The Dr. Hyman Show - 7 Strategies To Address ADHD

Episode Date: November 3, 2023

This episode is brought to you by ButcherBox and AG1. In today’s world, we are seeing an epidemic of ADHD, along with depression, anxiety, dementia, autism, and more. These are systemic disorders where the body affects the brain. Yes, there’s a mind-body connection, but there’s also a body-mind connection. And everybody is different. ADHD is just a name we give to people who share a collection of symptoms: They can’t focus or pay attention, they’re inattentive, and they are hyperactive. These are symptoms. But what are the causes? In today’s episode of my series I’m calling Health Bites, I talk about what causes ADHD, why it’s so prevalent, and my top strategies to address it. I also share a case study of a patient I treated for ADHD. This episode is brought to you by ButcherBox and AG1. For new members of ButcherBox, you can receive New York strip steaks for a year PLUS $20 off your first order. Go to ButcherBox.com/farmacy and use code FARMACY. Head to drinkAG1.com/HYMAN to receive 10 FREE travel packs of AG1 with your first purchase. Here are more details from our interview (audio version / Apple Subscriber version): Everything we do affects the brain (4:39 / 2:39) A case study of a patient I treated who had an ADHD diagnosis (8:18 / 6:16) Getting to the root cause of disease (13:26 / 11:24) Nutritional deficiencies and ADHD (14:13 / 12:11) Immune and inflammatory imbalances in ADHD (17:07 / 15:05) Food sensitivity, gluten intolerance, and ADHD (17:43 / 15:41) Digestive imbalance and ADHD (18:41 / 16:39) Detoxification imbalance and ADHD (19:12 / 17:10) My 7 strategies to address ADHD and broken brains (24:26 / 24:24) Mentioned in this episode The UltraMind Solution Clayton’s handwriting Function Health

Coming up on this episode of The Doctor's Pharmacy. Just because you know the name of the disease, it doesn't mean you know what's wrong with you. What might cause ADD in one kid might be different than another kid. And we have to look for the cause, or often it's multiple causes. Hey everyone, it's Dr. Hyman here.

I'm always being asked how to source high quality meat and seafood. So I wanted to share one of my favorite resources with you that I use to get high quality protein in my own diet. Unfortunately, most meat and seafood at the grocery store is not serving our health. Conventionally raised animals have higher levels of inflammatory fats, not to mention antibiotics, hormones, and other harmful compounds that we just shouldn't eat. And it's not so nice for the animals either. And that's why I love ButcherBox. They make it super easy to get humanely raised meat that you can trust by delivering right

to your doorstep. ButcherBox has everything you could want, like 100% grass-fed and grass-finished beef. And the shipping is always free. ButcherBox is committed to humanely raised animals that are never given antibiotics or added hormones, and since they take out the middleman, you get an extra savings. There is a major stipulation I always tell my patients about when it comes to animal protein. Quality needs to be a priority. With ButcherBox, you can feel good knowing you're getting the highest quality meat and seafood that will help you thrive. Right now, ButcherBox has a special offer. New members can get New York strip steaks for a year plus $20 off your first order. Just go to butcherbox.com forward slash pharmacy and use the code pharmacy F-A-R-M-A-C-Y. Now the basis of any healing protocol should be whole real food,

but with all the GMO foods and long transportation, storage times, and monoculture farming methods, depletion of our soils, food's not as nutritionally dense as it once was, even good stuff. And that's why I recommend supplementing a whole foods diet with a high-quality multivitamin as a basis for any health-oriented program. And the product I personally use comes from Athletic Greens. Their AG1 supplement has 75 different nutrients that work together to fill out the gaps in our diet. I take AG1 every day and I've noticed that I consistently feel better and have more energy throughout the day. Plus, it works with any diet, keto, paleo, vegan,

dairy-free, even gluten-free. AG1 is a simple, easy way to optimize your health. Right now, Athletic Greens is giving away 10 free travel packs with your first purchase. All you have to do is visit athleticgreens.com forward slash Hyman. Again, that's athleticgreens.com forward slash Hyman. And now let's get back to this week's episode of The Doctor's Pharmacy. Welcome to The Doctor's Pharmacy. I'm Dr. Mark Hyman. That's Pharmacy for the NET, a place for conversations that matter.

