Fondueset said:
...In any case - I added an amino acid supplement containing a low dose of 5htp to my son's diet and did see an immediate improvement...
They had a very good TV program in the UK recently where they took 4 young boys with severe behavioral problems and had a special physician analyze their diets, blood, hair, allergies and a number of other things. He also talked to the boys and their families. They all had awful diets (but only one was fat). Some drank vast amounts of soda, they all ate huge amounts of sugar in various forms and most of their food was fast/processed/nutritionally empty. When they examined the blood, hair, etc. tests all of the boys had nutritional deficiencies and such like, of various kinds (each boy had different issues). By providing them with a much healthier, nutrition rich diet (lots of fresh fruit, veg, meat & fish - no fast food, processed food or soda), & specific supplementation for a couple of them where there was a particularly severe deficiency in certain minerals and encouraging the parents to share positive activities with them (walking the dog while the obese child jogged & took a dance/drama class) the improvements over several weeks were dramatics. A significant improvement was seen even in the first week. The parents ate (& prepared, sometimes with the boys) the healthier food too & some gave up smoking (or maybe that was another program!). At the start, I think all of the boys had been barred from school because of their unruly behaviour. At the end, all had been accepted back at school,
the parents' lives were drastically improved (more peace, kids in school, kids behaving like calm,good, kind, helpful human beings), the teachers were astonished by the improvement. So I think Fondueset is on to something with the diet, supplementation thing. Probably worth getting some tests done for vitamin & mineral levels.
I was given occasional cod liver oil as a child & ate fresh fish twice a week - that used to be normal. Modern diets are often lacking some essential oils; most of us have to make an effort to get them. Having read up on essential oils as an adult -- I now eat fish whenever I can & occasionally use things like Devon Good Oil (hemp oil with Omega3,6 & 9) & flax oil - and eat nuts of various kinds. I also take a fish oil capsule several days a week* (usually when I haven't had fish) & a multivitamin (not mega dose, just a Centrum like product). I try to eat healthy -- not always successfully. Now if only I could give up tea & coffee!
*Probably should not overdo anything, fish oil included. Although there are some benefits to mega doses of fish oil, I read about some recent research. Fish oil is often said to be good for the heart & brain by, among other things, reducing the likelihood of clotting. Eskimos/inuits are often given as an example of people who suffer little heart disease due to a diet rich in fish oil, HOWEVER some follow up research pointed out that mortality rates for inuits were much the same as for anyone else. So heart disease didn't get them but something else did -- apparently things where the body needed its clotting mechanisms, such as haemoraging.
