A Look Into A Possible Cause of Your Child’s (or your own) ADHD / ADD that has very likely never been investigated for you.

Symptoms whether headaches, pain, nausea, breathing problems, or even what are thought of as behavioral disorders like ADHD/ADD have a cause.

The symptom is what someone experiences.

It gives the doctor information and clues about what is going wrong – but does not identify the cause.

In order to identify the cause of a problem, we have to do a very thorough history (that often uncovers other important clues), a very thorough examination, and possibly some tests depending on what is discovered.

The problem is that in today’s healthcare system, patients are often prescribed a medication prior to identifying the cause of the problem. It’s not to say that medications don’t help – they might help a symptom like attention problems.

What if though, there is an underlying problem that is causing the attention or hyperactivity problems?

An underlying cause that could be removed and resulted in dramatic improvement in attention, focus, and hyperactivity while also improving the health of the person suffering with ADD/ADHD and reducing the probability of very serious complications over time and that’s what happened in the studies mentioned below.

I want to state that there is not one cause that is present for everyone.

The following discussion talks about one fairly common (as seen in the 2 studies cited) cause or contributing factor in Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Other important things need to be evaluated including functional neurological problems that are essentially an abnormal, asymmetric wiring and activation problem – for example.

A 2011, study looked at the incidence of celiac disease in people with ADD/ADHD. 

Celiac disease is very often not diagnosed for years – if ever. It’s an auto-immune condition where the individual’s body reacts to gluten that is found in so many foods in today’s society. The ONLY treatment is to completely remove gluten from the diet.

The problem is that Celiac Disease is often missed because the person doesn’t experience stomach symptoms – instead they may experience neurological problems… such as ADD/ADHD.

Here’s what the study looking at incidence of Celiac Disease in ADHD diagnosed people found…

“Celiac disease is markedly overrepresented among patients presenting with ADHD. A gluten-free diet significantly improved ADHD symptoms in patients with celiac disease in this study. The results further suggest that celiac disease should be included in the ADHD symptom checklist.”

Prim Care Companion CNS Disord. 2011; 13(3): PCC.10br01104.
doi:  10.4088/PCC.10br01104
Association of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder and Celiac Disease: A Brief Report
Helmut Niederhofer, MD, PhDcorresponding author

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3184556/

Another study looked the effects of a gluten free diet on symptoms of ADHD.

The results were shocking!

74% reported significant improvement in the symptoms of ADHD on a gluten free diet.

The study did not do lab to look at gluten anti-bodies in the ADHD sufferer’s.

This would have indicated whether they had some gluten sensitivity whether they had Celiac Disease or not.

A much higher percentage of people have gluten sensitivity than Celiac Disease. Gluten Sensitivity is often also a very serious problem for people.

Niederhofer H, Pittschieler K. A preliminary investigation of ADHD symptoms in persons with celiac disease. Journal of Attention Disorders. 2006;10:200–204.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17085630

It’s often difficult to figure out how to go gluten free (many people fail because they do not fully eliminate gluten, even though they believe that they have done so)… what foods to eat, what foods to avoid, how long, how strict, etc. If you need help or have a question about these things, schedule an appointment.

In other posts, we’ll look at other research related to ADD/ADHD and other dietary considerations for a variety of musculo-skeletal and other problems.