And if you know anybody with ADD or you've had ADD or you're wondering how in the world it's become such a problem and why one in 10 kids have ADD and Ritalin is sort of in its category of drugs, of stimulants, is sort of the drug of choice for kids these days, you're going to like this podcast because it's part of our Health Bytes series, which is little small bites of information that can help you live better lives by taking small steps to make big changes over time. So let's talk about ADD. Why is this such an epidemic? You know, people say to me all the time, hey, my kid's been diagnosed with ADD. The doctors want to put him on Ritalin. Is there anything else we can do without medication? I have news for you. ADD is not a Ritalin deficiency. It's an attention deficit

disorder, hyperactivity disorder, ADHD, ADD, whatever it is when you call it. It's basically kids who are camp focused, are wired, or distracted and can't function. And we're seeing these drugs just increasingly used for these kids as a treatment for something that has a cause that we can actually fix. A cause or causes, I would say. You know, one in 10 kids in America is on stimulant medications. That's nuts. You know, when I was a little kid, there was that one troublemaker in the class.

That was it. And now it's really a global epidemic. We've seen a 300% increase in the use of ADD medications from 1993 to 2000, even more now. So when did ADD become just a part of being a child, right? And by the way, this is stuff that has permeated not just lower education, elementary school, but high school, colleges, kids are using it for studying. It's become like a recreational drug. So back in the day, you know, it wasn't a thing. Now it is. So today we're going to talk about the causes of ADHD or ADD, why it's so prevalent and what are my top strategies that I've used to address it and some really remarkable transformations I've

seen by addressing these root causes. I'm going to share a case today that is going to blow your mind and actually was a stimulus for me writing my book in, I think it was 2009, it was published, The Ultramind Solution, How to Fix Your Broken Brain by Fixing Your Body First, because I realized that all of our concepts, our notions, our beliefs about brain function, about attention disorders, mood disorders, neurodegenerative disorders was completely wrong. We were focusing on the brain instead of the body. And the whole view of functional medicine is that we are an ecosystem. We're one integrated biological network and everything affects everything, including the brain. And so let's talk about how we begin to kind of start to think about this. And I really focused on not the diseases themselves in the book. I focused on the underlying systems in the body

that go awry, that give rise to dysfunction, right? Functional medicine is about understanding how your body functions and how your brain functions. And there's these fundamental biological networks that we address. I'm just going to briefly mention them. I mean, instead of, you know, saying, oh, I'm going to have a chapter on ADD or a chapter on Alzheimer's or a chapter on Parkinson's or a chapter on depression or a chapter on anxiety, I actually talk about what is underneath all of them, which is disturbances in our biological system, in our network, in our ecosystem. So what are the things that tend to go wrong? Well, our gut, right, is a huge factor in our microbiome. Inflammation in our immune system, the balance of neurotransmitters and hormones, our communication system,

our detoxification system, how we make energy in our mitochondria, and also our nervous system. So there's so many aspects that we have to figure out that are out of balance in any one patient. And I always say, just because you know the name of the disease, it doesn't mean you know what's wrong with you. So what might cause ADD in one kid might be different than another kid. And we have to look for the cause or often it's multiple causes. So I began to kind of explore what's really going on with our brains. Why are we seeing this epidemic of mood disorders, depression, anxiety, bipolar disease, ADD, and also neurodegenerative diseases. We're not going to talk about that today. That's another podcast, but Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, it's just an epidemic of broken brains. And I did a whole

documentary series on this a number of years ago. My book, The Ultramind Solution, has really mapped this out. And I think it's still a bit ahead of its time. I was talking about the microbiome in the brain 15 plus years ago, and nobody was really talking about that. So everything we do affects the brain. What we eat, if we're eating inflammatory foods, how we think, how much we exercise, environmental toxins, our gut flora, there's systemic disorders that affect the brain. So obviously there's a mind-body connection, right? When we have the stressful thought, we feel in our bodies. But there's also a body-mind connection. It's mind-body, body-mind, it's the same network. So we have to understand how both things work, right?

