My ADHD may be a brain metabolism dysfunction !

[French.cat]

Hi everyone,

I have read somewhere the theory that ADHD (and other psychiatric issues) may be du to brain metabolism dysfunction.

It would explain why I felt completely a new person while being in keto diet. Like my life could start, AT LAST !
Unfortunately insomnia made me stoped it (ketones gave me too much energy) , and I think there are much better solutions out there than a restrictive diet...

I've started Chris Palmer's book called Brain Energy, who supports ketogenic diet to help with mitochondrial impairment...
The author truly believes that ALL mental issues are the result of a bad mitochondrial efficiency. He has been capable of getting rid of the medication for a lot of his patients, and that brought me to tears.

I have ADHD and lifelong anxiety+depression and felt great on keto : that was A HUGE RELIEF. Like nothing could bring me down. I felt focus, relax, happy for "no special reason". Unfortunately a keto diet is hard to maintain (especially with an ADHD brain ), that's why I'm taking coaching lessons to improve my overall metabolism and see what the effect on my brain. We'll see ! If it does not work as I hope to, I'll definitely go back to keto diet.

What are your thoughts about that ?

Thanks a lot !

A French Cat

 

[mostlylurking]

I have ADHD and lifelong anxiety+depression and felt great on keto : that was A HUGE RELIEF. Like nothing could bring me down. I felt focus, relax, happy for "no special reason". Unfortunately a keto diet is hard to maintain (especially with an ADHD brain ), that's why I'm taking coaching lessons to improve my overall metabolism and see what the effect on my brain

The reason why a keto diet improves ADHD is because it is low carb. Carbs and sugars (not allowed on a keto diet) deplete thiamine. Thiamine is required for mitochondrial function for the process of making ATP, which is cellular energy. However, a keto diet is a pretty stressful diet because it mimics the stress process of cortisol which dissolves body tissue in order to make the sugar required to keep the brain and organs alive.

A less stressful way to live would be to provide more thiamine (vitamin B1) so that the mitochondria have what they need to make energy from the food that you eat. Ray Peat was not a Keto diet fan because it is so stressful on the body. He very much believed that fruit and milk sugars are good for you because they lower stress levels. However, if you are borderline thiamine deficient you won't feel well consuming these foods unless you also supplement thiamine. The balance of the amount of thiamine available to the mitochondria with the amount of carbs/sugars consumed is very important.

suggested reading:

ADHD, Sugar, and Thiamine - Hormones Matter

These children were showered with “goodies” that gave them an enormous increase in empty calories, most of which were sugar containing.

www.hormonesmatter.com

How Can Something As Simple as Thiamine Cause So Many Problems? - Hormones Matter

Is thiamine deficiency too simple to explain the devastating nature of the systemic adverse reactions to some vaccines and medications?

www.hormonesmatter.com

Tryptophan, Serotonin, and Aging

Eclampsia in the Real Organism: A Paradigm of General Distress Applicable in Infants, Adults, Etc.

raypeat.com

Blocking Tissue Destruction

Ray Peat

raypeat.com

 

[youngsinatra]

Hi everyone,

I have read somewhere the theory that ADHD (and other psychiatric issues) may be du to brain metabolism dysfunction.

It would explain why I felt completely a new person while being in keto diet. Like my life could start, AT LAST !
Unfortunately insomnia made me stoped it (ketones gave me too much energy) , and I think there are much better solutions out there than a restrictive diet...

I've started Chris Palmer's book called Brain Energy, who supports ketogenic diet to help with mitochondrial impairment...
The author truly believes that ALL mental issues are the result of a bad mitochondrial efficiency. He has been capable of getting rid of the medication for a lot of his patients, and that brought me to tears.

I have ADHD and lifelong anxiety+depression and felt great on keto : that was A HUGE RELIEF. Like nothing could bring me down. I felt focus, relax, happy for "no special reason". Unfortunately a keto diet is hard to maintain (especially with an ADHD brain ), that's why I'm taking coaching lessons to improve my overall metabolism and see what the effect on my brain. We'll see ! If it does not work as I hope to, I'll definitely go back to keto diet.

What are your thoughts about that ?

Thanks a lot !

A French Cat

I think a few members even do a low-carb version that is still aligned with most of Peat‘s ideas — low PUFA, mostly saturated fats (high fat beef, pasture raised eggs, butter, tallow, dairy), good calcium:phosphate ratio, sunlight/vitamin D, supplemental food items like coffee, mushrooms, refined coconut oil and so on.

