ADHD can disappear with a few-foods diet: how come and what happens in our body?

What is it about?

This study aims to unravel the link between food and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). ADHD is diagnosed in about 5% of all children, hampering their lives at home and at school. Research has shown that in 60% of children with ADHD, the ADHD symptoms can disappear by following a strict diet, the so-called few-foods diet (FFD). How does this diet work? How can ADHD behaviour improve significantly by changing a child’s diet? What happens in gut, brain and the rest of the child’s body? The researchers intend to get to the bottom of these questions. Their study will investigate whether the FFD affects the gut bacteria (the microbiota) and metabolites or other factors in blood and urine. They will also evaluate, by means of fMRI, what happens in the brain when children follow the FFD: are there differences in brain activity between children responding and those not responding to the FFD?

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Photo by Michał Parzuchowski on Unsplash

Photo by Michał Parzuchowski on Unsplash

Why is it important?

One of the goals is to find a reliable biomarker to predict whether a child with ADHD will respond to an FFD or not. Finding a biomarker may prevent unnecessary following of this strict diet. More importantly, the findings of this study may be an important first step towards an easy-to-apply and long-term therapy for ADHD.

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