Success of nutrition-based treatments

[catatonic]

In the November 2003 issue of "Alternative Medicine Review" they published a study called "Outcome-Based Comparison of Ritalin versus Food-Supplement Treated Children with ADHD."

Researchers concluded that a carefully tailored nutrition and supplement protocol addressed ADHD symptoms as successfully as Ritalin did.

The full text of this article is available on-line. It includes (on pages 3 and 4) a summary of the supplements given to the subject children and the 8 risk factors (on page 2) that the supplements were intended to address. The data is very specific and includes daily amounts of each supplement. It's a well-written and informative article and worth taking a look at.

www.alternativementalhealth.com/articles/gant.pdf

(If you have a problem with this link, go to www.alternativementalhealth.com/articleindex.htm and select the "ADD Study: Nutrients Perform As Well As Drugs" link.)

[HooDunnit]

But in all fairness, the study had some weaknesses too?

Barry

[catatonic]

Sure, they all do. At least this one was independently funded and didn't rely on money from the pharmaceutical industry.

To my mind, its most glaring weakness is small sample size...only 10 subjects per treatment group. Larger numbers make for more powerful results.

The second problem I see is that researchers failed to specify how they assessed subjects on the 8 risk factors involved and therefore selected supplements appropriate for their treatment.

Lack of double-blind methodology is generally assumed to be a flaw, but in this case, I think it's mitigated by the fact that the experimental treatments continued for a period of 12 weeks. It's very difficult to sustain placebo effect over the long-term. Also very difficult to double-blind a fistful of vitamins.

This research was the first I'm aware of that assessed nutrition-based treatment using multiple measures. Previous research has looked at Omega-3 alone, or magnesium alone, or a single amino acid alone, or probiotics alone. Those of us who are putting in the time turning our children into human science fair projects can tell you there is no ONE answer. I really see this study as a step in the right direction, but think more studies are needed, studies that are both larger and easier to replicate.

[HooDunnit]

I think that 12 weeks is often considered to be short term in studies such as this.

Barry