Our body-mind and our mind-body. And it's one really integrated system. So, you know, when you look at ADD and ADHD, it's, you know, it's basically described as a set of symptoms. The way we diagnose in medicine is based on basically, I think, a very outdated model, which is describe the symptoms, and if somebody fits those symptoms, they have the disease. We say, oh, you have trouble focusing or paying attention, you're inattentive, you're hyperactive. I know what's wrong with you.

You have ADHD. No, that's just the name of the disease. It's not the cause of the disease. And so we describe every disease, including particularly mental diseases, mental disorders, through this lens of describing symptoms, not causes. Functional medicine is about causes. So what are the causes? Well, I'm going to take you through a case because I think it'll be a very interesting

way to think about this story. And this is a case that really blew my mind. So the mother brought in her kid to see me who was 12 years old and then two months later brought him back. And the transformation was remarkable, but she brought his homework and we're going to put it in the show notes so you can actually see graphically changes in brain function in just two months with a kid who had severe brain disorder. He had a broken brain, and he could not write legibly to save his life. It was like chicken scratch or a three-year-old writing

versus a 12-year-old. And then within two months, his handwriting totally normalized. And the question is, what happened? So I'm gonna take you through what happened. I'm gonna explain you a story, and I'm gonna actually help you understand how we need to start approaching these disorders in a very different way. So basically, one day this woman walks my office, a professional woman,

businesswoman with her 12-year-old son, who had multiple psychological and physical diagnoses, who were seen by many doctors, seven different doctors, right? He had, you know, a psychiatrist, he had a GI doctor, he had an allergist, he had a pulmonologist. I mean, the list goes on. So nobody was talking to each other and they were all treating different things. So he was diagnosed with ADD and no one seemed to sort of say, how does this one kid have all these problems, right? Is it just bad luck or are they connected? And so functional medicine is about looking for the patterns in the connections that give rise to the clues about the cause. So basically he was diagnosed with ADD when he was a little kid. He couldn't focus in school. He was zoned out. He was

disruptive. I mean, he was kicked out of kindergarten. I mean, who's kicked out of kindergarten, right? He had terrible writing. We call it dysgraphia. He was pretty good at math, but basically was a disaster. Behaviorally, academically, socially, was just not thriving. And physically, he had all these issues, right? He had asthma. He had environmental allergies. He had sinus problems. He he had asthma he had environmental allergies he had sinus problems he had post-nasal drip he had sore throats he got skin issues eczema nausea stomach aches diarrhea headaches anal itching which we'll get to why that is he had canker sores which are immune things right all his immune inflammation muscle aches muscle cramps he was hypersensitive to loud noises,

to smells. He was sneezing a lot. He had hives, itchy skin, bumps, frequent infections. He couldn't sleep well. He had trouble breathing when he slept. He had anxiety. He was fearful all the time, and he had tons of sugar cravings. Now, that is a long list of problems. My joke is I take care of patients, and I'm a holistic doctor because I take care of people with a whole list of problems. And he had a whole list of problems and nobody says, how are all these connected? They're all inflammation. What we now know is that ADD, autism, depression, dementia, Parkinson's, these are inflammatory diseases of the brain, even schizophrenia, bipolar disease, all these are inflammatory brain disorders. So doctors were treating, and all these specialists were treating all the symptoms with seven different medications from five different doctors, Ritalin for ADD, allergy medicine, inhalers for his asthma,

acid blocking medicine for his stomach, painkillers for his headaches. I mean, it's quite a drug cocktail for a 12-year-old kid, and he didn't really get that much relief anyway on any of his symptoms. And no one said, you know, how is this connected, right? How is this connected? And why is this kid suffering from all this? And so really, this is just how medicine is. We see specialists after specialists. We get pill after pill. We get a pill for every ill, and it was just kind of a mess. So most psychiatrists are trained about the brain or really the mind, right? They don't really learn much about the brain. They think, you know, it's basically, you know, their job is from the neck up and it's all emotional, psychological, but we often misappropriate

psychological or psychiatric diagnoses to physical things, right? If you have mercury poisoning, it can cause depression, right? If you have huge amounts of inflammation from an altered microbiome, you can have ADD. So you need to figure out what the root causes and not just be slapping on different drugs for different diseases. So, you know, it's important to understand what the physical things are, but not to get stopped there and not to just say, let's treat each one separately. We have to see how they're connected. So the medications he was on were kind of nuts, and they weren't helping much. But he's not alone. Most kids on tons of medications, from allergy medication to antidepressants to stimulants.

