ADHD for Everyone And Drugs, Too.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Orthomolecular Medicine News Service, October 28, 2013

ADHD for Everyone
And Drugs, Too.

Commentary by Ralph Campbell, M.D.

(OMNS Oct 28, 2013) I've seen several pharmaceutical videos about ADHD lately. One http://mental.healthguru.com/video/adult-adhd-and-the-workplace?src=4cjN started with a cartoon that resembled a "Simpsons" episode. I initially thought it was a gag. It appeared to be a typical presentation about a drug with the usual casual fast-talk about side effects that included death from a stroke. It was so straightforward yet insidious and comical, that it simply had to be a satire. I enjoyed the presentation right up to the end, only to find that it was real. It was an ad that had nothing to do with ADHD. The drug goes under the name of Abilify and was supposed to be given along with an antidepressant when the antidepressant alone wasn't working. The video got me thinking of how I've always wanted to see a satire of this type of drug ad. It would be so refreshing to see a cartoon that would bash the drug for a change.

"Saying no to drugs" also requires saying "yes" to something else. That something else is nutrition, properly employed.

Then came the video itself, "ADHD in the Workplace." It was presented by a doctor, garbed not in the typical stethoscope and white lab coat, but in a casual open-necked shirt, giving the viewer the feeling, "I'm really just one of you, not a pompous M.D." He described the symptoms of ADHD. The message seemed to be that if you are restless and have trouble concentrating, you probably have this common disorder. It didn't mention that these symptoms are normal for most people who are distracted or anxious, and often a consequence of deficits of essential nutrients. Now, the workplace has to adjust to your problem. For relief of restlessness, move around and go to the restroom. This advice almost sounded like the cliché, "hang around the water cooler." To relieve your inability to concentrate, wear earphones. Then the advice, "You may even be eligible for workman's compensation" which could support treatment with taxpayers' money.

Too bad that most doctors don't know how to truly diagnose such common disorders that are in fact caused by deficiencies of essential nutrients. Most medical schools barely touch on the importance of nutrition. Medical student training pays little attention to prevention but much to finding a medicine for every disease. The students are usually unaware that pharmaceutical companies heavily influence the curriculum. In practice, the health insurance carrier determines the course of action.

If nutritional treatment is so good, how come your doctor doesn't use it? The answer may have more to do with medical politics than with medical science. Says psychiatrist Abram Hoffer: "The DSM system (the standard of the American Psychiatric Association) has little or no relevance to diagnosis. It has no relevance to treatment, either. No matter which terms are used to classify these children, they are all recommended for treatment with drug therapy. If the entire diagnostic scheme were scrapped today, it would make almost no difference to the way these children were treated, or to the outcome of treatment. Nor would their patients feel any better or worse."

The extension of this childhood diagnosis to adults has gone awry. When confined to a system in which medicines are preferred to nutritional remedies, pharmaceutical profits drive marketing campaigns and treatments. Recently I saw a comment that "The problem is, if a drug is available to the doctors, they will make the corresponding diagnosis." I had come to the same conclusion many decades ago. The drug Ritalin, due to its amphetamine-like effect, had found a niche in the treatment of the rare but serious disease, narcolepsy. The pharmaceutical company that made Ritalin was searching for another disorder to apply it to. ADHD promised many more patients and profits.

Now they have really hit pay dirt: ADHD medication for all ages!

(Ralph Campbell, MD, a board certified pediatrician, has been a lifelong advocate of nutritional medicine. Now in his mid 80s, Dr. Campbell stays active (but not hyperactive) as an octogenarian orchard farmer in Montana.)

Editor's note: The next OMNS will discuss nutritional alternatives to ADHD drug therapy.


Nutritional Medicine is Orthomolecular Medicine

Orthomolecular medicine uses safe, effective nutritional therapy to fight illness. For more information: http://www.orthomolecular.org


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Editorial Review Board:

