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August 2009 Newsletter
 Arizona Center for Advanced Medicine
9328 E. Raintree Drive, Scottsdale, AZ 85060
Phone: 480-240-2600 Fax: 480-240-2601
www.ArizonaAdvancedMedicine.com
| Back to School with ADHD |
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| Make this your child's best year in school |
August 2009 |
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Greetings!
It's been quite a year with huge budget cuts from Arizona
lawmakers in education. This has made services hard to find for
those who have children struggling with attention, focus, sensory
and memory issues. If your child has problems with learning,
now is the time to get the help they need to make this a very
successful year.
We have a great program to finally end your battle with ADHD. You’ve told us you want more
information about ADHD’s problems and solutions, so today we have two articles for you.
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Is this your child? |
ADHD-What can cause it?
by Martha M. Grout, MD, MD(H)
The root cause of ADHD may include multiple issues, including brain processing abnormalities, problems with the entire listening/hearing system, food or environmental allergies, metabolic insufficiency, or heavy metal toxicity, among other things.
We know many cases of ADHD behavior have been cleared up by making a few extremely important changes in diet. Removing sugar has stopped some children from "bouncing off the walls." Removing specific foods to which they are sensitive has been the answer for others.
Sometimes fish oils correct a fatty acid deficiency and restore normalcy. A new Oxford study of 117 underachieving children found 40% of them made dramatic improvements in reading and spelling when given fish oil supplements high in omega-3 fatty acids.
Harvard and Columbia researchers recently recommended that artificial food colorings are one reason for the surge in children's hyperactivity and attention problems. They asked, "Do children's foods really need to be colored with petroleum-based dyes like Red 40 and Yellow 5 when there are plenty of natural dyes available? Are food manufacturer's profits worth the tradeoff in our children's health?"
In 2008, the American Academy of Pediatrics said the Southampton/McCann Study of September, 2007, finally convinced them to reverse their long-standing position on food additives:
"Thus, the overall findings of the study are clear and require that even we skeptics, who have long doubted parental claims of the effects of various foods on the behavior of their children, admit we might have been wrong.… In real life, practitioners faced with hyperactive preschoolers have a reasonable option to offer parents. For the child without a medical, emotional, or environmental etiology of ADHD behaviors, a trial of a preservative-free, food coloring-free diet is a reasonable intervention."
It's not always clear which came first - the processing problem or the metabolic insufficiency. For example: Children raised on commercial baby formulas (some are 50 percent corn syrup), likely have been metabolically challenged since their very beginning. They may have lost brain function because they took in more manganese than what is in breast milk. Manganese occurs at very low levels in breast milk, but it is added to infant formula made from cow's milk and occurs naturally at even higher levels in soy formula. It is dangerous for infants to consume more manganese than they would get from breast milk because infants have no capacity to excrete excess amounts until they are older. The effects of too much manganese include inattention, impulsivity, and hyperaggression.
Soy baby formulas do not contain nearly as much protein as breast milk, depriving the developing brain of what it needs.
Researchers at Brown Medical School compared premature infants fed with breast milk to those fed formula and found breast fed babies clearly did better on tests of mental development by age 18 months. The more breast milk they consumed, the better they did on the tests. Ingredients in breast milk, particularly fatty acids, seem to help the brain develop properly. Additionally, breast milk builds a strong immune system.
Some children are impacted by the high body burden of heavy metals which interfere with normal developmental processes. Take lead for example: Children with higher exposures to lead are more easily distracted, less organized, and apt to be hyperactive, impulsive, aggressive, and easily frustrated. Sound familiar?
Governmental research reports the average American baby, at birth, has more than 200 chemicals in its body. Even after 9 months of growth in the womb, the infant's nervous, respiratory, reproductive, and immune systems are not yet fully developed. They are in a dynamic state of growth with cells multiplying and organ systems developing at a rapid rate. Pound for pound, children take in more air, food, and liquids than do adults. For example, carpets are typically made with toxic materials; children tend to make direct contact with carpet with their faces and hands as they play.
Neurotoxin experts Phillippe Grandjean and Philip Ladrigan reported in 2006 that the widespread use of pesticides, cleaning products, glues and other chemicals that contaminate our air, water, and homes are causing a "silent pandemic" of brain diseases in children. When children reach their "toxic overload" point, out-of-control behaviors can be the result. Medical schools do not train physicians in detoxification procedures, nor does medical school curriculum yet embrace the mounting evidence that environmental toxins cause breakdowns in body systems that cannot be corrected simply by adding a prescription drug - yet another toxic substance.
The Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center study is the first to examine how genes, toxins and gender interact to shape ADHD. "Our analysis confirms a suspected link between prenatal tobacco exposure and AD/HD, and it demonstrates that the greater the level of blood lead, the greater the risk of ADHA,” says Bruce Lanphear, MD, director of the Children's Environmental Health Center at Cincinnati Children's and corresponding author of the study. "These findings underscore the profound behavioral health impact of these prevalent exposures and highlight the need to strengthen public health efforts to reduce prenatal tobacco smoke exposure and childhood lead exposure." Investigators found approximately 270,000 cases of AD/HD attributable to mothers smoking during pregnancy. Children exposed to tobacco before birth had a 2.5-fold higher risk of AD/HD compared to children not so exposed to tobacco. The study is based on data gathered between 1999 and 2002 from a parent or guardian of 4,704 children.
Food sensitivities and heavy metals create inflammation in the GI tract. If we have an inflamed "gut," we are not able to efficiently process and absorb the nutrients in the food we eat. As some wise person once said: we are not what we eat, we are what we absorb.
It is important to have a strong body biochemistry and metabolism, so that the brain processing can be corrected, and will hold fast even under stress.
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Do something remarkable for you or your child today!
Remember ADHD isn't the only issue children, teens or adults suffer. Depression and anxiety can take a toll on a young person. In a very short period of time we can get children and adults off meds and functioning normally.
Call or go to our website to see what we can do for you.
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ADHD-Drugs Are Not The
Answer
by Stephanie Reese, PhD
Chief Science Officer, BrainAdvantage
The number of ADHD diagnosed children in America is growing every year. One out of every 10 boys in America are diagnosed with ADHD. If we look around the world, we see that America is the only country where ADHD is diagnosed to such an extreme. Studies have shown that ADHD drugs are only a short term fix, if they work at all.
The 8 year follow-up data from the ADHD MTA Study (Multisite Multimodal Treatment Study of Children with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder) suggests that the use of ADHD drugs longer than 2 years is ineffectual. Besides medications having less symptomatic benefit with chronic use, the latest study also comments on observation that long-term medication may also impair growth - children who took medication for 36 months or longer were 6 lbs lighter and 1 inch shorter.
Even more disturbing than the prescribing of Ritalin to school age children is a trend to prescribe this medication to preschoolers. A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2000 offered some key insights into this dangerous ongoing trend. Of the 223 Michigan Medicaid enrollees younger than four years of age with a diagnosis of ADHD, 57% received at least one psychotropic medication to treat the condition during a 15-month period in 1995-1996. Ritalin and clonidine (a medication used for blood pressure in adults, with marked sedating effects) were prescribed most often. Additionally, the authors found that in the Midwestern states' Medicaid population of children between the ages of two and four years old, there was a 300% increase in total prescribing of stimulants between 1991-1995. There was a threefold increase in prescribing Ritalin, a 28-fold increase in prescribing clonidine and a 2.2-fold increase in prescribing of antidepressants.
An article printed in the Los Angeles Times, August 20, 2007, reported direct-to-parent marketing of ADHD drugs - most of which are stimulants - has grown pervasive over the last few years, despite a United Nations treaty banning most of it. Use of such medications increased by more than 60% from 2001-2005, according to the International Narcotics Control Board.
ADDitude Magazine, published for people with ADHD, has ads for four medications. One ad touts a flavored, chewable form of methylphenidate with the slogan, "Give me the grape." Methylphenidate is best known under the trade name Ritalin, which was not among those drugs advertised.
Ads for candy-flavored methylphenidate are a far cry from the vision set forth in 1971 by the Convention on Psychotropic Substances. So far, 159 countries, including the U.S., have agreed to ban consumer-targeted marketing of psychotropic medications - including all these ADHD drugs - that carry the potential for addiction or dependency. For decades, pharmaceutical companies abided by its provisions. However, in 2001, one company began buying ads in the September issue of women's magazines in the U.S. to draw attention to Metadate CD, a long-acting form of methylphenidate. Other companies quickly followed suit. Called on the carpet by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), lawyers for the drug companies vowed to defend themselves under the umbrella of First Amendment speech rights. According to former DEA officials, the Department of Justice was unwilling to test this one in court.
Eight years later, the results are dramatic. Doctors and therapists increasingly see parents seeking to change their child's medication or coming in with their own diagnoses of ADHD and suggestions for medications they have seen advertised. Many of the companies offer coupons for a free trial supply.
