ADHD In Teenagers

Areas of the Brain Modulated by Single-Dose Methylphenidate Treatment in Youth with ADHD During Task-Based fMRI: A Systematic Review.

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Abstract

Objective: Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a psychiatric disorder affecting 5% of children. Methylphenidate (MPH) is a common medication for ADHD. Studies examining MPH’s effect on pediatric ADHD patients’ brain function using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) have not been compiled. The goals of this systematic review were to determine (1) which areas of the brain in pediatric ADHD patients are modulated by a single dose of MPH, (2) whether areas modulated by MPH differ by task type performed during fMRI data acquisition, and (3) whether changes in brain activation due to MPH relate to clinical improvements in ADHD-related symptoms.

Methods: We searched the electronic databases PubMed and PsycINFO (1967–2011) using the following terms: ADHD AND (methylphenidate OR MPH OR ritalin) AND (neuroimaging OR MRI OR fMRI OR BOLD OR event related), and identified 200 abstracts, 9 of which were reviewed based on predefined criteria.

Results: In ADHD patients the middle and inferior frontal gyri, basal ganglia, and cerebellum were most often affected by MPH. The middle and inferior frontal gyri were frequently affected by MPH during inhibitory control tasks. Correlation between brain regions and clinical improvement was not possible due to the lack of symptom improvement measures within the included studies.

Conclusions: Throughout nine task-based fMRI studies investigating MPH’s effect on the brains of pediatric patients with ADHD, MPH resulted in increased activation within frontal lobes, basal ganglia, and cerebellum. In most cases, this increase “normalized” activation of at least some brain areas to that seen in typically developing children.

DISCUSSION

The purpose of this systematic review was to determine which areas of the brain are modulated by MPH medication in pediatric ADHD patients during task performance, whether these affected brain areas differ by task, and whether any of these brain areas can be linked to improvement in the clinical symptoms of ADHD.

The results of our review suggest that when patients with ADHD are given a single dose of MPH, an increase in activation primarily occurs within the frontal lobes (especially in the inferior and middle frontal gyri), the basal ganglia, and the cerebellum. Abnormalities in these regions have all been implicated in patients with ADHD. Structurally, the prefrontal cortex (which includes portions of the inferior and middle frontal gyri), the caudate (part of the basal ganglia), and the cerebellum have consistently been found to have a smaller volume in patients with ADHD than in typically developing children. 37Functionally, when assessing unmedicated brain activation of patients with ADHD during task performance, less activation has been found in the frontal lobes, 15,17–22,24 striatum, 15,16,18,20 and cerebellum 24,38in comparison to brain activation of healthy control subjects. The MPH-responsive areas of the brain in youth with ADHD discussed within this review therefore reflect areas that, both structurally and functionally, have previously been reported as abnormal in ADHD. Of the nine studies included in this review, six found that MPH at least partially normalized the activation of the brains of patients with ADHD to the levels seen in typically developing comparison subjects while performing a task. 28–33 The areas most frequently normalized were those in the basal ganglia (4 studies), 28,29,31,33 followed by the frontal lobes 31–33 and parietal lobes 30,32,33 (both found in 3 studies). Taken together, these findings indicate that MPH may help to return the brain functioning of patients with ADHD to the normal levels seen in typically developing children when performing a cognitive task.

The second goal of our systematic review was to determine if brain areas affected by MPH differed by task. When the reviewed studies were grouped by task, we found that the middle and inferior frontal gyri were the brain areas most often affected by MPH during inhibitory control task performance. 29,32–35 Similarly, the one study that used the time-discrimination task found that MPH increased activation in the frontal lobes, specifically within the inferior, orbital, and medial frontal cortices and the anterior cingulate cortex. 31 These findings differed from MPH’s effects during selective attention task performance, when the basal ganglia were most often activated. 28,30 Since only two studies used this task, it is difficult to say whether these results represent the true frequency with which this area is affected. The single study that used a working memory task did not find any increase in brain activation in response to MPH, but further studies using this task may find a different result. 36