Ian Brighthope, M.D. (Australia)
Ralph K. Campbell, M.D. (USA)
Carolyn Dean, M.D., N.D. (USA)
Damien Downing, M.D. (United Kingdom)
Dean Elledge, D.D.S., M.S. (USA)
Michael Ellis, M.D. (Australia)
Martin P. Gallagher, M.D., D.C. (USA)
Michael Gonzalez, D.Sc., Ph.D. (Puerto Rico)
William B. Grant, Ph.D. (USA)
Steve Hickey, Ph.D. (United Kingdom)
Michael Janson, M.D. (USA)
Robert E. Jenkins, D.C. (USA)
Bo H. Jonsson, M.D., Ph.D. (Sweden)
Peter H. Lauda, M.D. (Austria)
Thomas Levy, M.D., J.D. (USA)
Stuart Lindsey, Pharm.D. (USA)
Jorge R. Miranda-Massari, Pharm.D. (Puerto Rico)
Karin Munsterhjelm-Ahumada, M.D. (Finland)
Erik Paterson, M.D. (Canada)
W. Todd Penberthy, Ph.D. (USA)
Gert E. Schuitemaker, Ph.D. (Netherlands)
Robert G. Smith, Ph.D. (USA)
Jagan Nathan Vamanan, M.D. (India)
Atsuo Yanagisawa, M.D., Ph.D. (Japan)

Andrew W. Saul, Ph.D. (USA), Editor and contact person. Email: omns@orthomolecular.org This is a comments-only address; OMNS is unable to respond to individual reader emails. However, readers are encouraged to write in with their viewpoints. Reader comments become the property of OMNS and may or may not be used for publication.


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nice article.

In Europe it's a bit harder to get those meds. I mean, they are not prescribed here until found really ''necessarily'', lol. It's funny that cocaine was put out of coke, but you can get similar stuff for free if you are ill. It's all legal...

The video ''ADHD in the workplace'' is showing the way to accept the condition rather to improve it. Still, it's smart to lesser your distraction options for whatever you do, but it's simply not working out while ruining the team work if addressed that way. ''They'' seem to admit as they can't address it properly, meanwhile ''put this into your mouth'' to feel better. It sounds like a fair story, but it's really not. When one starts taking those poisons, their brain health is about to decline faster, despite feeling better. I never took Ritalin or Adderal, so cant comment it's effect and feeling. Some people claim amazing learning experiences while overdosing. But again, those are the ones that never finished our uni study.

Is diagnosis of ADHD even exact? I found some studies that showed different nutrient deficiencies profiles. As i've already read your content on such topic and put it into practice, is there some more to it?


To extent even neurofeedback helps for the condition... A lot good report stories that seem to work the best if both worlds are addressed. I like this analogy with '' nutrition is part of the muscle building story'' also here with brain involved...

Here's is Part II to the article:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Orthomolecular Medicine News Service, October 30, 2013

Treating ADHD with Vitamin B-3 (Niacinamide)

by Andrew W. Saul, Editor

(OMNS Oct 30, 2013) ADHD is not caused by a drug deficiency. But it may indeed be caused by profound nutrient deficiency, more accurately termed nutrient dependency. Although all nutrients are important, the one that an ADHD child is most likely in greatest need of is vitamin B-3, niacinamide.

Over 60 years ago, niacinamide therapy pioneer William Kaufman, M.D., Ph.D, wrote:

"Some patients have a response to niacinamide therapy which seems to be the clinical equivalent of 'decreased running' observed in experimental animals. When these animals are deprived experimentally of certain essential nutriments, they display 'excessive running,' or hyperkinesis. When these deficient animals receive the essential nutriments in sufficient amounts for a sufficient period of time, there is exhibited a marked 'decrease in running.'"

The benefit is so profound, said Dr. Kaufman, that a person receiving niacinamide treatment "may wonder whether or not his vitamin medications contain a sedative. . . Analysis of his history indicates that prior to niacinamide therapy he suffered from a type of compulsive impatience, starting many projects which he left unfinished as a new interest distracted him, returning perhaps after a lapse of time to complete the original project. Without realizing it, he was often careless and inefficient in his work, but was 'busy all the time.'"

This report appeared, almost as a side note, on page 73 of Dr. Kaufman's 1949 book, The Common Form of Joint Dysfunction. So accurately does it describe the problems of ADHD children that it is difficult to believe that vitamin B-3 has been so thoroughly ignored for so long.

Dr. Kaufman continues: "With vitamin therapy, such a patient becomes unaccustomedly calm, working more efficiently, finishing what he starts, and he loses the feeling that he is constantly driving himself. He has leisure time that he does not know how to use. When he feels tired, he is able to rest, and does not feel impelled to carry on in spite of fatigue. . . If such a patient can be persuaded to continue with niacinamide therapy, in time he comes to enjoy a sense of well-being, realizing in retrospect that what he thought in the past was a super-abundance of energy and vitality was in reality an abnormal 'wound-up' feeling, which was an expression of aniacinamidosis (niacin deficiency)." (p. 74)

Dr. Kaufman's observation that niacinamide is an effective remedy for hyperactivity and lack of mental focus is very important. With attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, orthodox medicine seems unwilling even to admit nutrient deficiency as a causal factor, let alone a curative one. Such nutritional information as does make news generally stays far from the headlines, unless, of course, it is critical of vitamins. The most widely publicized vitamin therapy trials tend to be low-dose, worthless, negative, or all three. Mass media attention to a given nutritional research study appears to be inversely proportional to its curative value.

