[ScottWhigham]

As a pretty strongly affected ADHD person and as the parent of an extremely affected seven year old, my experience is that no, diet alone will not help kids more than drugs. I'm a vegetarian, eat right, work out - all the right things - and, although they help, they are no replacement for some type of methylphenidate (i.e. Ritalin or Concerta). I don't need a study to tell me that "One approach does not work for all people."

Sorry for the rant - I just think it's easy for non-ADHD people to dismiss ADHD. I see hyper kids who get called "ADD" and then people make comments/decisions about truly ADHD kids from these people ("Just don't feed them red dye #10!" (or whatever)).

[tygorius]

Read the study, it's not dismissive at all. According to the authors, roughly 1 in 3 kids don't respond to changes in diet.

As someone who recently abandoned methylphenidate for my new BFF bupropion, I understand the sensitivity to common claims that ADD/ADHD is primarily a lack of will power or a lack of parental/teacher discipline. But I still believe in science. Part of my early treatment involved vitamin supplements for serum deficiencies in iron, B12, and D. Bringing those levels up did not alleviate the symptoms for me, but I'm open to scientific investigation of reports that such supplements were a crucial difference for other people.