And we're seeing kids with mental, behavioral, emotional problems like Clayton had, and they're now getting drugs like antipsychotic medications they give to schizophrenics like Risperidol or anti-seizure medications, Trileptal or antidepressants, like I said, like Prozac or all the stimulants like Ritalin, Concerta, Adderall or Vyvanse. Now, when we dug below the surface with Clayton, we found all sorts of stuff. Now, in functional medicine, I don't actually treat disease. I don't really care that much about the name of your disease. What I care about, what is going on in the systems in your body that is out of balance, and how do I figure that out? And what are the basic categories of things that matter, right? It's our lifestyle and our nutritional exercise, sleep, relationships, it's various factors that cause us

to get out of balance, toxins, allergens, microbes, poor diet, stress, all these things wash over these systems and create imbalance. So my job as a detective to figure out where this particular child's imbalances were and fix them and see what happens, right? I just kind of put things back in balance like tuning up a car and then you kind of hope crush fingers and usually it works sometimes you kind of get stuck or there's something else you missed but but it's actually quite effective so the first step was nutrition i mean clayton had which was the name had the worst diet all he ate was junk food processed food he i don't think he ever saw vegetables life and it's typical of a lot of these kids who are on the spectrum of autism or ADD.

They typically have very finicky dietary habits. They typically eat tons of carbs. They love gluten and dairy. But he wasn't just eating whole wheat bread and sheep cheese. He was eating junk food, trans fats, food coloring, additives, tons of sugar. And all these things have been associated with ADD. Now, when we looked at his lab testing, we found some really interesting things. And I think most people do not

dig below the surface to look at labs. And we did a deep dive. We found he had omega-3 fat deficiency, EPA and DHA, which are incredibly important for brain function. 60% of your brain is DHA. And if you have low levels, it's associated with ADD, as well as eczema, immune deficiency, a lot of the things that he had. We looked at his vitamin levels. We saw low levels of amino acids like tryptophan. We saw metabolic pathways that were indicating he had a deficiency of B6, which is important for making serotonin from tryptophan and helping his mood, right? His mood was unstable. He had sleep issues. And so that, you know, B6 was a big factor. And it's often with kids with

ADD or autism. And we see, you know, also vitamin A deficiency, which is important for immunity. And the omega-3 deficiency and vitamin A deficiency led to little things like bumps on his back. So we call these hyperkeratosis pilaris. I could touch his skin. I could see little bumpy things. That was because of these nutritional deficiencies. He was low in vitamin D. He was low in vitamin E and beta carotene because he ate vegetables, right?

So it's a diet very high in junk food, which is nutrient poor, and very low in nutrient-dense food. He had low levels of zinc, and zinc we know is important for immune function, regulates hundreds of enzymes, it's important for getting rid of heavy metals, it's important for ADD and autism, and it was really consistent with his symptoms of frequent infections of eczema, allergies, hyperactivity.

He also had low magnesium. Magnesium deficiency is really common, and it led to headaches, anxiety, insomnia, muscle cramps, spasms, aches, hypersensitivity to loud noises. All these are signs of magnesium deficiency. And we do testing. And I recently co-founded a company called Function Health to help people get access to their own labs and to be able to look at some of these deep nutritional testing as well as metabolic testing and many things we're going to talk about with Clayton, things that are often missed by a traditional doctor or not checked. When was the last time

your doctor checked your omega-3 level, or vitamin A, or magnesium, or vitamin D? These are all part of our standard function health panels, and I think it's really important for you to think about. So go check out functionhealth.com. You can sign up for the wait list, and it gives you really great guidance on how to optimize your health using personalized recommendations. So the next thing we looked at besides nutrition was his immune system because he has so many inflammatory things, right? He had, you know, infections. He had asthma. He had sore throats. He had allergies. He had all these inflammatory things. So it was like flashing red light, inflammation, inflammation. Inflammation is at the root of so many problems, including brain diseases. So we looked at the factors that cause actually inflammation, such as food allergies, environmental allergies, molds,

toxins, chronic low-grade infections. Maybe he had a whole bunch of these things. We found some testing. We looked at food sensitivity testing. And he had a whole bunch of these things. We found some testing. We looked at food sensitivity testing. And he had a lot of foods he was reacting to, about 18 different foods, including dairy, peanuts, yeast, citrus, foods, gluten, especially gluten. And he had gluten antibodies, which, again, are not checked by most doctors, but actually were elevated. And so we found he really was sensitive to gluten. So gluten basically is a huge factor for these kids often with ADD or autism.

