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Comment by Podgajski | Hacker News Reader

I read that whole thing and didn’t read one word about nutrition?

I’ve come along way to understanding the nutritional metabolic pathways that may increase the symptoms of ADHD.

Pyridoxine, or B6, is the most studied nutritional factor when it comes to reducing ADHD symptoms. I’m not saying this is the only cause of ADHD, but if this works other things might work as well. Zinc is a good possibility on the list also.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24321736/

According to our data, multi-year pyridoxine treatment normalizes completely the pattern of ADHD behavior, without causing any serious side effects.

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https://sci-hub.hkvisa.net/10.1016/j.mehy.2013.11.018

While it discusses multi-year treatment, the paper says "After several weeks of such treatment the pattern of behavior in ADHD patients is normalized." which feels like something that could be easily tried out. Since it was published in 2013 I'd expect some follow-up? (checking for citations now)

Edit: Sadly, "No Tryptophan, Tyrosine and Phenylalanine Abnormalities in Children with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4777504/ 2016, larger study. (although they measure the amounts rather than ratios, so not exactly the same idea)

Nutritional studies are hard to get funding for in the first place, never mind the follow-ups.

They found nothing in the study, because IMI they were measuring the wrong neurotransmitters. Dopamine is not the cause of the symptoms. It has to do with glutamate and GABA Balance. Since stimulants can control effect glutamate and GABA as well as Dopamine , that’s why there is all the confusion.

B6 also plays a role in glutamate GABA balance through stimulating the glutamate dehydrogenase enzyme.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5545734/

It looks like you have a whole stash of related papers. If you could send all those links, I'd really appreciate it.

They all stashed my brain after years of researching nutritional psychiatry.

As far as ADHD goes, I just suggest searching both PubMed and Google scholar for ADHD, glutamate and GABA.

I think glutamate and GABA play a larger, or fundenental role, in most psychiatric disorders.

May be a part of why so many people with psychiatric disorders (especially undiagnosed or untreated) often use nicotine and/or alcohol to cope. They both interact heavily with the GABAergic system. Alcohol also inhibits the activity of glutamate and reduces extracellular levels in certain brain regions. Too much glutamate in the brain can cause 'failure of different neurotransmission systems' and is neurotoxic.

It's too bad self-medicating with these substances comes with such awful downsides.

Ethanol is my go to medication. It’s the only calcium, sodium, and potassium ion channel blocker that can enter the brain. These are implicated in bipolar disorder which I have. The trick is to not abuse it just like any other medication.

I also have labile hypertension and it’s the only medication I can take that controls my blood pressure spikes.

I feel the same way about nicotine, although I can’t take it because it turns me to up. Nicotine is a stimulant and can be used as a medicine in lower doses. The problem is that people used to do and that sets up the addiction cycle.

I definitely have an issue with a very high glutamate/GABA ratio. My other go to medicine is Klonopin which I use only when I’m in a severe crisis. Like when I had a delusional psychosis when I had Covid.

I think this and many research efforts seem like how blind men are describing an elephant. They partially capture the truth. It seems to me B6 is just one of many cofactors that affect the one-carbon metabolism (methylation) besides epigenetics that play a role in ADHD. Recently I have been reading/watching materials from Bill Wash. His findings on ADHD make more sense to me. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhdI6rqORv8 If you look up further online, I think you can find the biochemical rationale for these findings.

Hi, author here,

Nutrition is very important indeed, but it has always been a problem for me. I wanted to focus on things I tried and worked on me. Of course, it's not perfect, but at least the points I listed made the things better for me. Everybody's different, so it's not a silver bullet, just my personal journey.

Can you explain more about how nutrition is an issue for you?

Would you ever consider getting your serum B6 levels tested? It’s pretty cheap and you can do it without a doctors prescription if you’re in in the United States.

The topics you're struggling with would be a great addition to the article, if only so that you can reread it later and check whether it had changed.

or smartphone use, which is correlated with emotional dysregulation.

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