There are many environmental factors that trigger attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and one of the leading food-related triggers of the condition is food intolerance. Researchers have discovered that foods with certain substances affect the brain wave activation pattern of children with ADHD, causing uncontrollable hyperactivity or inattention.
The complicated part about treating food intolerances and food allergies is that traditional allergy tests do not detect them due to their delayed reactions. To make it even more difficult, these allergic reactions often manifest themselves in behavior, not through typical symptoms like rashes or watery eyes. Even though there are now special muscle and blood tests that can detect these delayed reactions, these tests are not designed to identify which particular groups of food are responsible for the symptoms. Treating food intolerances is useless if the child continues to eat the foods he or she cannot tolerate.
One way you can detect food intolerances is by implementing an elimination diet. An elimination diet requires removing particular food groups from your child's diet for several weeks, then slowly reintroducing these foods and noting how your child reacts to them. If the symptoms return upon reintroduction, then that particular food should be removed from the diet for good. While this method is time-consuming and will require nutritional and lifestyle changes for the whole family, an elimination diet is the most accurate way to identify which foods your child is intolerant of.
Currently, there are three elimination diets widely used by children with ADHD, with high success rates.
1) Gluten-free, casein-free diet. All dairy products and wheat products are removed for several weeks, because they contain proteins called casein and gluten. The gastrointestinal tract of ADHD children normally has difficulties digesting these proteins, and their undigested form creates peptides, amino acids that work like morphine on the brain.
2) Feingold Diet. All foods containing synthetic coloring, flavoring, and preservatives are removed.
3) RPAH Elimination diet. This diet, developed by the Royal Prince Albert Hospital in Australia, eliminates all foods with synthetic additives, like the Feingold Diet. However, the RPAH Elimination Diet also removes fruits and vegetables high in salicylates, a group of chemicals that are natural pesticides in plants.
Start the diet by maintaining a daily food journal of what foods are removed and what foods are reintroduced. Every day, write down what foods were eaten, what time meals were served, and your child's moods or reactions. This allows you to compare changes and spot the reactions to food intolerances. In three weeks or a month, you should be able to detect a pattern in how your child reacts to different foods.
The hardest part about putting your child on an elimination diets is that your child will probably have to give up his or her favorite foods. Potato chips, pizza, ice cream, and milk are just a few of the foods that these diets eliminate. If you think going cold turkey might be too drastic a change, try eliminating certain food groups at a time and observe your child's reactions. For instance, eliminate wheat products for two weeks. If there are no improvements, eliminate dairy products, and so on until you start noticing positive changes in your child's behavior. If you notice your child's symptoms start to subside, your child was probably intolerant to the food that was most recently removed. You can then start adding back the other foods to the diet, carefully watching for the return of any symptoms.
Once you've positively identified the foods that cause the symptoms, keep them off the menu for around 90 days before slowly reintroducing them.
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