Letter: Diet disorder

From Simon Mallett

What causes the mood swings of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (1 April, p 8)? Consider the 7-year-old who is normally a charming boy – polite, attentive, fascinated with how things work and generally calm – and then without warning is bouncing off the walls, shouting at his mother and clearing the kitchen table with a single backhander. The cause is easy to see: a bad modern diet that is overloaded with sugars, additives and anything else that the food industry can get away with to maximise profit.

I fear the focus on a cure using a cocktail of drugs is always going to be the preferred option for researchers, as it might lead to funding and recognition. Simply telling people to eat more greens, to cut out the rubbish from the diet and not to poison their kids with sweeteners might be seen as too simple.

The editor writes:

• Children can become hyperactive for many reasons, one of which is diet, but a child who is normally attentive is unlikely to have ADHD. This underlines the message of our article, which is that ADHD is a complex condition (see www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/adhd/symptom.htm) whose diagnosis should be the responsibility of a qualified psychiatrist or paediatrician through extensive behavioural observation in different contexts.

Lenham, Kent, UK