Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Exercise, food and other supports
Vitamin C cannot really be stockpiled, since the excess leaves in your urine. A, D, E and K are stored in fat, so a large daily dose keeps adding to itself.
Vitamin D is where this bites at the moment, after a lot of people started taking big amounts on their own during the pandemic years. If you are taking a high dose of anything fat soluble, tell whoever prescribes for you, even when it feels like just a vitamin and not worth mentioning.
Qur’an and Sunnah
Eat and drink, but do not be extravagant: God does not like extravagant people (Quran 7:31). Extravagance is possible with things that are good for you, which is the harder version to spot.
۞يَٰبَنِيٓ ءَادَمَ خُذُواْ زِينَتَكُمۡ عِندَ كُلِّ مَسۡجِدࣲ وَكُلُواْ وَٱشۡرَبُواْ وَلَا تُسۡرِفُوٓاْۚ إِنَّهُۥ لَا يُحِبُّ ٱلۡمُسۡرِفِينَ
Children of Adam, dress well whenever you are at worship, and eat and drink [as We have permitted] but do not be extravagant: God does not like extravagant people
Qur’an 7:31read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
It is not that these nutrients do nothing. A randomised trial of vitamin D with magnesium in children with ADHD who were deficient found improvements in mental health measures. Note who was studied: children who were short of it to begin with, in a small trial. Correcting a shortage is a different act from adding more to a level that is already fine.
Hemamy M, Pahlavani N, Amanollahi A, Islam SMS, McVicar J, Askari G, Malekahmadi M. (2021). The effect of vitamin D and magnesium supplementation on the mental health status of attention-deficit hyperactive children: a randomized controlled trial.. BMC pediatrics doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
What the body cannot flush out it keeps, and the keeping happens quietly.
When not to
If you are pregnant or have kidney or liver problems, high dose vitamins need a doctor's approval first.
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
The amount in a capsule can vary from bottle to bottle, and sometimes between capsules in the same bottle. Undeclared fillers have been found in them too.
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.
Try swapping the word picky for particular. A fair number of people with ADHD have more densely packed taste buds, so the bitterness in a sprout arrives at full volume.