In healthy participants, the performance of inhibitory control tasks has been found to preferentially activate the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (including the middle frontal gyrus), inferior frontal gyrus, anterior cingulate, and parietal cortex. 39 For youth with ADHD, MPH increased activation within each of these areas in at least one of the studies using an inhibitory control task; the middle and inferior frontal cortex activation was increased in almost all of these studies (4/5 studies for each). It is therefore possible that in ADHD, MPH influences the activation within the middle and inferior frontal gyri while performing an inhibitory control task. Given these neuroimaging findings, one might expect that children with ADHD would perform better on inhibitory control tasks after they receive MPH than they do without MPH; however, this prediction was not borne out by our investigation. Only two of the five studies that used an inhibitory control task reported that MPH improved ADHD patients’ performance on the task (i.e., errors decreased, variability in reaction time decreased, or target discrimination increased). Although it is possible that this improvement on the task was the result of MPH medication, such an improvement could also be due to practice. In one of these two studies, patients with ADHD went through two imaging sessions, whereas healthy participants were scanned only once; it is thus possible that the ADHD patients’ improved on the task because they performed it more than once. In the other of these two studies, both ADHD patients and healthy participants were given MPH and imaged twice, and both improved on task performance. It is therefore difficult to determine whether or not this improvement was due to practice or medication. Furthermore, neither of these two studies reported that MPH normalized the activation within ADHD patients’ frontal lobes to the levels seen in typically developing children; in one of these two studies, medicated ADHD patients’ brain activations were not directly compared to the typically developing control group, and in the other, normalizations of brain activation within the basal ganglia were found. It is therefore possible that MPH’s effects on areas of the frontal lobe are insufficient to improve inhibitory control task performance or that the power of the studies was insufficient to capture improved task performance.

Similar to the inhibitory control task, the time-discrimination task has been found to preferentially activate the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, inferior frontal gyrus, and cerebellum during performance by healthy adults. 40 In the single included study that used this type of task, activation in the inferior, orbital, and medial frontal gyrus, anterior cingulate gyrus, and cerebellum was increased by MPH administration during task performance in patients with ADHD. MPH normalized all these areas of ADHD patients’ brains to the activation levels seen in typically developing children, but patients with ADHD did not commit significantly fewer errors on the task when they were treated with MPH. This finding may indicate that MPH does not have a powerful enough effect to improve time-discrimination task performance. It is also possible, however, that the number of patients with ADHD included in this single study (12 boys) was too small to capture a statistically significant difference in task performance.

In contrast to inhibitory control and time-discrimination tasks—which selectively activate areas mostly in the frontal lobe—selective attention tasks, including visual and auditory attention tasks and continuous performance tasks, have been found to activate a wide range of brain regions, including portions of the frontal, parietal, temporal, and occipital lobes, the cerebellum, and the basal ganglia. 41,42 Although at least one of the two selective attention studies included in this review found that MPH increased brain activation in the frontal, parietal, and occipital lobes, as well as the basal ganglia and cerebellum, neither of these studies found increased activation in the temporal lobes. 28,30Therefore, MPH may not work in this region during performance of a selective attention task. Both of the included studies reported increased activation in the basal ganglia in response to MPH, but only one study showed normalization to healthy control levels in this area.28 Neither of these studies found that MPH improved how well patients with ADHD performed on the task, which again may be an issue of insufficient power.

Finally, this review included a single study that assessed working memory; that study found no increase in brain activation in response to MPH. With only a single study to consider, no definite conclusions about the nature of MPH’s effects during working memory task performance can be made.

