Behavior & Food Reactions

My 34 year old brother who has ADHD reacts to MSG and the other glutamates, food dyes, and artificial sugars - aspartame, etc. And he's a bit more hyper when he has large quantities of sugar, which means high fructose corn sugar is out.

To all the people out there saying there's no link between ADHD and food sensitivities in some people - sorry, but you're just wrong.

There are many fruits and vegetables that contain salicates (sp?). It is very similar to the compund found in aspirin, but is naturally occuring in things such as apples and berries, some citrus fruits, peppers, etc. There are also preservatives that are not listed on food labels. Feingold.org has some good information, and has a food program (list)/elimination diet that you can use to identify what your children's triggers are. I've used it with my son with good success. Please feel free to message me with any questions. Good for you for trying to find natural ways to help alleviate their symptoms and change the way your family eats. It's so worth it!

It sounds to me like you are trying to find causality where there is none. Allergies to foods and dyes are real but beyond that you are looking at square peg, round hole.

I would suggest you look at it from environmental/structural, also looking at state of mind.

If I am tired and have a banana, then rage on you, it had nothing to do with the banana. Make sense?

Ditto Jo W.

Parallel issues going on. ADHD is separate from food sensitivities/allergies. If diet solves the ADHD, it wasn't ADHD in the first place. I would take your children in to an allergist if you really want to pinpoint any food sensitivities. I think that would save you a lot of time and money trying to figure it out on your own.

Here's some info. from CHADD on the relationship between diet and ADHD. I attended CHADD's national conference and have been a member for years and they are on top of all of the latest research. Their entire focus is ADHD.

http://www.chadd.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Treatment&am...

MSG----- causes violent behavior.

Dairy can have an adverse effect on kids with any learning disabilities.

My grandson was diagnosed with ADHD. My daughter feeds him totally organic, and he actually likes it and sees a huge difference in him(he is seven). His dad has been seeing him every other weekend and did not believe food had anything to do with his behavior. The last two visits, his dad brought him back early--my grandson was sick, so now his dad finally asked what he should feed him. Also, on the Mondays after visiting his dad, he was out-of-control at school. What he eats definitely makes a difference!! To me it's a no-brainer! I don't see how anyone can think otherwise. Most of the pre-packaged food on the shelves contains additives and ingredients that are not food and shouldn't be eaten. Just ask yourself, how many kids had ADHD 50 years ago compared to now?

This is a brief (and by no means complete) list of ingredients/additives known to cause behavioral and other reactions in kids with dietary sensitivities. A number of them are also carcinogens or associated with diabetes, so you have lots of good reasons to avoid them:

Dyes, like you said
Corn syrup (incl. but not limited to HFSC)
Soy, particularly heavily processed, such as partially hydrogenated soybean oil
MSG
Dairy
Gluten
Nuts of all kinds
Eggs
Hormones in non-organic meats

If you can get your kids off some or most of these items, they'll be fantastically, phenomenally healthy. You'll have to learn to live without a certain amount of grab & go convenience, but they'll live to 110.

Google "paleo diet for kids."

My son is five and since he was three, we've been very aware the he does not do well with corn syrup or high fructose corn syrup in his diet. We did see enormous behavioral changes and when we first encountered this beast, he was up sick, frustrated and upset, for nearly four hours in the middle of the night after having that sort of a dessert. Now, we do small amounts of regular sugar or honey, which doesn't seem to have the same effect at all; it really is this particular ingredient which sets him off. (Someone once poo-pooed my belief that this was a problem and gave him some cheap chocolate-- he ended up having a full-on tantrum at the store-- **very unusual for him**-- and gave himself a black eye, running into the stand for the plastic bags in the produce section. He now can have chocolate chips sweetened with just sugar.)

My daughter has sensory issues. We took out casein (cow dairy), gluten, and soy from our diet, and we eat organic. She rarely drinks pop, so she rarely has any HFCS. We drink a lot of reverse-osmosis water.

I believe we as human beings are what we eat. Any issues we have--disorders, dis-eases--all came from somewhere. They are the end result of something that caused the dis-ease or disorder to happen--so what caused it to happen?

We now know that Parkinson's and Lou Gehring's and Hunter's Disease are all linked with chemicals, pesticides, excitotoxins (MSG, aspartame, artificial sugars), etc., not being able to be detoxified by the people with these disorders. Alzheimer's looks to be the same case. It would stand to reason, then, that if you eat good wholesome organic food, you should be able to slow down the progression of the disease. This, indeed, is true.

