I remember going to a parent orientation at my daughter’s school at the start of the school year. And one of the topics discussed was the expectations of a 7th grader.

Basically, it’s the school way to tell us, parents, to chill and don’t expect too much from our 7th graders, because their “prefrontal cortex” is still developing.

The way I look at ADHD is that attention and memory are like other developmental skills, such as crawling, walking, talking, etc. 

Every child masters each skill at their own pace, and we have a set range of time when these skills are learned.

If you look at ADHD the same way you look at when your child ate his/her first food, spoke his/her first word, took the first steps, etc., you’ll better understand some of the symptoms of ADHD.

We’ll talk about the 4 Surprising Facts about the ADHD brain and how it differs from the neurotypical brain.

1. The ADHD brain is 10% smaller than the neurotypical brain
2. The ADHD brain is on average 2-3 years behind developmentally
3. The ADHD brain is low on important brain chemicals
4. The ADHD brain does not do well with sugar

Even though conventional ADHD treatment often focuses on treating what’s happening in the brain, but most of the explosive and aggressive behaviors seen in children with ADHD seem to stem from the gut.

In recent years, scientists discovered the connection between gut bacteria and many psychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders, such as autism spectrum disorders, ADHD, depression, anorexia nervosa, and Rett syndrome.

They found that brain chemical imbalances, often seen in people with ADHD, may start in the gut, causing more aggressive and explosive symptoms.

Scientists learned that the gut is talking with the big brain (aka central nervous system that includes the brain and spinal cord). They talk to each other continuously through the hormonal, immune, and nervous systems.

The gut bacteria do not live for free in our intestines. They do pay rent by making precursors (ingredients) that the big brain can use to produce brain chemicals, such as dopamine, noradrenaline, and serotonin, that help to calm the ADHD brain.

Does your ADHD child suffer from stomach pain, bedwetting, fecal incontinence, diarrhea, loose stool, or constipation?

Does your ADHD child also have food allergies or intolerance, asthma, ear infections, and unexplained skin rash?

Or does your child crave milk, cheese, sugar, bread, noodles, pasta, crackers, or any carbs?

Chances are all these symptoms are related and can all be traced back to the gut imbalance.

Digestion issues, such as constipation, diarrhea, bedwetting, fecal incontinence, are very common among children with ADHD. 

A study of more than 700,000 children found that children with ADHD are three times more likely to have chronic constipation and six times more likely to have fecal incontinence than kids without ADHD.

Recurrent and frequent antibiotic use for ear infection destroys good gut bacteria. And this can cause yeast and bacterial overgrowth, which causes hyperactivity, anger, irritability, mood swings, poor memory, poor attention, sleep problems, and inappropriate behaviors.

The intestine needs a combination of both good and bad bacteria to do all its job correctly. When the intestinal gut balance is disrupted and out-of-balance, mental and physical health issues, such as anxiety, depression, and even cancer, can happen.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and ADHD are both early-onset neurodevelopmental disorders. They are both umbrella terms that cover a wide range of abnormal behaviors and developmental disorders.

ADHD is characterized by inattentive, hyperactive, and impulsive behavior whereas the key symptoms of ASD include social deficits, communication deficits, and stereotypical behavior.

Children with ADHD and ASD also share similar behavioral symptoms such as anger outbursts, impulsivity, aggressiveness, agitation, and emotional meltdowns. Indeed, research shows that ASD and ADHD frequently exist together. 

Studies have shown that children with autism and ADHD experience more stomach and digestive issues such as constipation, diarrhea, and sensitivity to foods six to eight times more often than children who are developing typically.

Aside from being painful and uncomfortable, gut issues have been shown to affect those with ASD profoundly. Digestive symptoms were found to be related to behavioral problems, including social withdrawal, irritability, and repetitive behaviors.

Frequent use of antibiotics for ear infection not only kills the bacteria that cause the infection, but it also kills the good bacteria living in the gut. This could potentially cause yeast and bacterial overgrowth. This can result in hyperactivity, anger, irritability, hyper-excitability, mood, memory, poor attention, sleep problem, and inappropriate behaviors.

Candida or yeast overgrowth and bacterial overgrowth may be the causes of the digestive issues your kids with ADHD are dealing with.

Did you know 75% of the body’s immunity is in the gut? It is host to over 1,000 different species of bacteria, known as the ‘gut microbiome, each individual’s bacterial makeup is different.

Children with ADHD are more likely to have allergy (immune-mediated) disorders like food allergy, asthma, and atopic dermatitis (eczema).

