Western Diet linked to ADHD

[dieseltaylor]

In case the thought had crossed your mind about why it was a new problem

July 29, 2010 A new study from Perth's Telethon Institute for Child Health Research shows an association between ADHD and a 'Western-style' diet in adolescents.

The research findings have just been published online in the international Journal of Attention Disorders.

Leader of Nutrition studies at the Institute, Associate Professor Wendy Oddy, said the study examined the dietary patterns of 1800 adolescents from the long-term Raine Study and classified diets into 'Healthy' or 'Western' patterns.

"We found a diet high in the Western pattern of foods was associated with more than double the risk of having an ADHD diagnosis compared with a diet low in the Western pattern, after adjusting for numerous other social and family influences," Dr Oddy said.

"We looked at the dietary patterns amongst the adolescents and compared the diet information against whether or not the adolescent had received a diagnosis of ADHD by the age of 14 years. In our study, 115 adolescents had been diagnosed with ADHD, 91 boys and 24 girls."

A "healthy" pattern is a diet high in fresh fruit and vegetables, whole grains and fish. It tends to be higher in omega-3 fatty acids, folate and fibre. A "Western" pattern is a diet with a trend towards takeaway foods, confectionary, processed, fried and refined foods. These diets tend to be higher in total fat, saturated fat, refined sugar and sodium.

"When we looked at specific foods, having an ADHD diagnosis was associated with a diet high in takeaway foods, processed meats, red meat, high fat dairy products and confectionary," Dr Oddy said.

"We suggest that a Western dietary pattern may indicate the adolescent has a less optimal fatty acid profile, whereas a diet higher in omega-3 fatty acids is thought to hold benefits for mental health and optimal brain function.

"It also may be that the Western dietary pattern doesn't provide enough essential micronutrients that are needed for brain function, particularly attention and concentration, or that a Western diet might contain more colours, flavours and additives that have been linked to an increase in ADHD symptoms. It may also be that impulsivity, which is a characteristic of ADHD, leads to poor dietary choices such as quick snacks when hungry."

Dr Oddy said that whilst this study suggests that diet may be implicated in ADHD, more research is needed to determine the nature of the relationship.

"This is a cross-sectional study so we cannot be sure whether a poor diet leads to ADHD or whether ADHD leads to poor dietary choices and cravings," Dr Oddy said.

ADHD is the most commonly diagnosed childhood mental health disorder and has a prevalence of approximately 5%. ADHD is known to be more common in boys.

Provided by Research Australia

The body is a delicate food processing factory and I wa surprised to find even the humble button mushroom has a role:

http://www.physorg.com/news199621039.html

and for those aging or indoors a lot this paen to Vitamin D is worth bearing in mind.

http://www.physorg.com/news199615206.html

and for those of you who are pregnant - guess what - intakes of artificial sweetened drinks/sweetners tend to induce earlier births.

[flamingknives]

It's clear that there could be no possible pre-existing bias in the minds of the researchers, comparing "Western" food to "Healthy" food.

[dieseltaylor]

Some might leap to that conclusion but a moments consideration one would think they would be aware of the possible bias and engineer it out. And also the likelihood of atttacks from those who do not like the conclusion. : )

[flamingknives]

Seriously, this is another case of "no ****, Sherlock". I don't disagree with the findings. In fact, I thought that it was commonly known that high sugar/processed food could affect behaviour. In so far as this confirms anything*, this merely goes along with that.

I would expect that people writing these reports would be smart enough to chose identifiers that would not indicate a preference. But why not chose "Healthy" and "Unhealthy" labels, or "Traditional" and "Modern". "Western" and "Healthy" as labels go together like "left" and "oblong" and are indicative of someone attempting to prove "Western" as bad.

*

Dr Oddy said that whilst this study suggests that diet may be implicated in ADHD, more research is needed to determine the nature of the relationship.

