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The studies linking pesticide levels to ADHD are tangled up with income, since families least able to buy organic differ in plenty of other ways too. If organic food is affordable for you, fine. If it is not, you are not failing your child.
In one study of 1,140 children, 94% had detectable pesticide in their urine, and ADHD was about twice as common among those with higher organophosphate levels. That sounds alarming until you notice that having less money predicts both the higher levels and the diagnosis. Organic food has not been shown to carry extra nutrients either. If you want to prioritise, buy organic for the few items that carry the most residue and let the rest go.
Qur’an and Sunnah
It was not their own hands that made all this (Quran 36:35). The fruit is a gift whether or not it carries a particular label on the packet.
لِيَأۡكُلُواْ مِن ثَمَرِهِۦ وَمَا عَمِلَتۡهُ أَيۡدِيهِمۡۚ أَفَلَا يَشۡكُرُونَ
so that they could eat its fruit. It was not their own hands that made all this. How can they not give thanks
Qur’an 36:35read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
This is the standing limit on observational nutrition findings. Across prospective cohorts, people eating closer to a healthy dietary pattern had modestly lower odds of later depression, and the reviewers are clear that the association is observational and confounding cannot be ruled out. People who eat differently differ in many other ways, and statistical adjustment never fully separates them.
Lassale C, Batty GD, Baghdadli A, Jacka F, Sánchez-Villegas A, Kivimäki M, Akbaraly T. (2019). Healthy dietary indices and risk of depressive outcomes: a systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies.. Molecular psychiatry doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
When one background factor produces both of the things you are comparing, the link between them can be real in the data and still not be a cause.
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 your body has something going on as well, try to get both looked after at the same time rather than in a queue. Therapy for what happened to you does not have to wait for your gut to settle, and it often goes better when the two run side by side.
Several herbal products change how fast the liver processes medication, which can leave a prescribed drug either weaker or stronger without a single change to the dose.
Here is a question that costs nothing: has anyone in your family been told their vitamin D was low? It runs in families through genes, skin tone, where you live and how much time anyone spends outside.