If your child has eczema, asthma, and frequent ear infection, there’s a likely chance that your child’s ADHD symptoms may be related to food sensitivities.

Can you think of an incident when your child suddenly acts unlike himself or herself after eating certain foods?

Like he or she started acting silly after eating certain foods? Or he or she throws a raging tantrum for crackers, and after having the crackers, he or she would calm down?

I hear stories like these all the time.

Children with ADHD often have hidden food allergy or intolerance. I use the word “hidden” because these allergies or intolerances are difficult to identify.

Most of the time we don’t even know they exist because when we think of food allergy, we are thinking of the very obvious ones, like someone who is an allergy to seafood, and ate something with shrimp, and within minutes reacted with full-body hives, facial swelling, itching mouth, and throat, etc.

However, these are not what we see in most children with ADHD. Their reactions are a lot more subtle and slow. The food reactions we often suspect in children with ADHD or autism are food intolerances.

Food intolerance and food allergy share many similar signs and symptoms, such as diarrhea, vomiting, runny nose, nasal congestions, hives, rash, etc. However, they are very different physiologically.

The most common food sensitivity in kids with ADHD and autism are sensitivity to casein and gluten.

Casein is a protein found in milk and milk products such as cheese, butter, yogurt. Gluten is a protein found in wheat, barley, and rye.

People on the autism spectrum and have ADHD may not be able to properly digest casein and gluten due to a lack of enzymes.

In normal healthy digestion, casein is broken down into casomorphin and gluten into gliadorphin. These peptides are then further broken down into individual amino acids, which then enters the bloodstream.

When these proteins are not properly digested, the casomorphin and the gliadorphin can leak into the bloodstream before being further broken down. Once these proteins enter the bloodstream, they can get through the blood-brain barrier to the brain.

Both of these proteins act like opioids, such as heroin and cocaine, and bind to the same opioid receptors in the brain.

And this peptide morphine affects your child’s behavior, just like cocaine and heroin. Your child is drugged on food.

In susceptible children, these undigested proteins cause fatigue, aggression, irritability, moodiness, anxiety, depression, and brain fog.

Besides, the undesired mental effects, these proteins also trigger silent allergic reactions, such as allergic shiners (dark circles under eye), colic, runny nose, ear infections, eczema, belly pain, bad breath, and insomnia, etc.

Eliminating these offending protein from the diet is the only solution or treatment option.

A child with high levels of casomorphin may have intense cravings for milk products (ice cream, yogurt) and may even become irritable when he or she doesn’t eat these types of foods.

If your child shows addictive behaviors around dairy and wheat products, such as milk or cheese and bread, pasta, noodle, crackers, there’s a great chance your child with ADHD or autism may not be breaking down milk and gluten protein properly.

Parents often describe their children as very irritable and cranking when not having these items, and then calm down into a sweet angel after eating them.

When we think of malnutrition, we often think of pictures showing starving kids in Africa. Or your parents used to tell you, “eat all your food, kids are starving in another country.”

Even though malnutrition is still a significant public health issue in many developing countries, overweight and obesity are becoming serious threats to children in the United States.

Overweight and obesity are forms of malnutrition. Malnutrition (both under- and over-nutrition) during childhood may affect the health and performance of children when they become adults.

Malnutrition is associated with poorer IQ levels, cognitive function, school achievement, and more behavioral problems such as attention deficits, and emotional instability. 

Children in the US have better access to food, but that does not mean they have better nutrition or better health. According to the Center for Disease Control (CDD), between 2015-2016, nearly 1 in 5 school-age children and young people (6 to 19 years old) in the United States have obesity.

Children in the US eat too many empty calories from processed foods that miss essential nutrients, causing excessive weight gain and nutrient deficiencies.

There are decades of research to support the strong relationship between ADHD and obesity. Remember, in the Anatomy of the ADHD Brain, we talked about how low dopamine levels and effects of sugar can cause sugar addiction and overeating in people with ADHD?

A person with ADHD is four times more likely to become obese than someone who does not have ADHD.

There are hundreds and even thousands of biochemical reaction pathways in the body that are going on constantly to sustain the function of the body. Every single one of these pathways and reactions requires at least one mineral and vitamin that acts as a catalyst to turn on that pathway.

When there is a mineral or vitamin deficiency, some biochemical reactions are being affected, resulting in the body not functioning correctly, and you have “dis-ease.”