It triggers this low-grade chronic inflammation in the brain, an immune response. It makes leaky gut worse, causes canker sores. So when he had canker sores, I was clued in that he might have a gluten issue. It can be celiac disease or gluten sensitivity. And he had elevated anti-glycan antibodies, which is basically an autoimmune reaction to the proteins found in gluten and that are found in wheat, rye, barley, spelt, and oats.

Now, so massive inflammation. And we knew we had gluten issues. We knew we had food sensitivities and some other things that were causing it. And he also had tons of gut symptoms, right? So we looked at his digestive system, nausea, diarrhea, stomach aches, anal itching. He had a sensitive stomach. He had lots of antibiotics for sore throats and he had then yeast overgrowth because of all the

antibiotics and abnormal gut flora. We looked at his stool test. He had leaky gut, which basically creates a damage in the gut that allows food proteins and bacteria to leak in. And his immune system was just so pissed off. And it wasn't just affecting his asthma and allergies, it was also affecting his brain. The next thing we looked at were toxins, because we take a look at nutrition, we take a look at gut, we took immune issues, we look at the causes. And so we started to look at whether or not he had any environmental toxins, which we know can cause ADD and even autism. And heavy metals were an issue for him. He had high levels of lead and mercury. And he had similar probably exposure to other kids, but they're often not looked at and not treated.

They might check up lead level. They don't ever look at a challenge test. And genetically, nutritionally, he couldn't really detoxify these. And we know mercury and lead are associated with GI symptoms, autoimmune issues, cognitive problems, that lead has been actually very well linked to ADD and behavioral issues, cognitive problems. And there's no doubt about the data on this. You don't have to believe me, just go to PubMed and put lead and ADHD, and you'll come up with plenty of scientific papers to explain how this actually is all working. So basically maybe, you know, the world is polluted, right? We have so many cement factories, coal burning factories, all of which spew out lead and mercury. It goes into the

soil. Kids are playing in the dirt or maybe there's toys made from China that are covered with lead paint or maybe the people have leaded paint in their house or even lead covered glasses or i mean uh crystal glasses or or fancy plates um but basically he was exposed to all these dangers of the industrial revolution and he also had a little bit of mold in his house and he had food additives that you know we can't measure those things but i'm sure they were causing a problem so basically his problem wasn't riditalin deficiency or bad parenting, right? The cause was in his diet. It was environmental toxins.

It was in his microbiome. And so we basically constructed a very simple treatment. So we think, oh my God, there's so many things, you know, he's got 25 different diseases, right? Well, what do you do? So it was quite simple. We basically looked at the causes. So we basically looked at the nutritional deficiencies, the toxic, the environmental toxins he was exposed to, the food sensitivities, all the processed food we got rid of, the gluten, all the yeast overgrowth. And we found out what sort of was causing him to be out of balance, right? So basically the body is a system of equilibrium, and either you have too much of something that's causing you to be out of balance or not enough of something that's causing you that you need to be in balance, right? He had all these deficiencies of nutritional stuff, all these other things like

yeast overgrowth and heavy metals and gluten. They were irritating his system. So he can't just do one thing. And I think in medicine, they go, well, let's do one thing and see what happens. Well, we won't know unless you do a randomized controlled trial with one intervention and one outcome. Well, that's just BS because if you want to grow a plant, you don't go, well, I'm just going to give it water, but no soil and sun and see what happens. Or I'm going to give it soil, but no water or I'll give it sun, but no soil and water. You know, it's just the whole thing is an insane, backwards, antiquated framework for thinking about disease. And it's why we're in this really powerful transformation in medicine right now. It hasn't

