Widespread Panic
 This is the second in our series of “If It’s not ADHD, What is It?”
We’ve long known that kids need plenty of vitamin D for healthy bones. We urge parents to make sure kids get plenty of sunshine. We put vitamin D in milk. And my Mom went a step further: forcing me to swallow tablespoons of nasty cod liver oil.
Now scientists at Children’s Hospital and Research Center in Oakland California have discovered that a lack of vitamin D can cause brain dysfunction. Turns out that vitamin D affects proteins in the brain directly involved in learning, memory, and motor control. There’s also a suggestion, no proof yet, that lack of vitamin D is involved with controlling behavior.
Vitamin D deficiency is so widespread that the American Academy of Pediatrics recently suggested doubling the amount of vitamin D it recommends for infants, children, and adolescents to 400 IU a day. Pediatricians are now telling parents to give their kids fish oil capsules or vitamin D supplements.
African-American kids and their parents tend to lack more vitamin D than whites because darker skin absorbs fewer ultra-violet rays from the sun. So Black kids who show ADHD behaviors often suffer nothing more than a lack of vitamin D, an easily corrected deficiency.
So you can add vitamin D deficiency to the growing list of factors that look like ADHD but aren’t. Get kids drinking vitamin D fortified milk and orange juice, playing outdoors in the sunshine, and eating the few foods high in vitamin D (oily fish like salmon).
Vitamin D supplements make sense. Not enough foods contain enough vitamin D to prevent the deficiency. And too much sun causes brutal sunburns on those blond, fair-skinned kids which can eventually lead to skin cancer. Sun screen prevents sunburn, but it also prevents the absorption of vitamin D from the ultra-violet rays of the sun.
So fix salmon for dinner accompanied by a big glass of milk, and give the kids a 400 IU vitamin D supplement. Send them out to play in the sunshine but don’t forget the sunscreen. The vitamin D they’d absorb from the sun doesn’t make up for the long term risks of skin cancer.
Enough vitamin D and maybe those annoying ADHD behaviors will stop.
And have you ever wondered if your kids really have ADHD? Now you can get the FREE “Maybe They Don’t have ADHD” inventory and checklist. Lists 43 factors that contribute to ADHD-like behavior. Copy the checklist. Use it over and over. Give it to teachers and parents. Help stop the over-diagnosis of ADHD!
You’ll get the ADHD inventory and checklist when you subscribe to the FREE “ADHD NewsTips,” a three-times weekly email with easy to use, effective tips for helping those ADHD kids. You’ll find it at http://www.adhdchildrentoday.com/newstipssubscribe.htm
From MaryJo Wagner, Ph.D. – The Learning Doctor, helping you help your kids learn any subject at any time easily and quickly.
Widespread Panic – Raleigh 2008 – w/ Ann Marie Calhoun