You could try it and see if it works better for you. I personally need a significant amount of carbs to dampen the stress of daily living.

 

[EustaceBagge]

It would explain why I felt completely a new person while being in keto diet. Like my life could start, AT LAST !
Unfortunately insomnia made me stoped it (ketones gave me too much energy) , and I think there are much better solutions out there than a restrictive diet...

Stress hormones kept you going, clearly. You were overstimulated. People on ADHD also thrive on stimulants, like adderall and ritalin to raise dopamine + cortisol/adrenaline to function properly. Seems like they either lack energy, which the stimulants provide, or they lack dopamine which also comes with it.

If you can lower your stress hormones, you will expose your natural metabolic rate (probably damaged), and from that point onward you can actually recover your thyroid metabolism. I have extreme racing thoughts myself and unless I calm them down (VERY difficult) I get cold hands and become very irritable and can't sleep no matter what. The moment I actually control these thoughts my hand gets noticably warm. I'm not joking here. When this happens I also get very tired as I probably calmed myself down which lowered adrenaline (my guess).

I think ADHD, for me, is not actually ADHD but just the symptoms of it because of a mild burnout. What I need is to recover parts of the brain by resting properly, but that is very difficult to do as I actually tire myself out more with the constant rumination in this fatigued state. I think the body knows what it wants, and if I actually follow my feelings I start calming down. So it is almost as if my body wants to calm down, and the reason those ruminations happen is because I'm panicking and preventing it from calming down. Very hard to not panic when the captain (prefrontal cortex) is tired. Low stimulation activities until recovered, maybe even certain amounts of fun is off-limits, as it can be too stimulating.

Right now I'm also using t3 at 75mcg a day, and I can literally alter my temperature by overthinking and relaxing. The moment I get into ruminating my hands become cold and the thyroid starts ******* with me as I'm extremely stimulated, but the moment I manage to calm down I instantly heat up. This makes me think there is a mental side to this as well, as I think you can only get into this state with bad stress management (from trauma perhaps?). I also have lifelong anxiety and other issues but I found out that this anxiety is the body telling you to actually listen to it (and rest). You will need to build sensitivity to your feelings, be able to seperate them properly, be able to understand them properly, and you need to follow them properly. Beyond this, calm down and boost thyroid metabolism. If you have been hypothyroid for a long time you may have thyroid resistance:

Pure T3 Thyroid and Stories of Recovery from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) and Fibromyalgia: An Overview. - Health Rising

Thanks to Dominic for posting his comprehensive and fascinating overview of the use of T3 in chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) and fibromyalgia (FM) Please note that Health Rising does not provide medical advice or recommend treatments and Dominic is not a doctor. Please be aware, as well, that...

www.healthrising.org

T3 in my treatment doesn't work for me! - Stop The Thyroid Madness

Learn why Natural Desiccated Thyroid or T3 doesn't seem to work or causes problems and what you can do about it.

stopthethyroidmadness.com

To make thyroid work the cells need to be sensitive to T3 and there needs to ample protein in the diet. A short-medium term "shock" therapy with actual t3 can help get cells used to t3 again, but if you use t3 in a stressed state it will make things much worse (I have experience). But if you manage to calm down on it, the magic starts.

I'm still recovering from my 'ADHD' myself, but I find that progress has been really well these past 3 weeks. I had issues with ruminating for years now... I can finally calm down somewhat. I hope the content of the post isn't all over the place LOL.

 

[EustaceBagge]

I think a few members even do a low-carb version that is still aligned with most of Peat‘s ideas — low PUFA, mostly saturated fats (high fat beef, pasture raised eggs, butter, tallow, dairy), good calcium:phosphate ratio, sunlight/vitamin D, supplemental food items like coffee, mushrooms, refined coconut oil and so on.

You could try it and see if it works better for you. I personally need a significant amount of carbs to dampen the stress of daily living.

Carbs always work, and should work. If your carb tolerance is zero (for OP): low amounts of caffeine, decent amounts of aspirin, well-dosed b-complex with emphasis on B1 as @mostlylurking always states, and some magnesium will change that quick.

 

[webbt]

Any update?

Have you ever checked your ferritin level? It will tell you the amount of iron your body has stored for use.
A low level could be responsible for fatigue, cold hands and feet, inability to focus, depression. Even if not anemic.

Perhaps the keto diet helped you due to raising your ferritin to an optimal level.