quite caught up to the clinic in most cases, but it really is where we're all going. So we have to get rid of the bad stuff, put in the good stuff. And then we had to find what was missing that he needed to thrive, right? To restore normal functioning. He needed a bunch of multivitamin, which had all those things he was deficient in. He needed omega-3 fats, B6, zinc, vitamin D. We needed to put back healthy gut bacteria, probiotics. He needed a little bit of amino acid support. We gave him five hydroxy tryptophan to help him sleep and for his anxiety. And, you know, the mother was great. She was, you know, professional on it, you know, got his diet straight. We cleaned up his diet, put him on whole foods, basically gave him a multivitamin

fish on some of these supplements, gave him any fungal cleared out his gut, give him probiotics. And we basically kind of reset his system, right? And at two months, the mother brought him back and gotten off all the medications. I didn't tell her to stop, but he was better. So she basically stopped all the different medications he was on, stopped the Ritalin, stopped the antihistamines like Zyrtec and Tagamet, stopped the bronchodilators for the inhalers, the steroid inhaler, stopped the Tylenol, stopped the Abdofros headaches. And it was amazing. He was really normal. I was like, boom. And it doesn't always happen like that. But for him, it was so powerful to see this 12-year-old who'd struggled so much. He basically returned to a normal kid. His

attention improved. He wasn't disruptive in home or school. He wasn't irritable or anxious. All of the symptoms were gone for the first time in his life. Asthma gone, hives gone, runny nose gone, anal itching, which is from yeast, by the way, goes away. Stomach aches. Gonorrhea. Diarrhea. Headaches, which magnesium deficiency. Muscle cramps.

Sensitive to loud noises. All resolved. He could fall asleep at night. He could stay asleep. He was succeeding socially in school and academically. And it was kind of funny because he says, you know, Dr. Hyman, you know, I'm even able to resist the kids that are calling me a weirdo for not drinking soda. So, you know, I think he really got it, and he saw the changes in himself, and he was very motivated because he saw how much better he felt. So some severe cases of ADD require medications, but for most kids,

those simple dietary lifestyle changes can have huge differences and a profound impact without actually needing medication. So what are the seven strategies that I use for ADD and for broken brains in general? One, eat a real food diet, right? Get rid of all the junk, additives, sugars, processed fats, trans fats, processed food, ultra processed food. And eat real whole food, lots of fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds, really good fats. Fats are important for the brain, adequate amounts of protein., whole food. Lots of fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds, really good fats. Fat's important for the brain. Adequate amounts of protein. Just eat food.

And you know what that is if you listen to me forever. I've written The Pegan Diet, Food With Hex I Eat. There's lots of information. The next is food sensitivities are often a big factor. They're little, not food allergies necessarily like peanut allergy, but basically things that cause inflammation in the body because of a damage to the gut. And gluten and dairy are the big ones. And partially digested dairy and wheat particles have been described to actually cause significant cognitive changes, can be linked to schizophrenia,

to autism, to ADD. They produce morphine-like compounds called caseomorphins and gluteomorphins that interact with opioid receptors in the brain and basically make you stoned and out of it. We can find these in the urine of these patients in kids with autism, ADD, even people who are severely depressed. So I generally recommend 100% elimination of gluten dairy for at least six weeks, sometimes 12 weeks to see what happens. But it's really powerful when you just see the effect of these things. And there's tests you can do to figure this out too. And we do those. Nutritional deficiencies, you got to address those. So we've got to address nutritional deficiencies, including magnesium, zinc, selenium, tryptophan for this kid, fatty acids, all these things played a role

in his ADD. And so they all work synergistically. And I think, you know, really his program was not the same as the program for our next kid with ADD because they're all a little bit different, but the basic principles are the same, right? Eat a whole food diet, get rid of food sensitivities, address nutritional deficiencies, fix your gut. That's another one. So fixing the gut is a huge, powerful strategy for getting rid of many, many symptoms. Now, he did have a lot of gut symptoms, but even kids without gut symptoms often have imbalances in their gut flora and affects their cognitive function as well as their overall health. So he got relief from so much of his systems by helping reset his gut, right? Getting off the junk, gluten, dairy, so he removed all the bad stuff,

