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This is the second in our series of "if it is ADHD, what is?"
We have long known that children need much vitamin D for healthy bones. We urge parents to ensure that children are much sun. We make vitamin D in milk. And my mom went a step further: forcing me to swallow spoonfuls of cod liver oil unpleasant.
Now scientists at Children's Hospital and Research Center in Oakland, California have discovered that lack of vitamin D can cause brain dysfunction. It turns out that vitamin D affects the proteins in the brain directly involved in learning, memory and motor control. There is also a suggestion, no evidence, however, that lack of vitamin D is involved in controlling behavior.
Vitamin D is so widespread that the American Academy of Pediatrics recently suggested doubling the amount of vitamin D recommended for infants, children and adolescents to 400 IU per day. Pediatricians are now telling parents to give their children fish oil capsules or supplements of vitamin D.
African-American Children and parents tend to lack more vitamin D than whites because darker skin absorbs less ultraviolet rays of the sun. Black for children who show behavior ADHD often suffer more than a lack of vitamin D deficiency easily corrected.
So you can add vitamin D to the growing list of factors seem to ADHD, but are not. Getting children to drink milk fortified with vitamin D and orange juice, playing outside in the sun, and eating little food rich in vitamin D (fatty fish like salmon).
Vitamin D supplements make sense. Enough food will not contain enough vitamin D to prevent deficiency. And too much sun causes sunburn brutal in the blond, fair-skinned children that eventually can lead to skin cancer. Sunscreen prevents sunburn, but also prevents the absorption of vitamin D from ultraviolet rays of the sun.
So set the salmon for dinner with a glass of milk, and give children of 400 IU of vitamin D supplementation. To send them to play in the sun, but do not forget the sunscreen. Vitamin D to absorb the sun had not compensate long-term risks of skin cancer.
Enough vitamin D and perhaps those annoying behavior stops ADHD.
And have you ever wondered if your kids really have ADHD? Now you can get the FREE “Maybe They Don’t have ADHD” inventory and checklist. Lists 43 factors that contribute to ADHD-like behavior. Copy the checklist. Use it over and over. Give it to teachers and parents. Help stop the over-diagnosis of ADHD!
You’ll get the ADHD inventory and checklist when you subscribe to the FREE “ADHD NewsTips,” a three-times weekly email with easy to use, effective tips for helping those ADHD kids. You’ll find it at http://www.adhdchildrentoday.com/newstipssubscribe.htm
From MaryJo Wagner, Ph.D. – The Learning Doctor, helping you help your kids learn any subject at any time easily and quickly.
