized.

* IgG is Immunoglobulin G, an antibody molecule whose presence would indicate an allergic response to the foods reintroduced.

Art De Vany, Robb Wolf present Paleo lifestyle on ABC's Nightline

If you could get past all the useless entertainment news rigamarole last night, you might have caught a segment on ABC's Nightline where Paleo gurus Art De Vany and Robb Wolf were able to present the Paleo lifestyle to a mainstream audience.  They did a great job, and even though the presenter was a bit mesmerized by the whole thing, I thought it was fair and presented things really well.

I don't have the link to the original Nightline broadcast, but here's a YouTube video of the segment.  Thanks Art and Robb for all you do!