Drug companies would argue that increased production and use of AD/HD drugs are the result of better diagnosis and treatment. But the International Narcotics Control Board holds advertising responsible. In an August 20, 2007 Los Angeles Times article the Board noted that from 2001 - when the ads first appeared - to 2005, medical consumption of methylphenidate increased by 64%. "That large increase was mainly a result of developments in the United States, where the substance is advertised in the media, directly to potential customers," according to the report. In fact The United States consumes 85% of the Ritalin produced in the world!
Unfortunately, we tend to place our confidence and the health of our children in a broken system. We listen to those who have a stake in only keeping the status quo. Pharmaceutical companies spend 4 billion dollars a year on advertising to make you and your doctor believe that a pill is the only answer. And it works because we want instant gratification. If little Johnny is acting out, we want a pill that puts a stop to it now. We don't want to wait the extra few weeks for something that will help him to control himself without medications. The only problem, of course, is that medication is not a good long-term answer. It is a band aid. It doesn't address the cause, only the symptom.
When most allopathic doctors are asked about alternative treatments for ADHD, we often hear, "neurotherapy doesn't work, there's no science." Or "it's experimental." However, neurotherapy has a solid 30 years of scientific research and experience.
Frank Davidoff, MD, in a 1997 editorial entitled 'Where's the Bias," laments the long list of potential biases in the conduct of research, the most injurious of which may be the bias of money itself. Consumer opinions are greatly influenced by drug industry advertising campaigns. It is no secret that drug companies allocate huge budgets toward this effort.
In 2000 neurologist Frank Duffy of Boston's Children's Hospital wrote, "In my opinion, if any medication had demonstrated such a wide spectrum of efficacy [as neurofeedback], it would be universally accepted and widely used." Yet The American Academy of Pediatrics Current Practice Guidelines for treatment of ADHD still recommends stimulant medication and, if the clinician sees the patient hasn't met targeted outcomes, they should try the prescribed medications again! Having said that, they also included," Despite the efficacy of stimulant medications in improving behaviors, many children who receive them do not demonstrate fully normal behavior... the longer term effects of stimulants remain unclear..."
The National Institute of Mental Health recently published results from an 8-year study of children diagnosed with ADHD and treated with stimulant medication or behavioral modification therapy - the current best recommendations of the American Academy of Pediatrics. To quote the conclusion of that article just published in the March 2009 online Journal of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry:
"The type or intensity of 14 months of treatment for ADHD in childhood (at age 7.0-9.9 years) does not predict functioning 6 to 8 years later. Rather, early ADHD symptom trajectory regardless of treatment type is prognostic. This finding implies that children with behavioral and sociodemographic advantage, with the best response to any treatment, will have the best long-term prognosis. As a group, however, despite initial symptom improvement during treatment that is largely maintained after treatment, children with combined-type ADHD exhibit significant impairment in adolescence. Innovative treatment approaches targeting specific areas of adolescent impairment are needed."
Drugs are not a good long-term answer. Neuropathy is better; however, not all neurotherapies are created equal. The term "neurotherapy" has become a synonym for EEG-based neurofeedback, but this form of neurofeedback is not the only tool in the neurotherapy kit.
HEG or NIR Spectroscopy is, in my opinion, faster, cheaper and more effective as a feedback tool.
We have had many patients who went through EEG-based programs before they came to us. One went to an EEG-based therapist three times a week for one and a half years, another spent well over $12,000 for another program, and another went to 80 sessions of a well know "relaxation" EEG training, all with no result. Each patient who comes to us has different issues; therefore the same treatment is not the answer for all. We fully assess every client so that we may customize your training to give you the best possible result. And unlike others, we follow you after you leave our program to make sure the gains you make are permanent.
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Finally! Something that really works!
We are so happy that the years of research and hard work have been rewarded by seeing the people we've helped so successfully. How is BrainAdvantage different?
At BrainAdvantage we look at the whole body to see where trouble might be lurking. A BrainAdvantage assessment is a comprehensive evaluation of your nutrition, allergies, heavy metals, cognitive issues, brain function, motor skills and even eye convergence.
We use this information to customize a program that works best for the individual. After all, everyone who walks through our doors has different issues. A one-size-fits-all approach just doesn't work.
Come in or call today to see how we can help you. 480-240-2600
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Save Money
Now!
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We have family and pre-pay discounts available. For more information see our website at www.brainadvantage.net |
If we can help you or a loved one, we are just a phone call away.
Arizona Center for Advanced Medicine
9328 E. Raintree Drive, Scottsdale, AZ 85060
Phone: 480-240-2600
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