Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Exercise, food and other supports
In one trial, children were given omegas with a multivitamin, omegas alone, or neither, and after fifteen weeks everybody got both. The omega groups gained on set shifting and attention, and the children who started with nothing caught up once they crossed over.
Two features of that design are worth understanding. Everyone receiving the treatment eventually shows that the improvement follows the treatment rather than belonging to one lucky group of children. Splitting the package apart shows which piece carried it, and the multivitamin did not appear to be adding anything to attention scores. If someone is already eating roughly in line with standard dietary advice, the multivitamin is the part they can probably drop.
Qur’an and Sunnah
Crops of diverse flavours, the olive, the pomegranate, alike yet different (Quran 6:141). Things that arrive together in one basket are not the same thing, and it is worth knowing which one you needed.
۞وَهُوَ ٱلَّذِيٓ أَنشَأَ جَنَّٰتࣲ مَّعۡرُوشَٰتࣲ وَغَيۡرَ مَعۡرُوشَٰتࣲ وَٱلنَّخۡلَ وَٱلزَّرۡعَ مُخۡتَلِفًا أُكُلُهُۥ وَٱلزَّيۡتُونَ وَٱلرُّمَّانَ مُتَشَٰبِهࣰ ا وَغَيۡرَ مُتَشَٰبِهࣲۚ كُلُواْ مِن ثَمَرِهِۦٓ إِذَآ أَثۡمَرَ وَءَاتُواْ حَقَّهُۥ يَوۡمَ حَصَادِهِۦۖ وَلَا تُسۡرِفُوٓاْۚ إِنَّهُۥ لَا يُحِبُّ ٱلۡمُسۡرِفِينَ
It is He who produces both trellised and untrellised gardens, date palms, crops of diverse flavours, the olive, the pomegranate, alike yet different. So when they bear fruit, eat some of it, paying what is due on the day of harvest, but do not be wasteful: God does not like wasteful people
Qur’an 6:141read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
There is a plausible biological story sitting alongside this. One review describes how vitamin D and omega-3 fatty acids might influence serotonin synthesis and executive function in ADHD, offering a mechanism rather than trial evidence. A mechanism plus one well built trial is encouraging rather than settled, and other work on omegas has come out much less positive.
Patrick RP, Ames BN. (2015). Vitamin D and the omega-3 fatty acids control serotonin synthesis and action, part 2: relevance for ADHD, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and impulsive behavior.. FASEB journal : official publication of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
When you take a package apart and test the pieces, you find out what you were actually paying for.
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
If fish oil gives you those horrible repeats all afternoon, that is a fixable problem rather than a reason to stop. Keep the capsules in the freezer, ask about an enteric coated version, or try a flavoured liquid.
When you read that a treatment worked, look for who judged the improvement and whether they knew what the child had been given. In much of this literature, they knew.
Headsets have become cheap enough to sit in an ordinary consulting room, and the use with the best backing is graded exposure. You can set the intensity exactly and repeat it as often as the person needs.