Small Study Supports Food Allergy-ADHD Link

Source: Medscape

ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters Health) Nov 28, 2001.

Children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are seven times more likely to have food allergies than children in the general population, according to the results of a small, preliminary study.

“This recent study shows that food allergy may play a role in the development of ADHD,” Dr. Joseph A. Bellanti, the study’s lead author, told Reuters Health.

Dr. Bellanti directs the International Center for Interdisciplinary Studies of Immunology at Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington, DC. He presented the findings here at the 59th annual meeting of the American College of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology.

Dr. Bellanti and his colleagues used sensitive tests to assess the presence of food allergies in 17 children diagnosed with ADHD who ranged in age from 7 to 10 years old. Fifty-six percent had positive food allergy tests, compared with 6% to 8% positive food allergy tests among children in the general population.

The investigators also asked the participants and their parents about reactions to certain foods, and found that four (23.5%) patients had had adverse food reactions in the past.

“We feel this finding supports a possible relationship between food allergies and ADHD, and that this preliminary study deserves further exploration,” he told Reuters Health.

However, the study involved a small number of children and the findings are not supported by most research on ADHD, a spokesperson for the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP) said. For parents of children with ADHD, who are accustomed to hearing about links between their children’s symptoms and the foods they eat, these findings may be interesting, but they are not definitive, Dr. David Fassler told Reuters Health.

“You need to put any study like this in the context of a broader range of research,” Dr. Fassler explained. “In general, research indicates that ADHD is not caused by food allergies. That said, there may be children who have certain symptoms and behaviors that happen in reaction to a food or other environmental substance. A child could get agitated or irritable as the result of exposure to a particular food.”

Dr. Fassler is a member of the AACAP Workgroup on Consumer Issues and a clinical associate professor in psychiatry at the University of Vermont in Burlington.

“There are some well-intended clinicians, including some physicians, who believe that most, if not all, of ADHD is caused by food allergies,” he said. “Most physicians do not endorse that view. I worry about preliminary studies’ findings being extrapolated to large populations.”

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