gave him probiotics, gave him any fungal, basically helped his gut restore. And it was incredible because we now know the microbiome is connecting everything from allergies and autoimmunity to depression, to autism, to OCD, to ADD, to dementia, to Parkinson's. We know the gut plays a huge role. So microbiome is key in fixing that. Making sure your diet's anti-inflammatory. It's not just taking out the bad stuff, but it's adding in the good stuff. And we know these diseases are brain inflammation diseases. And they have high levels of cytokines and systemic inflammation. They affect every part of the body. But these kids are really problematic. So you want a lot of colorful fruits and vegetables, lots of good fats, particularly omega-3 fats, and lots of really powerful

nutrients. Also, you want to detoxify. If you have toxins in your household, in your skincare products, in your food, in your body, you want to get rid of them. And the Environmental Working Group has a great website, ewg.org, to actually learn about which things you can use in your household that are not toxic, which food you can eat, and so forth. So I encourage people to really reduce their toxic load. And sometimes you actually need to put people on a chelation or detoxification program,

which I did with Clayton. So I encourage you to check out the graphic, because the graphic of his handwriting, you know, all this treatment was so profound. And it kind of was like a wake-up call for me. I was like, holy crap. Yeah, this kid's physical symptoms are better. Yeah, his mother's saying he's better in ADD and all that's great. And maybe his numbers look better. And we redid his test and his numbers look better.

But when she brought in his homework, which was illegible on day one, two months later, was perfect penmanship. It wasn't like I sent him to handwriting school. What happened was his brain was chaotic, dyssynchronous, and kind of completely jumbled. And when we reset his brain, it was coherent and synchronized and functional, right? So that's what we want. And we want that across the board for our health for our kids now uh every kid every kid's unique whether you have anything on the spectrum you know autism

learning disorders add adhd you have to find out what's going on and you need really a good functional medicine doctor who understands these diseases and how to actually function these but but you actually can get better um now just just one note, getting off medications is tricky. So make sure you work with your provider if you want to think about stopping medications. I would encourage you to stop if you don't actually have someone you're working with, or you can properly regulate the treatment and the doses and making sure you get off at the right time. But what's really amazing is that the brain is so responsive to these things, and it's not that hard. And now, thank God, there's people like Christopher Palmer,

who is from Harvard, who's written a book called Brain Energy, really talking about how we can cure things even like schizophrenia using a functional medicine dietary approach. We have Umunadu at Harvard also looking at the microbiome and mood disorders, or scientists and doctors at Stanford in the metabolic psychiatry department looking at the role of metabolic health in the brain. So this is becoming now a thing that we have understood that it's not going to be fixed by talk therapy or behavioral therapy. You have to deal with the underlying issues. And that's it for understanding the real transformations we need. So I hope you enjoyed this little bit around ADD.

I think I hope you've been able to pay attention and you don't have ADD. I would love you to subscribe wherever you get your podcast. It means a lot. Just hit the subscribe button. Leave a comment. And what have you used to help yourself

or your child or someone you know? And what's worked for you with ADD or any kind of mental disorder we'd love to hear. And we'll see you next week on The Doctor's Pharmacy. Hey everybody, it's Dr. Hyman. Thanks for tuning into The Doctor's Pharmacy. I hope you're loving this podcast. It's one of my favorite things to do and introducing you all the experts that I know and I love and that I've learned so much from. And I want to tell you about something else I'm doing, which is called Mark's Picks. It's my weekly newsletter. And in it, I share my favorite stuff from foods to supplements, to gadgets, to tools to enhance your health.

It's all the cool stuff that I use and that my team uses to optimize and enhance our health. And I'd love you to sign up for the weekly newsletter. I'll only send it to you once a week on Fridays, nothing else, I promise. And all you do is go to drhyman.com forward slash pics to sign up. That's drhyman.com forward slash pics, P-I-C-K-S, and sign up for the newsletter and I'll share with you my favorite stuff that I use to enhance my health and get healthier and better and live younger longer. Hi everyone, I hope you enjoyed this week's episode. Just a reminder that this podcast

is for educational purposes only. This podcast is not a substitute for professional care by a doctor or other qualified medical professional. This podcast is provided on the understanding that it does not constitute medical or other professional advice or services. If you're looking for help in your journey,

seek out a qualified medical practitioner. If you're looking for a functional medicine practitioner, you can visit ifm.org and search their Find a Practitioner database. It's important that you have someone in your corner who's trained, who's a licensed healthcare practitioner, and can help you make changes, especially when it comes to your health.