Many children are diagnosed with ADD/ADHD without a full medical evaluation. Several common issues—such as anemia, low thyroid function, hypoglycemia, nutrient deficiencies, learning disabilities, and sensory-integration problems – can look exactly like attention problems. Stimulant medications may help symptoms but do not address underlying causes, and they carry significant side effects.
Before labeling a child or starting medication, it’s important to explore basic health factors (diet, vitamin/mineral status, blood sugar, thyroid, toxins), rule out learning or sensory issues, and consider lifestyle contributors like screen time and lack of exercise. A whole-person approach often reveals the real issue—and helps the child more effectively than medication alone.
What is ADD?
ADD is attention deficit disorder. It is characterized by a poor or short attention span and impulsiveness inappropriate for the child’s age, with or without hyperactivity. (With hyperactivity, it is called ADHD.) Hyperactivity is a level of activity and excitement in a child so high that it concerns the parents or caregivers. The diagnosis of ADD usually requires that the child display at least eight of the following symptoms:
- Often fidgets with hands or feet or squirms while sitting (restlessness).
- Has difficulty remaining seated when required to do so.
- Is easily distracted by extraneous stimuli.
- Has difficulty waiting for his or her turn in games or group situations.
- Has difficulty following instructions from others, even if the instructions are understood.
- Has difficulty sustaining attention in tasks or play activities.
- Often shifts from one uncompleted task to another.
- Often talks excessively.
- Often interrupts or intrudes on others.
- Often doesn’t seem to listen to what’s being said.
- Often loses things necessary for tasks or activities at school or at home.
- Often engages in physically dangerous activities without considering possible consequences.
Diagnosis is based on the number, frequency, and severity of symptoms. Of course, this “diagnosis” depends on the subjective opinion of the observer. The symptoms are not unique to a child with ADD, and a child without ADD may have one or more of the symptoms.
What Kind of Exam Was Performed?
Too often a diagnosis of ADD or ADHD is handed down without any physical exam or lab work. We are not even talking about “alternative” medicine here—just good old-fashioned traditional medical diagnosis. A few of the medical problems that can cause a child to have poor concentration are:
- Anemia – A simple, inexpensive blood test called a CBC (complete blood count) should be taken.
- Low thyroid function – An underfunctioning thyroid can cause symptoms similar to ADD. A simple blood test can rule this out.
- Hypoglycemia – Low blood sugar. This is determined with more extensive blood testing.
- Heavy metal toxicity – Children are not routinely screened for mercury or cadmium. Cadmium is found in cigarette smoke.
If a child is labeled with the ADD diagnosis, at the very minimum the doctor should have ruled out the above conditions.
Learning Disabilities
A child may have problems with reading, and the reading problem may not become evident until fourth or fifth grade. Don’t expect teachers or administrators to be well informed about this type of concern. Here is a typical story about a girl who had a reading problem. In the mind of the teachers and administrators everything was fine because her grades were good and her standard test scores were within the normal range. She did, however, become increasingly apprehensive about going to school. The whole thing came to a head in the fourth grade.
Between first and third grades most children learn to read. From fourth grade forward, children read to learn. A dyslexic child will rely on memory to get through schoolwork, and since most students with dyslexia are of above average intelligence, this works for a while. In fourth grade this becomes almost impossible. This is when many students exhibit “symptoms” or behavior problems.
Sensory Integration
Children with sensory integration problems do not properly process information from the environment. It can lead to unusual, even bizarre behavior. A simple example would be a child having trouble paying attention in class because he is focused on his uncomfortable shoes. It is hard to give a complete picture of sensory integration problems in this short section. To read more about sensory integration, get a copy of The Out-of-Sync Child by Carol Stock Kranowitz, M.A. The following information is taken from that book. If you know a child who exhibits strange behavior, buy this book.
A child may be oversensitive or undersensitive to a particular stimulus. Inappropriate processing of touch, movement, body position, sight, sound, smell and taste can all affect the behavior of the child.
Natural Therapies
Hypoglycemia, thyroid problems, anemia, learning disabilities and sensory integration problems may all be misdiagnosed as ADD or ADHD. So far, we have only discussed things that should be recognized by a traditional medical doctor (although sensory integration is not yet a recognized diagnosis). The message is that even if you do not believe in alternative therapies, at least do a thorough investigation of the child’s problems before resorting to a mind-altering drug. Too often a drug is prescribed after a short interview, with no exam, no lab work and no investigation into the source of the child’s problem.
You do not have to believe in alternative medicine to know that this is not right. Ritalin may affect the behavior of the learning-disabled fifth grader but not improve grades. Ritalin may have no effect on the child with a sensory integration problem. Sometimes Prozac or heavier drugs are used – this is sad and unnecessary.
Alternative health care may offer some answers for children diagnosed with ADD or ADHD. Ritalin may offer symptomatic control—but no one knows why it works and it certainly does not address the cause. The idea of holistic care is to treat the patient, not the disease.
