The opiate prescribing crisis has led to rules which affect the supply of opiate drugs to pharmacies but also of medications for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), such as Adderall®, also known as dextroamphetamine-amphetamine.
Many patients have come to rely on Adderall® to concentrate better at school and at work and the shortage at pharmacies has been hard for such patients. They or their parents are going from pharmacy to pharmacy trying to find a place where the prescription can be filled. Many people are going without these medications or trying to survive on much less than they accustomed to taking.
What options do such patients have? Some other medications for ADHD, such as Vyvanse® and methylphenidate (Ritalin®) may be a little less popular and perhaps easier to find. However, this does not solve the problem for most people.
For those of you who are frustrated with this situation, let me suggest an alternative. In biomedical academic circles, no one knows what causes ADHD. However, in brain studies, the brain seems to be less active than in people who do not have ADHD. This would seem odd because children with ADHD are so active. This is because the parts of the brain which are more slowed down are the thinking parts. With these parts less active, the muscle motion part becomes more predominant.
So what would slow down the brain? Again, in academic circles, no one knows. However, in the diet, as one example, there is a food called malt or barley malt. Barley malt is a sprouted barley which is heat killed to form the raw material for making beer. Barley malt contains many growth factors for yeast as it makes beer. But because of the high heat some very strange chemicals form, which are very sedating. This means they put the brain to sleep. There are twenty of them, called alkyl pyrazines, and the strongest one is compared with phenobarbital (a drug which puts people to sleep) in studies. The strongest is not as strong (about 1/13) as phenobarbital but remember there are twenty of them. Barley malt is baked into nearly everything, breads, bagels, cookies, crackers and most breakfast cereals. So a child eating a breakfast cereal is most likely ingesting twenty chemicals which are going to put his or her brain to sleep, just as they are going to school. No parent wants this for their children. Is it any wonder that your child then needs medication like Adderall® to wake up the brain?
Barley malt feeds the yeast in beer brewing and also feeds the yeast Candida albicans in the intestine. Candida is present more after antibiotics have been given. Candida also makes chemicals which slow down the brain and make it not work right.
So if the Adderall® and related medications are not available, one option is to take the barley malt out of your child’s diet. Some cereals do not have barley malt or the related maltodextrin. Whole wheat bread does not usually have barley malt but white bread does. Bagels usually have barley malt. If you take the barley malt out of your child’s diet, your child will concentrate at least some better. There is more that you can do for yourself or for your child. Removing barley malt is a place to start.
The full diet is described in our book Feast Without Yeast: 4 Stages to Better Health. People have used this diet for their children to help them concentrate better so that they do not need medications.
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