When we look at our anemic food supplies – genetically modified organisms or GMO products that are not suitable for human consumption, manufactured food that’s been stripped off of essential nutrients, over-farming causes mineral depletion in the soil from which our fruits and vegetables come from, you see how your body can become deficient in nutrients over time.

And do you see why getting proper nutrition is difficult?

We, human beings, can only thrive on simple, pure food and a clean environment.

Unfortunately, all these are affecting our children. Children with ADHD are found to be deficit in magnesium, zinc, iron, omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin Bs, vitamin D, and many others.

In the cases of ADHD and autism, these deficiencies could also be the results of either inadequate diet intake, poor absorption, or body is using up faster due to stress.

Malnutrition is the number one nightmare of every parent. New parents bend over backward to ensure their young children are appropriately fed because they’re afraid inadequate nutrition intake will impact their children’s brain development.

Environmental toxins are everywhere. We live in a giant pool of pollution every day. Children with autism and ADHD or other developmental disorders seem to be more susceptible to environmental toxins.

The first thing we wake up in the morning, we brush our teeth. There is hexavalent chromium (aka chromium-6, does the name Erin Brockovich ring a bell?) in water, then the fluoride and sodium lauryl sulfate and artificial sugar in toothpaste.

Then, your first cup of joe made with the same chromium-6 water, artificial sugar (of course, it’s the healthier choices for sweetening, and non-dairy creamer (check the ingredient list on the label – can’t find much familiar English words).

It’s time to go. You step out of your door and take a deep breath of fresh air. Sorry, it’s not fresh air, but exhaust-filled air from the rush-hour traffic. Don’t worry. There are even more chemicals waiting for you in your office – flame retardant on almost everything, formaldehyde, toluene, xylene, styrene, benzene (just to name a few) in carpets.

Lunch is a meal of processed food filled with meat from corn-fed cattle, treated with antibiotics and growth hormones. The greens from your supposedly healthy toss salad are genetically modified to deter disease and infection and also loaded with pesticides fresh from the soil.

Well, I guess I should stop before I get myself too depressed to eat for the rest of my life. My point here is toxins are everywhere, and we cannot avoid all of them altogether. You’ll have to move to Mars to avoid all these.

Each one of us is made differently. Some of us have an excellent immune and detoxification system to get rid of these toxins efficiently from the body. Others have a so-so system to do the trick.

There’s been an increase in the incidence of ADHD, autism, and other developmental disorders over the last 20 years, which somehow coincide with the astronomical expansion of the processed food industry, the increasing use of food additives, growth hormones, and antibiotics in lives stocks, and other chemical used in industries in the name of boosting food production.

Although evidence shows that ADHD runs in the family, families share the same environment and food supply. These include prenatal substance exposures, heavy metal and chemical exposures, nutritional factors, and lifestyle/psychosocial factors.

How much of it is genetics, and how much is environmental?

Heavy metals, such as lead and mercury, are on top of the list of environmental toxins. These have been proven to affect brain growth and development in children.

Lead is found in paint in building built before 1978, lead pipes in old buildings, antique furniture, and paint in toys imported from other countries, which does not have the same regulations as the United States. Mercury may be found in “silver” tooth fillings (amalgam) and a variety of seafood.

Other environmental toxins to be aware of:

• Organophosphate Pesticides found in commercially grown produce
• Tobacco Exposure during pregnancy
• Bisphenol A or BPA found in plastic bottles, containers, and canned goods
• Electronic Media Exposure
• Artificial Food Additives, such as food coloring, MSG, high fructose corn syrup in processed foods

Ok, there you have it…

I hope you find this information helpful. Let me know what you think and comment below. 

Remember ADHD does not doom your child to a life of under-achievement. You know your child is bright, full of potential, and deserves the best. In fact, many of the world’s greatest discoveries and inventions were made by people with ADHD.

I helped my crazy wild child who couldn’t read or write when she was little overcome her learning difficulties, and become a merit scholarship student majoring in premed at Loyola Chicago University.

So don’t give up, everything is possible. 

If you’re just starting out on this natural ADHD treatment journey and still in the research phase, check out my new book Eat to Focus.

Inside this book, you’ll learn why your ADHD child is always hungry, why he or she seems addicted to milk and bread, the reason why most ADHD treatments do not work, and the exact four strategies I’ve used for my daughter to help her calm down to focus and finally learn normally. 

Don’t forget to download your free gift 15 Quick & Simple ADHD-Friendly Breakfast Ideas before you leave. It’s my gift from one parent to another. 

God bless!