The last goal of this review was to determine if brain regions affected by MPH could be related to improvement in clinical ADHD symptoms. We found that none of the included studies reported measurements of the severity of ADHD symptoms before and after MPH medication administration. We were therefore unable to compare brain regions of interest between studies that found clinical improvement and those that did not. Previous work has shown, however, that MPH ameliorates the symptoms of ADHD. The landmark Collaborative Multisite Multimodal Treatment Study of Children with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder revealed that medication management with MPH effectively reduced inattentive and hyperactive symptoms of ADHD. 43 In that study, participants received individually titrated doses of MPH, starting (on average) at about 12 mg. The doses of MPH reported in this review are comparable to that amount (the lowest dose in the reviewed studies was 10 mg). We therefore speculate that had ADHD symptoms been recorded as part of the reviewed studies, improvement in these symptoms was possible.

Though it was not an explicit goal of this review, we also examined the effect of previous medication status on brain activation in response to MPH. When the included studies were grouped based on whether or not ADHD participants had received stimulant medication prior to the reported study, it became evident that there was a difference in MPH-induced brain activation patterns between the stimulant-naive and non-naive groups. In response to MPH, studies that used stimulant-naive participants reported an increase in activation—in the inferior frontal cortex, parietal lobes, temporal lobes, occipital lobes, and cerebellum—more often than studies that used non-naive participants. This result may indicate that these areas of the brain are more responsive to initial MPH treatment but, over time, become less sensitive to the medication’s effects. Alternatively, chronic treatment with MPH may increase baseline activation of these areas such that the difference between on- and off-MPH treatment scan sessions is no longer evident. This possibility is supported by a SPECT study that found chronic MPH treatment improved cerebral blood flow to frontal and temporal lobes in patients with ADHD; these changes were still detectable two months after discontinuation of MPH. 44 It is therefore possible that after a period of treatment with MPH, tonic blood flow to brain areas affected by MPH is increased. This permanently increased blood flow would then translate to increased blood oxygenation levels in these areas, resulting in readings of higher brain activation at baseline—that is, the pre-MPH (single dose) imaging session. However, results from the only study that has assessed the chronic effects of MPH in pediatric patients with ADHD using fMRI analysis do not corroborate these findings: following one year of MPH treatment, boys with ADHD did not show increased neural activity during the performance of tasks designed to assess executive (inhibitory) control and selective attention compared to the pretreatment imaging session.45

This review has focused exclusively on pediatric neuroimaging, but there is considerable interest in the effects of MPH on adult ADHD patients’ brain activity, given that ADHD persists into adulthood in 15%–65% of childhood cases, depending on diagnostic criteria. 3 In one of the studies included in this review, MPH’s effects were reported on both child and adult groups of child-parent dyads diagnosed with ADHD. 34 That study used an inhibitory control task and found that although areas of the frontal lobes, striatum, and cerebellum showed increased activity in the children in response to MPH, only the striatum (specifically, the caudate) showed increased activation in the adults. By contrast, a study that examined the activation of the dorsal anterior midcingulate cortex (part of the frontal lobe) in adults while performing an inhibitory control task (the multisource interference task) found that after six weeks of treatment with MPH, activation in this area increased, in comparison to the placebo-treated group. 46 The study also found that MPH treatment increased activation in the dorsolateral prefrontal and premotor cortex (portions of the superior, middle, and inferior frontal gyri), parietal cortex, striatum (specifically, the caudate), cerebellum, and thalamus, compared to placebo. With only two studies to consider, it is difficult to state whether adults with ADHD exhibit similar brain activation responses to MPH as children with ADHD. However, both of these studies with adult participants agree that MPH increases the brain activation during inhibitory control task performance within the striatum, specifically within the caudate.

The major limitation of this systematic review is the small number of studies it included. To date, only nine studies have examined how a single-dose of MPH affects the brain response during task performance in youth with ADHD. These nine studies employed only four types of task, which limits the applicability of this review to other types of tasks. Another limitation of this systematic review is that four of our included studies 30–33 were published by the same first author; insofar as those studies included overlapping patient populations, they would not represent independent contributions to this review. In addition, this review has reported the general anatomical brain areas associated with MPH-induced changes in activation patterns rather than Brodmann areas or Talairach coordinates. Although all included papers described the anatomical locations of BOLD signal changes, only some reported Brodmann areas or Talairach coordinates, making it difficult to universally compare these more specific regions of interest. Finally, many of the included studies were not specific about the multiple comparison corrections applied in their analyses—which may affect the validity of the findings.

