ADHD Reset: Do These 7 Things Everyday Fix Your Brain & Stop Cognitive Decline | Dr. Mark Hyman

Just because you know the name of the disease, it doesn't mean you know what's wrong with you. So what are the seven strategies that I use for 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 them on Ritalin. Is there anything else we can do without medication? I have news for you. ADD is not a Ritalin deficiency. Okay? It's, you know, attention deficit disorder, hyperactivity disorder, ADHD, ADD, whatever it is when you call it. It's basically kids who are camp focused or wired and, 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 ten 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? And by the way, this is stuff that has permitted not just lower education, elementary school, but high school, colleges, kids are using it for studying, it's become a recreational drug. So, back in the day, it wasn't a thing. Now it is. 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 it was a stimulus for me writing my book in, I think it was 2009, it was published the UltraMind Solution, How to Fix youx Broken Brain by Fixing youg 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. 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. Instead of 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 is a huge factor in our microbiome. Inflammation and 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 gonna 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, was 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, you know, 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, when you look at ADD and ADHD, it's, 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 pay attention, 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 and 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 hurricane 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 the 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 going to take you through what happened. I'm going to explain you a story, and I'm going to actually help you understand how we need to start approaching these disorders in a very different way. So basically, one day this woman walks into 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 always treat they were all treating different things. So he 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 in math, but basically was a disaster, you know, 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 had postnasal 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 this 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, like, anxiety. He was fearful all the time. And he had tons of sugar Cravings. Now, that is a long list of problems. I. 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. and 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 special were treating all the symptoms with seven different medications from five different doctors. Ritalin for ADD, allergy medicine, inhalers for asthma, acid blocking medicine for stomach, pain killers 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 connective? And why is this kid suffering from all this? And so really, this is just how medicine is. We see specialists, that's a specialist. We get pill after pill, we get a pill for every ill. And it was just kind of a mess. So most, 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, 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, and we're seeing kids mental behavioral emotional problems like Clayton had. And they're now getting drugs like antipsychotic medications they give to schizophrenics like risperidone 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, but 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 one of the basic categories of things that matter, right? It's our lifestyle and all the nutritional exercise, sleep, relationships, it's various factors that cause us to get out of balance, toxins, allergens, microbes, poor diets, 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 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 a vegetable in his life. And it's typical of a lot of these kids who were 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, you know, whole wheat bread and, you know, 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, you know, 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 and from tryptophan and helping his 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, 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 backs. We call these hyperkeratosis polaris. 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 infrequent infections, of eczema, allergies, hyperactivity. He also had low magnesium. magnesium deficiency is really common and it led to, you know, headaches, anxiety, insomnia, muscle cramps, spasms, aches, hypersensitivity to loud noises. All these are signs of magnesium deficiency. And we do testing. And, you know, I recently started a 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 are 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, 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 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 about 18 different foods, including dairy, peanuts, yeast, citrus foods, gluten, especially especially gluten, and he had gluten antibodies, which, again, are not checked by most doctors, but actually were elevated. And, 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 and immune response. It makes leaky gut worse, causes canker sores. So when you had canker sores, I was clued in that he might have a gluten issue. It can be celiac disease or gluten sensitivity, and his, he had elevated anti-glycine antibodies. which is basically an autoimmune reaction to the proteins found in gluten and that are found in wheat, rye, barley, spelt, and oats. So massive inflammation and we knew we had gluten issues, we knew we had food sensitivities and some other things that were causing it. 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 led lots of antibiotics for soar throats and he had yeast overgrowth because of all the antibiotics and abnormal gut flora. We looked at a 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, you know, 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 probable exposure to other kids, but they're often not looked at and not treated. They might check up blood 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 date 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 mercury. It goes into the soil. Kids are playing in the dirt, or maybe there's toys made from China that are coated lead paint, or maybe the people have lead paint in their house or eating from lead covered glasses or, I mean, crystal glasses or fancy plates. 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 Ritalin 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, 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, but all these other things like yeast overgrowth and heavy metals and gluten, they were irritating a system. So we 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, you know, 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, you know, water in or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or backwards, antiquated framework for thinking about disease. And it's why we, we are 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, a multivitamin, which had all those things he was deficient in. He needed Omega-3 fats, B6 zinc, vitamin D. we need to put back healthy gut bacteria, probiotics. He needed a little bit of amino acid support. We gave him five hydroxytryptophan 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, gave 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. Stop the Ritalin, stop the antihistamines like Zyrtec, antihistamines, stop the bronchodilators for inhalers, a steroid inhaler, stop the Tylenol, stop the Advil first 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 was disruptive in home and school. He wasn't irritable or anxious. All of his 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, going on to 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 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, 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, and eat real whole food. Lots of fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds, really good fats. Fats important for the brain, adequate amounts of protein. Just eat food. And then you know what that is? If you listen to me forever, I've written the Pegan diet, food with heck, 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 the 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 glutamorphins that interact with opioid receptors in the brain and basically make you stone 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 and 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 gotta 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? Get off the junk, gluten, dairy. So we 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 connected 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, you know, 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, you know, really powerful nutrients. Also, you want to detoxify. If you have toxins in your, in your household, in your skincare products, in your food, in your body, you want to get rid of 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 foods 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 I was handwriting, you know, all this treatment was so profound. And it kind of. 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'd redo 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, this synchronous. 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, every kid, every kid is 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 you actually can get better. Now, 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 where 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 Uma Naidoo 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 for understanding the real transformations we need. If you love that last video, you're gonna love the next one. Check it out here. Rather than just taking a drug to suppress stomach acid, which we desperately need to digest our food, to absorb minerals, to absorb B12, to digest protein, I mean, those drugs are super powerful and they shut off so.