nutrition blood tests

Q: Is lead or dietary testing worthwhile for adults and children with ADHD?

A: Yes, I think it is, but recognize that this is not the current standard of care, so if your clinician doesn’t want to do it, they are only following this standard of care. Personally I would check it for a few reasons: even a little exposure to lead seems to be correlated if the child is genetically vulnerable. Since we can’t prove genetic vulnerability, then it makes sense to go ahead and reduce whatever lead exposure your child is getting. We list those steps in the book (Chapter 7) but examples are filtering your water, cleaning up old paint around the house, and testing the soil. With diet, we do know that there are some kids with ADHD that have low levels of omega-3 or other nutrients in their blood. This is a direct target that would be worth checking, but you can do dietary supplemental things even without blood tests. You can try these things and see if you notice benefits. We have details on each of these ideas in the book as well (Chapter 3). Get yours here: https://www.guilford.com/books/Getting-Ahead-of-ADHD/Joel-Nigg/9781462524938?promo=2E

 

Dr. Nigg cannot advise on individual cases for ethical, legal, and logistical reasons.