The results of this systematic review point to several areas of future research. As none of the included studies examined the relationship between ADHD symptom improvement and BOLD brain activation in response to MPH, this component would be an important one to include in future studies. Another avenue for future research may lie in investigating MPH’s effect on functional connectivity, either during task performance or the resting state. The current studies reveal the effects of MPH on functional brain activation, whereas a connectivity analysis would lead to a better understanding regarding the underlying neural networks. The nine studies included in this review focused mostly on the MPH-induced functional activation differences in the brains of youth with ADHD. One of these studies, however, also examined the changes in brain functional connectivity during selective attention task performance. That study found that MPH normalized all intercorrelation differences between children with ADHD and healthy control children, providing more insight into the possible effects of MPH administration on brain networks. Future studies that examine these functional connectivity responses to MPH may help expand understanding of this drug’s effects.

In conclusion, children with ADHD showed changes in brain activation due to a single dose of MPH, especially within the frontal lobes, basal ganglia, and cerebellum. MPH appears to more frequently affect regions of the frontal lobes during inhibitory control tasks compared to those assessing selective attention. By contrast, during selective attention tasks, MPH results in an increase in activation in a wider range of areas, including parts of the parietal and occipital lobes, as well as the cerebellum and basal ganglia. These regions correspond to those that exhibit typical activation patterns during task performance by typically developing participants and may provide evidence that MPH facilitates the return of brain function in ADHD patients to, or close to, a typically functioning state. As it stands, the existing literature supports the notion that MPH helps normalize brain activation, specifically within the frontal lobes, basal ganglia, and cerebellum, but whether or not the activation of these areas correlates with ADHD symptom improvement has yet to be demonstrated.

Source: http://journals.lww.com

Neuroenhancement of Kids ‘Not Justifiable,’ Neurology Groups Say.

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Neuroenhancement — the use of prescription drugs (e.g., stimulants) by healthy people in order to increase normal brain function — “is not justifiable” for children without diagnosed neurological disorders, according to a new position paper published in Neurology.

The paper also notes that for “nearly autonomous” adolescents, neuroenhancement is “inadvisable because of numerous social, developmental, and professional integrity issues.”

The authors offer a series of discussion points to guide physicians’ conversations with parents who request neuroenhancement medications for healthy children and teens.

The position paper is endorsed by the American Academy of Neurology, Child Neurology Society, and American Neurological Association.

Source: Neurology 

Major Psychiatric Disorders Linked to Genes Involved with Brain’s Calcium Balance.

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Five major psychiatric illneses — autism, ADHD, bipolar disorder, depression, and schizophrenia — seem related to calcium-signaling pathways in the brain, according to a Lancet study.

Researchers performed genome-wide analyses on some 30,000 patients with the disorders and a roughly equal number of controls. They identified four genetic variants — all related to calcium signaling — that were significantly associated with the presence of one of the five disorders.

Commentators, noting the importance of calcium signaling to nerve growth and development, conclude that the results could help identify new targets for psychotropic drugs.

Source: Lancet

 

Why have Antipsychotic Prescriptions in Children Skyrocketed?

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Thanks to aggressive marketing techniques, pharmaceutical companies are raking in profits from atypical antipsychotic medications – drugs originally approved for mental illnesses that are as serious as they are rare.