Therefore, the public and many physicians remain unaware of the power of simple and safe natural methods due to contradictory, inadequate, or just plain biased media reporting. When the press touts the supposed "dangers" of vitamins while simultaneously overlooking the very real dangers of having kids on long-term drug maintenance, it strains at a gnat and swallows a camel. Whereas drug side effects fill the Physician's Desk Reference (PDR) to bursting, the chief side effect of niacinamide is failure to take enough of it. The quantity of a nutrient that cures an illness indicates the patient's degree of need for the nutrient. This amount may be quite high. A dry sponge holds more milk.

Dr. Kaufman advocated relatively modest quantities of niacinamide (250 mg) per dose but stressed the importance of the frequency (six or eight times a day) of those doses. Frequently divided doses are maximally effective. The precise amount of niacinamide that an ADHD child requires needs to be thoughtfully considered by parent and physician alike.

To learn more about Dr. William Kaufman's clinical success with high dose vitamin therapy:

Vitamin deficiency, megadoses, and some supplemental history. A letter by William Kaufman, MD, PhD, April 7, 1992. http://www.doctoryourself.com/kaufman2.html

The Common Form of Joint Dysfunction (1949) is long out of print, but the full text has been posted online for free reading at http://www.doctoryourself.com/kaufman6.html

In 2002, Dr. Kaufman's papers were acquired by the University of Michigan, Special Collections Library, 7th Floor, Harlan Hatcher Graduate Library, Ann Arbor, Ml 48109. Email: special.collections@umich.edu .

A bibliography of Dr. Kaufman's work will be found at http://www.doctoryourself.com/biblio_kaufman.html .

(Much of this article originally appeared in the Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine 2003, Vol 18, p 29-32. Free full text at http://orthomolecular.org/library/jom/2003/pdf/2003-v18n01-p029.pdf)


Nutritional Medicine is Orthomolecular Medicine

Orthomolecular medicine uses safe, effective nutritional therapy to fight illness. For more information: http://www.orthomolecular.org


Find a Doctor

To locate an orthomolecular physician near you: http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v06n09.shtml


The peer-reviewed Orthomolecular Medicine News Service is a non-profit and non-commercial informational resource.


Editorial Review Board:

Ian Brighthope, M.D. (Australia)
Ralph K. Campbell, M.D. (USA)
Carolyn Dean, M.D., N.D. (USA)
Damien Downing, M.D. (United Kingdom)
Dean Elledge, D.D.S., M.S. (USA)
Michael Ellis, M.D. (Australia)
Martin P. Gallagher, M.D., D.C. (USA)
Michael Gonzalez, D.Sc., Ph.D. (Puerto Rico)
William B. Grant, Ph.D. (USA)
Steve Hickey, Ph.D. (United Kingdom)
Michael Janson, M.D. (USA)
Robert E. Jenkins, D.C. (USA)
Bo H. Jonsson, M.D., Ph.D. (Sweden)
Peter H. Lauda, M.D. (Austria)
Thomas Levy, M.D., J.D. (USA)
Stuart Lindsey, Pharm.D. (USA)
Jorge R. Miranda-Massari, Pharm.D. (Puerto Rico)
Karin Munsterhjelm-Ahumada, M.D. (Finland)
Erik Paterson, M.D. (Canada)
W. Todd Penberthy, Ph.D. (USA)
Gert E. Schuitemaker, Ph.D. (Netherlands)
Robert G. Smith, Ph.D. (USA)
Jagan Nathan Vamanan, M.D. (India)
Atsuo Yanagisawa, M.D., Ph.D. (Japan)

Andrew W. Saul, Ph.D. (USA), Editor and contact person. Email: omns@orthomolecular.org This is a comments-only address; OMNS is unable to respond to individual reader emails. However, readers are encouraged to write in with their viewpoints. Reader comments become the property of OMNS and may or may not be used for publication.


To Subscribe at no charge: http://www.orthomolecular.org/subscribe.html

To Unsubscribe from this list: http://www.orthomolecular.org/unsubscribe.html

Nice, tnx for that!