ADHD book review

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Natural Nutrition for ADHD Children

 

ADHD book review

Review copyright C 2000 Andrew W. Saul.

 

Dr. Hoffer's ABC of Natural Nutrition for Children

by Abram Hoffer, M.D., Ph.D

Quarry Press, Kingston, Ontario 1999

ISBN 1-55082-185-7

(Softcover, 280 pages plus tables and bibliography)

Review by Andrew Saul, Ph.D.

 

A riddle: how many years does it take for a new way of

treating behavior disorders in children to be

generally accepted? The answer is forty, according to

Abram Hoffer, M.D, Ph.D. There are few physicians who

have sufficient experience to personally validate such

a claim, but Dr. Hoffer can. He pioneered megavitamin

research and treatment back in the early 1950's, and,

half a century later, has still been largely ignored

by the medical profession. Why? Because Dr. Hoffer

treats ADHD kids with vitamins. And, he gets results.

 

Dr. Hoffer's ABC of Natural Nutrition for Children is

a concise and powerful book. Pages 18-30 alone contain

enough information to set the medical profession on

its ear. This section forms the most elegant

explanation of orthomolecular (megavitamin) medicine

since Linus Pauling's historic 1968 paper in Science.

In fact, Hoffer had a 17 year jump on Pauling;

vitamin B-3 (niacin, or niacinamide) to treat

behavioral disorders was first used by Hoffer and

colleague Dr. Humphrey Osmond in 1951. Niacin worked

then, and it works now.

 

I know a 10 year old boy who was having considerable

school and behavior problems. Interestingly enough,

the child was already on physician-prescribed little

bits of niacin, with a total daily dose of less than

150 mg. Not a bad beginning, since the RDA for kids

is under 20 mg/day. But it wasn't enough to be

effective, and the boy was slated for the

Ritalin-for-lunch bunch. Dr. Hoffer suggested trying

him on 500 mg niacinamide three times daily (1,500 mg

total). That's a lot, but niacinamide is a

comfortable, flush-free form of vitamin B-3. So Mom

tried it.

 

What a difference!

 

People often ask, " If this treatment is so good, how

come my doctor doesn't know about it? How come it is

not on the news? " The answer may have more to do with

medical politics than with medical science. Consider

Hoffer's views on Attention Deficit Hyperactivity

Disorder: " The DSM system (the standard of the

American Psychiatric Association) has little or no

relevance to diagnosis. It has no relevance to

treatment, either, because no matter which terms are

used to classify these children, they are all

recommended for treatment with drug therapy " combined,

sometimes, with other non-megavitamin approaches. " 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. "

Statements like these do not exactly endear one to the

medical community.

 

And, as if such statements are not enough, Hoffer then

devotes the entire book to setting out genuine

nutritional alternatives to drug therapy for ADHD

children. He provides vitamin dosage details, food

tables, and over 150 references. In addition, 120

case histories are included, along with a " Bad Foods "

list, numerous research summaries, precise

recommendations for optimum diet, comparisons of drugs

and vitamins, a discussion of allergies and food

additives, behavioral self-tests, and, most

importantly, a wealth of professional experience.

 

The best part of Dr. Hoffer's ABC of Natural Nutrition

for Children is that it is a book of practical,

positive advice. Criticisms and even lawsuits over the

hazards of tranquilizers, Ritalin, and related

pharmaceuticals are on the rise, but neither court nor

controversy can cure your child. " Battered parents "

(Hoffer's term) need to know what to do, and now.

Saying no to drugs " also requires saying " yes " to

something else. That something else is nutrition,

properly employed.

 

For those who say there is insufficient scientific

evidence to support megavitamin therapy for children's

behavior disorders, I say they haven't been looking

hard enough. Hoffer and his colleagues conducted the

first double-blind controlled vitamin trials in

psychiatric history in 1952. He was among the first to

employ vitamin C as an antioxidant, use the B-vitamins

against heart disease, and, with Dr. Osmond, was the

first to employ niacin to treat behavioral disorders.

Dr.Hoffer has over 500 publications to date, yet a

search of Medline's ten million research papers will

fail to turn up even a single entry under his name.

On the other hand, this single book (and he has

written 18 others) will present the reader with the

most comprehensive and comprehensible review of

vitamin therapy for ADHD that I have yet seen.

 

This may be a puzzler, but isn't the bottom line.

This, however, is: The simple way to determine whether

vitamins will help your child is to try them. Read

Dr. Hoffer's ABC of Natural Nutrition for Children for

invaluable guidance from the foremost authority on the

subject.