Nutrition
It seems strange to think of nutrition as “alternative care,” but many doctors see it that way. It is not uncommon to hear, “Vitamins do not cure disease,” from medical doctors. In a sense, they are right. Vitamins do not cure disease, but there is one very important exception. Vitamins cure vitamin deficiency. What constitutes vitamin deficiency is where all the controversy lies.
Clearly, such eating habits create nutrient deficiency. When a diagnosis of ADD or ADHD is handed down it is important to consider the child’s diet. Don’t think of it in an overly simplistic point of view, “He eats sugar, he gets wired.” Think of it as a poor diet creating a health problem.
Essential fatty acids: Packaged food, fried food and junk foods are loaded with hydrogenated oils and partially hydrogenated oils. Cells, especially nerve cells, need oil (fat) for the integrity of the cell membrane. Hydrogenated oils contain trans fats that do not belong in the diet and do not resemble anything in nature. One idea nutritionists have about the cause of ADD is that the trans fats become incorporated into the nerve cells in the brain, making transmission of nerve impulses faulty. The trans fats may also be more permeable to chemical toxins and viruses. The solution is to give the child flax oil or DHA and remove all hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oil from the diet. Even if the nerve cell theory is not true, this is an excellent suggestion for the health of your child.
Sugar: This subject needs to be more closely examined. Children who eat a lot of sugar are vitamin deficient—especially in B vitamins and in minerals. A large percentage of their food is starch, which is turned into sugar by the body. Lots of parents think that bagels, English muffins, and sugar-free cereals are healthy. What they need to realize is that starch and sugar are essentially the same thing. Starch and sugar deplete B vitamins, vitamin C and minerals.
Sugar also stresses the adrenal glands. Some holistic practitioners think that Ritalin mimics the output of the adrenal gland and if you give up sugar and support the adrenals, you will get a better result.
B vitamins: Deficiency in B vitamins causes neurologic symptoms. Traditional medicine only recognizes a thiamine deficiency as beriberi or a niacin deficiency as pellagra. What about subclinical deficiencies? Nervousness, poor concentration, fatigue, depression, poor sleep, forgetfulness and other symptoms can all be caused by not having enough B vitamins. B vitamins are very important for mental function. Eating a lot of sugar and refined carbohydrate depletes B vitamins. One of the most common deficiencies is folic acid. Folic acid is necessary to produce serotonin and norepinephrin (important neurotransmitters, or brain chemicals).
Folic acid is found in fresh green produce. How many children get enough green vegetables? We can get a liquid folic acid and a liquid multivitamin that can be placed in juice. Often the results are amazing. Of course nothing replaces a good diet, but that is sometimes difficult to accomplish.
Chemical additives: Aspartame, sold under the brand name Nutrasweet or Equal found in many sugar-free snacks, creates methanol (a neurotoxin) in the body.
Minerals: ADHD has been linked to zinc/copper imbalance. Trace mineral deficiency has been linked to allergies. Minerals are often the cofactors that enable enzymes to work.
Amino acids: Amino acids are the building blocks of protein. A diet high in junk food, poor digestion and vegetarianism can cause a deficiency of certain amino acids. There are lab tests to determine amino acid status.
Hidden allergies, Candidiasis and heavy metal toxicity: If you have gone to a nutritionist or an alternative health practitioner, you may have heard one or all of these terms. Candida albicans is a yeast that grows in the intestine. A diet high in sugar or heavy use of antibiotics can cause high levels of Candida, which causes nutritional deficiency and toxicity. The chemical toxins from the yeast can cause fatigue, nervousness and poor concentration (among a wide variety of symptoms).
Hidden allergies can also be a problem. A favorite food, eaten every day, often is the culprit causing the ADD or ADHD. Great improvement is often achieved by following simple, basic nutritional rules, like those presented earlier in the book.
Chiropractic: Of course chiropractors treat ADD and ADHD; the nervous system is involved, isn’t it? Many times jamming in the upper cervical spine affects the dura (a membrane covering the brain and spinal cord), affecting the entire nervous system. This can happen from the trauma of birth. Chiropractors treat this, often with great success.
Many times parents will try nutrition, put their child on a hypoallergenic diet or try some alternative therapy without getting the desired result. Then the parents are frustrated.
The point is, all of the pertinent issues must be addressed. Giving a child who has a learning disability a dairy- and wheat-free diet may benefit his or her health, but it will not correct the learning disability. You can give vitamins to a child with sensory integration issues and still not solve the problem. By all means, improve the health and nutrition of your child—there’s a chance that it will improve the ADD.
If not, there may be other issues that need to be addressed. The idea is not to treat ADD or ADHD but rather treat the patient who has the condition. The goal is not merely to get rid of the symptom, but to find the cause and correct it. Health is not merely the absence of disease; health is optimal function.