It’s no surprise then that a major portion of the sales of these types of “hard-core” psychiatric drugs come from off-label uses. Drugs such as Seroquel, Zyprexa, Risperdal and Abilify are now increasingly prescribed by psychiatrists and primary-care doctors to treat conditions they were never intended or approved for, such as:

Illegal Marketing Largely Responsible for Skyrocketing Misuse of Dangerous Antipsychotics in Children

Most of the atypical antipsychotics were approved in the 1990’s, at which time they were reserved for a very small minority of serious mental illnesses; primarily schizophrenia and bipolar disorder – diseases afflicting an estimated three percent of Americans. More recently, some atypical antipsychotics have also been approved for the treatment of severe depression. Shockingly, children as young as 18 months are now receiving antipsychotic drugs, despite the fact that the diseases they’re designed to treat rarely develop before adolescence.

Drug makers are increasingly getting caught in the act of illegal marketing of this class of drugs:

  • In July, GlaxoSmithKline was found guilty of the largest health fraud in US history, and was fined $3 billion after pleading guilty to three counts of criminal misdemeanor and other civil liabilities relating to a number of different drugs, including Paxil and Wellbutrin
  • In June, Johnson & Johnson agreed to pay $2.2 billion for illegally marketing its drug Risperdal
  • In 2009 Eli Lilly was fined $1.4 billion for the illegal marketing of its antipsychotic drug Zyprexa
  • Bristol Myers Squibb was fined $515 million in 2007 to settle charges of illegal marketing of Abilify to child psychiatrists
  • Pfizer paid $301 million for illegal marketing of its drug Geodon, and
  • AstraZeneca has paid out $520 million to settle illegal marketing charges of Seroquel

In each of these cases, the drug manufacturers were targeting children, despite the fact that none of the drugs in question were approved for use in that age group. To understand how effective these illegal marketing schemes are, consider that sales of antipsychotic drugs to children have increased eight-fold since 1993. Sales to teens have quintupled, while adult sales doubled in the same time frame. In 2008 alone, an estimated $6 billion was spent on off-label antipsychotics in the US, of which $5.4 billion was for uses based on uncertain evidence!

According to the featured article in Time:1

“There is much evidence that the vast increases in atypical antipsychotic prescribing in recent decades were fueled by the aggressive marketing tactics of drug companies. In recent years, every major manufacturer of atypical antipsychotics has been involved in the illegal marketing of the drugs (while doctors can prescribe drugs off label, it is against the law for drug makers to market them for off-label uses), each ultimately paying hundreds of millions to billions of dollars in fines for their sales and marketing tactics. The settlements with the U.S. government were among the largest in history.”

“Trends Signal Need to Re-Evaluate Clinical Practice Patterns”

A recently published study2 found that nearly two-thirds of all antipsychotic drugs prescribed to children between 2005 and 2009 were for the treatment of ADHD and other disruptive behavior disorders. In teens, 34 percent of all antipsychotic prescriptions were for these conditions. These are astounding statistics when you consider the fact that there’s virtually no data supporting the use of these kinds of drugs in children, or for those conditions. The authors seem to agree, concluding:

“In light of known safety concerns and uncertainty over long term risks and benefits, these trends may signal a need to re-evaluate clinical practice patterns.”

According to Time:

“‘As the actual evidence base that would support [such off-label prescriptions of antipsychotics] is scant to non-existent, and the evidence of permeating undue influence of pharma on prescribing practices in psychiatry is abundant, one is led to the conclusion that this is another example of irrational prescribing that can be traced to both the overt and tacit influence of [drug companies] on practitioners,’ says Dr. Bruce Perry, a senior fellow at the ChildTrauma Academy…

Perry testified for the state of Texas in a case that resulted in a $158 million settlement with Johnson and Johnson in January to resolve claims that it fraudulently marketed Risperdal and swindled the state’s Medicaid program. One aspect of the case involved misleading claims about the drug’s effectiveness for behavior disorders in children.”

The Hidden Cause of Psychiatric Disorders Almost No One Considers

American children are the most medicated children in the world. For example, they get three times more prescriptions for antidepressants and stimulants, and up to double the amount of antipsychotic drugs than kids from Germany and the Netherlands.

