The Mediterranean Diet and Prevention of ADHD: New Information Worth Digesting :

The Mediterranean diet is one that emphasizes eating fruits and vegetables, whole grains, legumes and nuts and using olive and canola oil as a source of health fats rather than butter along with herbs and spices rather than salt. It has been recommended as a diet to use in adults with heart disease but might it also have value in children—and more specifically be more preferentially utilized by children without ADHD? Drs. Rios-Hernandez and colleagues (10.1542/peds.2016-2027) decided to study 60 children and teens with DSM-IV diagnosed ADHD with 60 sex- and age- matched controls who were cross-sectionally examined for their dietary intake and whether they were more likely in adherence with a Mediterranean-like diet. Those diagnosed with ADHD in the study had lower adherence to a Mediterranean diet even after adjusting for a variety of potential confounders. ADHD children were found to consume less vegetables, fruit, or grains and were more likely to skip breakfast and go to fast-food restaurants during the day. So could diet influence who does and doesn’t get ADHD? This study as a series of cross-sectional observations cannot determine that, but can help lead to longitudinal tracking of infants and toddlers to determine if a type of diet like the Mediterranean diet versus another specific or nonspecific diet might be the way to go, given how difficult it is to identify a single nutrient as a cause or non-cause for ADHD symptoms. While diet may not be what you discuss with your ADHD patients, you might be more apt to feed on the findings in this study and ask more about diet going forward after you chew on the data shared by these investigators in this interesting article being early released this week.