Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Exercise, food and other supports
If a stimulant that was working suddenly is not, ask what else the person has started taking before deciding the dose needs to go up.
One woman's Adderall went flat while she was on a herbal supplement and came back to its usual self once she stopped it. Herbs can shift stomach acidity and the enzymes and transporters that handle a drug, and amphetamines are particularly fussy about acidity as they are absorbed. Missing that leads straight to a higher dose nobody needed.
Qur’an and Sunnah
Let man consider the food he eats (Quran 80:24). Consider is not a light word, and it covers what you take alongside your medicine as much as what is on the plate.
فَلۡيَنظُرِ ٱلۡإِنسَٰنُ إِلَىٰ طَعَامِهِۦٓ
Let man consider the food he eats
Qur’an 80:24read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
An updated review of treatments for adolescents with ADHD found that non-drug options generally underperformed medication, with behaviour therapy having only preliminary support. If medication is carrying much of the load for someone, an unexplained drop in how well it works deserves proper investigation rather than patching over with more milligrams.
Sibley MH, Kuriyan AB, Evans SW, Waxmonsky JG, Smith BH. (2014). Pharmacological and psychosocial treatments for adolescents with ADHD: an updated systematic review of the literature.. Clinical psychology review doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Something else in the stomach can change how much of the medicine ever reaches the bloodstream.
When not to
Dose changes belong to the prescriber; the job here is to bring them the information.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.
Near this one
More clinicians now raise supplements themselves, and more of them will suggest something like omegas. The shift matters less for what gets recommended and more for what it does to disclosure.
Keep something to eat and drink within reach for hard conversations. Handing someone a biscuit and a glass of water often settles a room faster than any instruction does.
With EEG neurofeedback, the weaker the study, the better the results look. Six large trials using sham feedback, with parents and teachers kept unaware of who received what, found nothing beyond placebo.