How can we, as a society, continue to allow corporate profits to come before lives, and even before children’s lives?

It’s just not right. I don’t even advocate giving children cough syrup, Tylenol or antibiotics, as these alone can be harmful. But when you’re talking about powerful psychotropic, mind-altering drugs that in no way shape or form even begin to address the underlying cause of the disease. You’re entering an entirely different ballgame with these dangerous drugs. Unfortunately, psychiatric conditions are primarily believed to be the result of chemical dysfunction in your brain, or in some cases hereditary and therefore out of your control. Many fail to realize that:

  1. Your lifestyle can override genetic predispositions, and
  2. Your lifestyle can be a major underlying cause of that chemical imbalance or dysfunction.

If you or your child is suffering from an emotional or mental challenge, please seek help, but do so from someone who does not regard psychotropic drugs as a first line of defense. It will be very helpful if you first optimize your or your child’s diet and lifestyle as this will significantly improve the likelihood of any successful natural intervention.

The Importance of Probiotics for Mental Health

An important factor to address is gut health. It’s important to realize that children are now increasingly BORN with damaged gut flora – courtesy of less than ideal lifestyle choices by the child’s mother. Many aspects of our modern lifestyle contribute to destroying your all-important gut flora, including:

Antibiotics; both from prescription antibiotics, and from consuming antibiotic-laden foods like non-organic meat, chicken, and milk from cows raised in Confined Animal Feeding Operations Processed foods. Not only are processed foods void of “live” beneficial bacteria to begin with, the high sugar and grain content serve as fuel for the growth of pathogenic anaerobic bacteria, fungi, and yeast, which competitively inhibit your good bacteria
Genetically engineered foods and agricultural chemicals Aspartame, which inactivates digestive enzymes and alters gut barrier function, has been found to destroy up to 50 percent of your beneficial gut flora
Chlorinated and/or fluoridated water Oral contraceptives (birth control pills)

 

In a very real sense, you have two brains: one inside your skull and one in your gut. While they may seem very different, these two organs are actually created out of the same type of tissue. During fetal development, one part turns into your central nervous system while the other develops into your enteric nervous system. Your vagus nerve – the tenth cranial nerve that runs from your brain stem down to your abdomen – connects these two organs together.

Your gut actually produces about 90 percent of the neurotransmitter serotonin – thought to play an important role in many psychiatric conditions, in addition to having a beneficial influence on your mood in general – than your brain does, so optimizing your child’s gut flora may indeed have tremendous benefit for his or her psychological health.

Behavioral problems in children – including what might appear to be serious mental disorders – are very frequently related to improper diet, emotional upset and exposure to toxins.

Increasingly, scientific evidence shows that nourishing your gut flora with the beneficial bacteria found in traditionally fermented foods (or a probiotic supplement) is extremely important for proper brain function, and that includes psychological well-being and mood control. The reason I am more fond of using fermented foods as a source of beneficial bacteria is leverage. A small serving of fermented vegetables can provide you with more than 100 times the amount you would get from a typical dose of a probiotics supplement. You can get trillions of bacteria instead of billions, and consuming a variety of fermented foods will provide you with a much wider variety of probiotics strains as well.

Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride has successfully demonstrated the power and effectiveness of this theory. In her Cambridge, England clinic, she treats children and adults with a range of conditions, including autism, neurological disorders, psychiatric disorders, immune disorders, and digestive problems using the GAPS (Gut and Psychology Syndrome) Nutritional Program, which she developed.

Her GAPS theory – which is fully explained in her excellent book, Gut and Psychology Syndrome – is an elegant description of how such conditions can develop as a direct result of gastrointestinal toxicity.

Pathogenic microbes can damage the integrity of your gut wall, and once your beneficial gut flora has been crowded out by pathogenic microbes inside your digestive tract, toxins and microbes can reach your bloodstream. And once they’re in your bloodstream, they can reach your brain… Gut and Psychology Syndrome (GAPS) may manifest as symptoms that can fit the diagnosis of a wide range of conditions and syndromes, including obsessive-compulsive disorder, ADD/ADHD, dyslexia and dyspraxia.