My hairdresser's husband has Parkinson's. Once they (my hairdresser and her husband) did their own research and discovered what CAUSES Parkinson's, they completely changed their diet (R/O water, organic whole foods, got rid of anything processed/prepackaged, etc.). He is slowly getting worse now, but he had many, many years where he and his wife were able to be together and do things (he should have died a long time ago, but he's still here, thanks to changing his diet and adding a R/O system to his water and adding supplements, etc.--things he did mainly on his own.).

People can talk until they're blue in the face that food has absolutely no impact whatsoever on any dis-ease or disorder you have and I will NOT believe them. I have done too much of my own research these past five years into the pharma complex, the medical complex, big corporations, big ag, big grocery, the military, and the government to not put much trust --if any--into what they say.

I have seen WITH MY OWN EYES how changing the diet changes/makes people better. I have gone OFF 10 different pharma drugs and no longer take anything pharma or OTC. All the issues I had are either gone or are healing/getting better. My daughter is a COMPLETELY different person than she was as a child. The change we've seen in her was stark and profound; when we changed our way of eating back when she was 7 years old, our daughter changed for the better. It was like night and day. The change was so profound, it pushed me to further investigate and research all of the areas I mentioned above. It is defining my next career move: to go into something that has to do with holistic health/spiritual healilng.

We NEVER used to have the dis-eases and disorders that we do today. Why is that? Could it be because our food supply is so tainted, so depleted of nutrients? Because most of our food is now manmade foodstuffs, devoid of nutrients that help the body but full of everything synthetic that our bodies are unable to process or eliminate? Synthethic food stuffs that our bodies were never meant to process? If it's something that isn't supposed to be inside the body to begin with--wouldn't it stand to reason that if it's unnatural/not something the body identifies with that the body would reject it or it (the synthetic stuff) would cause harm?

I truly believe that is the case. And no one is going to change my mind.

And I won't even get into GMOs and how bad THEY are for the body. That's a topic for a whole different thread.

We need to not only take charge of our own health and change the way we eat to heal our bodies and stay out of the doctor's office; we also need to educate society on the fact that the body needs real food in order to thrive and heal itself and to be the strongest it can possibly be. That means getting rid of all of those manmade things: chemicals, pesticides, preservatives, dyes, flavorings, colorings, sulfites, artifical flavors, artifical sugars, etc.

For thousands and thousands of years, our ancestors were able to make wonderful food and store and keep food without all of the manmade/processed additions mentioned above. We need to get back to making food the normal, healthy, right way and not allow the multicorporations to dictate to us what it is we should or need to eat. Their only reason to hype such bad food is to make profits. It's not because they care about what you eat or your health.

I'm going to start gardening this summer (I've been doing planter veges) and learning how to can and freeze. I'm going to go back to what my grandmothers and my mother used to do when I was a young child; learn how to store my own food, so that I know what it is that I'm eating, and I know it is good for my body and what my body needs. And I will take the time to compost and add nutrients back into the soil so that it isn't depleted. And I will use organic soil and raised beds so that I am not using soil that used to be cropland and is now devoid of nutrients. We all can do this, baby steps at a time, if need be.

I agree totally with getting an ALCAT/ELISA test taken, at least for the one twin who is having the severe mood swings. Both sons would actually benefit. Many foods can have such enormous impacts on the body if that particiular food is "poison" for your body. That is, for some reason, your body just cannot assimilate/digest that particular food or food group; that particular food can then start "attacking" the body because the body cannot digest it and gets inflammation and it sets up a perpetual cycle of that food further weakening the body every time it's eaten. Getting the test taken will help you pinpoint which food(s) you need to keep away from each twin.

My son..

Chocolate
Food Dyes
Gluten

I removed those, and he is a completly different child.

I am not sure where.. but if you can try and find a dr that tests for food sensitivities.. From what I hear the test is non evasive.. they put the "item" in a glass viel and have them hold thier arm out.. with a little bit of pressure applied, if the arm goes down.. sensitivity, if the arm stays up.. no issues.

The key is to find a Dr that knows how to test for that.

If not, you need to just ellliminate and slowly bring foods back in.

Good Luck

Look up alcat.com. It is a blood test that can tell food sensitivities...not allergies. I just took it am am hoping for the best.