Biological remedies for ADHD
02.02.2010 14:40
ADHD could also be successfully treated without the use of amphetamines
According to the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians, 500,000 children in Germany suffer from ADHD and they are mainly treated with amphetamines that stimulate the dopaminergic and noradrenergic neurotransmitter systems. A medically extremely controversial method. Even politicians now have concerns, as according to former State Secretary of the Ministry of Health Marion Caspers-Merk, eleven to fourteen year olds in our country are now on average taking such preparations more often than medicines for colds, fever reduction or pain relief.
New findings about the role of acetylcholine give great hope that ADHD can be successfully treated without the use of amphetamines. A group of English scientists led by the neuroscientist Alex Thiele had monkeys solve tasks that required high visual concentration. The monkeys that had received acetylcholine in advance were much more concentrated and therefore more successful in solving the task than those that had received nothing. Now the organism can normally synthesize acetylcholine endogenously as long as it has, among other things, sufficient amounts of the amino acids methionine and serine. However, if it is undersupplied, those affected may experience impairments in their cognitive and motor skills. This fact was also clear in a double-blind study with 425 subjects. After 1/2 year, the subjects who were given phosphatidylserine instead of placebo had significantly improved in terms of their ability to remember, learn, and motor skills.
Even if ADHD is certainly not a deficiency disorder in the classic sense, there is an obvious correlation between the ADHD diagnosis and micronutrient deficiency in the affected children. Choline, a precursor of acetylcholine, is contained in soybean lecithin in a form that is particularly well tolerated by the young body. In a dietary food “CEREBRO Lecithin special mental”, the effect of lecithin is significantly enhanced by the addition of the nerve-active amino acids glutamine and phenylanaline, the precursors of dopamine and norepinephrine.