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9 Foods to Supercharge Your Brain Health

Did you know that too much of the wrong foods may actually shrink the decision-making parts of your brain? Use these ADHD nutrition tips, recommended by Dr. Daniel G. Amen, to improve your brain health, focus, memory, and mood — naturally.

13 Comments: 9 Foods to Supercharge Your Brain Health

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  1. Can you provide the citation for this: “Children with ADHD and/or autism may do better8 on an elimination regimen that’s free of wheat, dairy, processed foods, all forms of sugar and sugar alternatives, food dyes, and additives.” It links back to this article…

  2. Does anyone use green tea with their young teens to help with calming before school ? Reading a lot about it outside of ADHD community – wondering if anyone uses it to help with kids with ADHD who are anxious . Any information would be greatly appreciated .

    Sporty22

  3. Hey everyone,

    This looks like a great plan! The only problem I am running into is that it takes me a lot of time to plan my meals each week. I am looking to have meals like this automatically planned for either by using an app or by following a food blogger that has this or a similar schedule. I would love it if I could just copy paste the recipes in my shopping cart. Do any of you guys have suggestions?

    Rik

    1. RikvdReijen,
      I use the Cozi app to import and recipes from many different websites. The Cozi user can click to choose recipes and a grocery list of the items, complete with checkboxes, is created. The user can then go through the kitchen and check off items in stock, leaving only the items need from the grocery.
      I have been following the low-histamine diet and eating high-sulfurophane containing foods for my severe ADHD with huge success. My sweetie has Crohn’s and SIBO and follows GAPS and the low-FODMAP diet. For a short time, we lived with Sweetie’s mom, who followed a heart healthy diet. Cozi enabled all of us to do this without any of us going insane!
      We use the free version, too!
      After practice, you won’t need the app much.
      All-sources on the low-histamine diet: I watched many videos on YouTube by Dr. Theo Theoharides, read and watched much by Dr. Walsh of the thewalshresearchinstitute, watched and read Never Bet Against Occam’s by Dr. Lawrence Afrin, and my own Dr. prescribed the sulphurophane (foods or supplements, my choice) for high betaglucaronidase (u think) in my stool (a marker for Colin cancer) anyway, it helped my ADHD tremendously! Oh, and I have two copies (am homozygous) for the defective MTHFR enzyme, which means folic acid is dangerous to me. (Yes, folic acid is a “vitamin,” but it’s the synthetic form. Other forms, such as MetylTetraHydroFolicacid, etc. have had the -ene- (MethylENEtetrahydrofolicacid) removed by that enzyme (the MTHFReductase enzyme) for which my body has a faulty recipe (“homozygous for MTHFR”)
      Anyway, hope both the Cozi and my own findings are helpful to y’all!
      Thank you to the referenced doctors research and writing!

  4. Thank you so much for providing references now I can look up the research and make my own evaluations. More articles like this please

  5. What is the difference between how adults with ADHD and children with ADHD should eat? Are there certain foods that don’t need to be avoided once you reach adulthood? I’ve been researching the topic of what I should eat as an adult with ADHD, and have found that most of the articles are about children. This one seems to bridge the gap well. The only thing I would like would be some sort of information on how adult and child brain needs may differ (or if they differ at all!)

    1. A healthy lifestyle is ideal for children and adults alike, especially when you have ADHD. Any nutrition recommendations made for kids would also apply to adults. What may differ is the dosage of supplements, and that’s something you would discuss with your physician.

      Penny
      ADDitude Community Moderator, Author & Mentor on Parenting ADHD, Mom to teen w/ ADHD, LDs, and autism

  7. Succinct, clear and educative as well as instantly usable information on fueling our ADHD brains for higher functioning. Now for that avocado for breakfast…

  10. Dr.Amen and wife (also Ph.D)hosted a PBS presentation on the best ways to keep one’s brain supercharged. BrainFit:50 ways to grow your brain , Dr. Daniel Amen

  11. LOVE this! Dr. Amen is my hero — his book on the 6 (later revised to 7) types of ADHD made a profound difference in how I approach my own ADD (type 2, a bit of type 5). With multiple diagnoses in my family (2 kids on the autism spectrum, husband with Parkinson’s, and my ADD compounded by recently-discovered leukemia), trying to find dietary approaches that help us all can be confusing. These general, not-too-complicated recommendations are a super starting point for all of us.
    One side note — I took gluten and dairy products out of my family’s diet several years ago, reasoning that I would always wonder (and that we could always revert to regular diet if it didn’t help). I saw significant improvement, particularly with my more-affected son, and have stayed the course since then … difficult with a husband and neuro-typical child who crave & demand off-diet foods! Although we’re currently on hiatus from the GFCF diet (since I can’t steer everything right now), we’re using enzymes to counter some of the effects, and will hopefully be able to get back on track as I get stronger. If you’re considering a special diet, I’d say give it a real chance (at least 6 months of strict adherence). If you decide it’s not worth the trouble, at least you know you tried!

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