114. Can Food Help Kids with ADHD Focus?

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Beyond Medication: Discover the powerful connection between ADHD and diet.

Discover the power of nutrition in managing ADHD symptoms. In this insightful interview, we delve into the world of functional medicine and explore how dietary changes can improve focus, behavior, and overall well-being for children with ADHD.

Key Topics:

• The connection between diet and ADHD
• Personalized nutrition plans
• The role of functional medicine labs
• Practical tips for parents
• The future of ADHD treatment

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Music Used:

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Disclaimer: The information provided in this video is for informational purposes only and should not be considered as medical advice. Always consult with a qualified healthcare professional before making any decisions related to your health or the health of your child.

Sandie Gascon is an Integrative Healing Practitioner, Author of Heal Yourself and Founder of The Integrative Healing Academy. After suffering severe side effects from medications during her twenty-year battle with chronic migraines, when she was diagnosed with Lupus she committed herself to healing naturally. Through her experiences, she developed a whole body, mind, and spirit approach that addresses the person in a truly holistic manner.

Episode #114: Can Food Help Kids with ADHD Focus?

Beyond Medication: Discover the powerful connection between ADHD and diet.

(Recorded May 28, 2024)

Full Transcript of Interview:

Sandie: I think for, for people, the really big experiment is not to read the study. It’s to say, you know, I’m going to try this out in my home and start to remove these things and see, does it change my child’s behavior?

Tonya: Is your child struggling with ADHD? Tired of the same old solutions that don’t seem to work?

You’re not alone. Millions of parents worldwide are grappling with the challenges of raising a child with ADHD. While medication is often the first line of defense, many parents are turning to natural and holistic approaches to help their children thrive. In this episode, we’ll delve into the world of nutritional interventions for ADHD.

We’ll explore how specific dietary changes can significantly improve focus, behavior, and overall well being. Welcome to the Water Prairie Chronicles, a podcast for parents of children with disabilities. I’m your host, Tonya Wollum, and I’m glad you’re here. The information provided in this video is for informational purposes only and should not be considered as medical advice.

Always consult with a qualified healthcare professional before making any decisions related to your health or the health of your child. My guest today is Sandie Gascon, an integrative healing practitioner, author of Heal Yourself, and founder of the Integrative Healing Academy. Sandie, welcome to Water Prairie.

Well, thanks for having me.

So we are going to be talking today about a topic that for me personally is of high interest just because our family does have experience with ADHD and in multiple individuals. And um, so it’s always interesting to find out more of what could we be doing. You know, are we on the right path or are there other things that we could do?

And so I’ve been looking forward to this interview. Let’s start out with looking at research and studies that you have in your experience. How can dietary changes improve focus and behavior in children with ADHD?

Yeah. So most people are eating the standard American diet. It’s highly processed. There’s a lot of artificial flavors.

There’s food dyes. There’s preservatives. It’s very high in toxins. And so when we have, um, anybody with ADHD or any focus issues, but in particularly children, they seem to be a lot more, um, stimulated by these. chemicals. And you really don’t need to look at a study. You can remove them from your child’s diet and see what your child behaves like after, you know, a few days a week, and then put them back in your child’s diet.

And you just created your own at home study. And it’s really, really quite, um, incredible. And for us, Uh, we eat very clean. We, um, have very low chemicals, low toxins in our entire environment. And our, I have a five year old boy, um, and when he goes, if he was to be given a juice box or a sucker or, you know, something that we don’t eat with these.

Um, chemicals in it. It’s amazing to watch his behavioral changes. He becomes more hyperactive. He starts to, um, you know, be very rude, not really being able to empathize. Um, and he’s five. So the empathy is just starting to kick in, but he can see like, you know, how would that feel if that happened to you?

And so he’s, he’s starting to see these things. Um, but when you start adding These toxins like if we go to Lowe’s and he gets a sucker and there’s like blue and yellow food dye on that sucker And it’s high in sugar versus we tend to bake with like maple syrup and honey like Then he has that and all of a sudden you have on the ride home you have him fidgeting in his car seat and kicking the The, uh, seat in front and it’s very, very quick how, how it happens.

And it can take a little bit of time for that to get out of their system. But I think for, for people, the really big experiment is not to read the study. It’s to say, you know, I’m going to try this out in my home and start to remove these things and see, does it change my child’s behavior?

So you’re not even saying that you need to do a full elimination diet, just, you could just try one thing at a time and see if you see a change.

Yeah, exactly, because a lot of people, um, you know, if their child is diagnosed with something, they immediately start looking and researching and it’s like, Oh, I’ve got to cut out dairy. I’ve got to cut it. Gluten. I’ve got to cut out all these things and we’ve been eating dairy and gluten and you know, some people want to go plant based or some people want to go keto or low carb.

And so there’s all these swings to these extremes. But if we look at those foods in general, they are Whole foods we have been eating for thousands and thousands of years. We didn’t have these issues a hundred years ago, like they didn’t exist. So what did we start doing to our foods? You know, what did we do to the grain?

Why are so many people reacting to grain right now? Why weren’t so many people reacting to grain a hundred years ago? Like, what did we do to it? And how do we get back to that instead of how do we cut it out?

For me personally, I’ve gone through some changes in a lot of studies of, um, of the grains in particular, and just how they’ve been modified and all through the years.

Um, and I’ve read some about that. original grain, you know, way, way back. We don’t have that anymore because it’s been modified so much.

We do. It’s called einkorn.

Is the einkorn that we can purchase? Is that the same one still?

Yeah. They, when you go back to like an einkorn flower, it is the same, but when we’re looking at our summer wheat or our spring wheat or winter wheat, we’ve b