Also, if your child has a food allergy it should affect ...

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I hear a lot concerning how a simple diet plan can cure ADHD. While healthy eating is recommended for all children, cutting things like sugar, caffeine, and foods that are known to cause some people allergies out of a child's diet is not going to cure or even greatly improve ADHD symptoms. It's a myth and I will be glad to tell you why.

First of all, let's cover the very medications that is used to treat ADHD. Most all of them are in the stimulant family and are known to work. So, if stimulants are proven to work then why deprive your child of natural stimulants such as sugar and caffeine? As far as allergies go, I attribute the rise in allergies to the pollutants in the air. A nebulizer has become one of the most common things seen among children with or without ADHD. Also, if your child has a food allergy it should affect more than behavior as food allergies often cause noticeable hives or other physical discomforts.

With that said, most ADHD adults who were either diagnosed as a child, but not given medication, or the adults who were accurately diagnosed later in adulthood will most likely have one thing in common. They will either eat excessive sugar, drink excessive caffeine, use nicotine products, and/or worse. Why? Because this is what you call self-medicating. Someone who has untreated ADHD will soon discover how these easily accessible stimulants help them get through the day.

Likewise, we need to keep in mind that the brain of someone with ADHD often has lower levels of dopamine and seritonin which make normal brains happy. People with ADHD will often have cravings for food or drink that increase that happy feeling when they feel sluggish, inattentive, or depressed. Those sought out foods will often be high in carbohyrates and sugar, while the drinks will have caffeine. Nicotine will also give the ADHD brain the same feeling.

In closing, this debate will continue on probably until the end of time. However, I do believe that a healthy diet is good for children period. What I don't agree with is depriving an ADHD child from all sugar, all foods that may or may not actually cause them an allergy, and even a little caffeine once in a while. If you do deprive them, you may actually be hurting them in the end as the body usually craves exactly what it needs to survive.

http://www.add.org/articles/eatingdisorders.html I had a reader comment on my last article stating the following, "Don't be dumb and don't be gullible. ADHD should not be medicated, since it is

I hear a lot concerning how a simple diet plan can cure ADHD. While healthy eating is recommended for all children, cutting things like sugar, caffeine,

Additional information:

Allergy European Journal of Allergy Clinical Immunology
Warning Signs of an Allergy to Caffeine Associated Content
Help What are the symptoms of a caffeine allergy ?
Caffeine Allergy OrganizedWisdom Health
Caffeine Allergy Wellsphere
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Chocolate Allergy Information About Chocolate Allergy
Caffeine allergy and premenstrual symptoms Townsend Letter for
Caffeine isolation of caffeine from tea leaves effects of
Caffeine Allergy Intolerance Yahoo! Answers

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