Could a B Vitamin be the Answer for Some Psychosis?

The book Niacin: The Real Story, co-authored by Dr. Andrew Saul and Abram Hoffer M.D., Ph.D., who has published over 600 reports and articles as well as 30 books, describes the psychiatric benefits of niacin. Dr. Hoffer died in 2009 at the age of 91, but he successfully treated many thousands of patients with high dose niacin for psychotic disorders. His work includes some very compelling evidence to support treating most psychotic disorders as a vitamin B3 deficiency.

Considering the fact that niacin is very inexpensive and has virtually no dangerous side effects, it would certainly be worth consideration for anyone who has a family member with this mental health challenge. I would also highly recommend picking up this $12 book at Amazon and learning more about its use.

Correcting Behavioral Problems Without Drugs

Here are a few additional guidelines to help you address underlying toxins in your child, without, or at least BEFORE, you agree to any kind of drug therapy:

  1. Severely limit or eliminate fructose from your child’s diet as sugar/fructose has been linked to mental health problems such as depression and schizophrenia.
  2. Avoid giving your child ANY processed foods, especially those containing artificial colors, flavors, and preservatives. This includes lunch meats and hot dogs, which are common food staples in many households.
  3. Replace soft drinks, fruit juices, and pasteurized milk with pure water. This is HUGE since high fructose corn syrup is a primary source of calories in children.
  4. Make sure your child is getting large regular doses of healthy bacteria, either with high quality fermented organic foods and/or high quality probiotic supplements.
  5. Give your child plenty of high-quality, animal-based omega-3 fats like krill oil. Also, make sure to balance your child’s intake of omega-3 and omega-6 fats, by simultaneously limiting their intake of vegetable oils.
  6. Include as many whole organic foods as possible in your child’s diet, both to reduce chemical exposure and increase nutrient content of each meal.
  7. Also reduce or eliminate grains from your child’s diet. Yes, even healthy organic whole grains can cause problems as they too break down into sugars.

Additionally, whole wheat in particular contains high amounts of wheat germ agglutinin (WGA), which can have adverse effects on mental health due to its neurotoxic actions. Wheat also inhibits production of serotonin, the largest concentration of which can, again, be found in your intestines, not your brain. Try eliminating them first for 1-2 weeks and see if you don’t notice a radical and amazing improvement in your child’s behavior.

  1. Avoid artificial sweeteners of all kinds.
  2. Make sure your child gets plenty of exercise and outdoor playtime.
  3. Get them out into the sun to help maintain optimal vitamin D levels. Scientists are now beginning to realize vitamin D is involved in maintaining the health of your brain, as they’ve recently discovered vitamin D receptors in the brain, spinal cord, and central nervous system. There’s even evidence indicating vitamin D improves your brain’s detoxification process. For children and pregnant women, getting enough vitamin D is especially crucial, as it may play a major role in protecting infants from autism.

If natural sun exposure is not feasible, for whatever reason, you can use either a safe tanning bed or an oral vitamin D3 supplement. For more details on how to safely optimize your and your child’s vitamin D levels, please see this previous article.

  1. Give your child a way to address his or her emotions. Even children can benefit from the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), which you or an EFT practitioner can teach them to use.
  2. Prevent exposure to toxic metals and chemical by replacing personal care products, detergents and household cleaners with all natural varieties. Metals like aluminum, cadmium, lead and mercury are commonly found in thousands of different food products, household products, personal products and untold numbers of industrial products and chemicals. The presence of toxic metals in your child’s body is highly significant for they are capable of causing serious health problems by interfering with normal biological functioning. The health effects range from minor physical ailments to chronic diseases, and altered mood and behavior.

 

 

Soure: Dr. Mercola