[Affentitten]

Personally when I started reading the story I was at first intrigued by how that one girl I was seeing last year in the blue Ford over there was throwing the ball out along the back line and then that Stalingrad campaign map was awesome.

[dieseltaylor]

: )

Very funny

[Tero]

I was SO wondering why our lads turn ape always after eating tons of stuff with more E-codes, trans-fat, artificial flavouring/sweeteners, HFCS and other such things than actual natural incredients in the list of incredients in the label.

[Wicky]

Wait till they get older and eat the traditional English nosh of curry and washed down with copious amount of kingfisher lager, followed with a kebab...

I was SO wondering why our lads turn ape always after eating tons of stuff with more E-codes, trans-fat, artificial flavouring/sweeteners, HFCS and other such things than actual natural incredients in the list of incredients in the label.

[gunnergoz]

Yep, a diet to die for.

[JonS]

I heard some good, simple advice about food recently:

"Eat food, not too much, mostly plants"

* Eat food - over-processed, water-blasted-from-the-carcass, chemical soup is not 'food'. Something you could grow or raise yourself, at home, is food.

* Not too much - you don't have to gorge every meal, or even every day. You don't need a top up of food between meals

* Mostly plants - meat is great, so eat it. But plants are great for you, so eat proportionately more of them.

http://boingboing.net/2008/01/15/in-defense-of-food-n.html

That said, this is illuminating: http://www.boingboing.net/2010/07/19/raw-food-raids-are-o.html#comments

From the comments, it seems that mass-production factory-farming methods have so compromised the food supply, that actually eating food is becoming a difficult proposition.

[Affentitten]

And us Southern hemisphere dwellers don't know how lucky we are in terms of our food quality, availability and price. Eating high quality fresh produce is an epensive proposition in Europe, for example.

[Stalins Organ]

Apples could be cheaper & better in Aus tho.....& will be once you get over your non-tarrif trade barriors.....

[Affentitten]

What do you guys pay for a kilo of (decent) apples then? Here Grannys are about $2.99 a kilo. You'd run up to about $5 a kilo for something like Pink Ladys (but they'd be very good ones).

[Stalins Organ]

As I understand it you are still getting "old" varieties such as Granny Smiths & Golden Delicious, and missing out on the new "crispy" types such as Rose & Jazz.

I pay about $2.50-3.00/kg for either at my local supermarket.

You can still get Granny's here, and the occasional Braeburn, but Red Delicious hasn't been seen on shelves for years, and Pink Lady is completely unknown (I had to look it up).

[JonS]

I love a good Braeburn. Yum. Favouritist apple evah.

I'm not that wild on the 'new' ones - they're too sweet, I think.

[Affentitten]

I'm not a big fan of red delicious. One of the most inapt names ever! Granny Smith is still a stalwart here, that's for sure and is also about the lowest priced apple. You can get a bag of lower quality ones for <$1.

I'll keep an eye out for the others. I think I may have seen Jazz already but now known what it was.

[Stalins Organ]

We had Golden Delicious & Granny's on trees when I was a kid.

I never liked Braeburn - & don't like Jazz much either (it's a Braeburn cross IIRC) - I find the Pacific Rose pretty much perfect.

But today's 5+ for the day was 3 nectarines from the US, & a Packham pear & an orange both from Aus

[Michael Emrys]

I had some exceedingly good oranges from Australia a couple of years ago. Would like to find them again. Also had an extremely good pluot grown in this state about that same time. Would eat those all the time if I could find them.

Michael

[dieseltaylor]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluot

Coo, never heard of them

See also

• Aprium
  
• Peacotum
  
• Plumcot
  
• Nectaplum

[Affentitten]

Besides the Pink ladys I love pineapples and tangellos. Don't get to eat much pineapple these days as it seems to irritate the kids' mouths and the Mrs has braces on her teeth and the acid gives her a bit of a galvanic reaction. She say's it's a bit like licking one of those 9V batteries.