About this Research Topic
Some clinical evidence suggests that nutritional interventions may have some beneficial preventive and therapeutic effects in children with ADHD. This even seems to start during pregnancy with the right nutrition of the mother. Dietary lifestyle such as the so-called Western diet can worsen ADHD symptoms while the Mediterranean diet seems to be beneficial. One potential pathway for these observed associations may be food intolerances. Malnutrition and consecutive supplementation could potentially lessen the severity of ADHD symptoms. Furthermore, nutritional counseling in conjunction with stimulant medication is also important as weight loss is such a common side effect of stimulant medication, possibly also associated with growth problems, in particular in young children with ADHD. One the other hand binge eating and obesity are other phenomena reported in ADHD populations. Potential mechanisms from food to behavior, studied in patients or (animal) models can help to understand the impact of nutrition on ADHD.
Nevertheless, nutritional interventions are often neglected in ADHD management plans despite increasing evidence of the interplay between diet, body weight, growth, reward, cognition and mental health. Future research should investigate the role of nutrition, microbiome and development to better inform us about the pathophysiology as well as for individualized treatment approaches in ADHD.
Potential topics
• Pregnancy
• Dietary lifestyle
• Food Intolerances
• Supplementation
• nutritional counseling in conjunction with stimulant medication
• binge eating
• obesity
• Basic research
Keywords: ADHD, Nutrition, Supplementation, Animal Models, Obesity, Oligoantigenic Diet
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