Finally Focused: The Breakthrough Natural Treatment Plan for ADHD That Restores Attention, Minimizes Hyperactivity, and Helps Eliminate Drug Side Effects - Softcover

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JAMES GREENBLATT, MD, is board-certified in both child and adult psychiatry, and has treated thousands of children and adults with ADHD over the past 30 years, using a unique, science-based approach that combines both natural and medical therapeutics. During his career, Dr. Greenblatt has trained and supervised medical professionals in integrative strategies for depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder and schizophrenia, and currently serves as chief medical officer and vice president of medical services at Walden Behavioral Care in Waltham, Massachusetts. Dr. Greenblatt is also on the clinical faculty of Tufts Medical School and Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine. His previous books include Breakthrough Depression Solution, Answers to Binge Eating, and Answers to Anorexia.

BILL GOTTLIEB, CHC, is the author of 16 health books that have sold 3 million copies and been translated into 10 languages, a health journalist whose articles have appeared in Prevention, Men’s Health, Bottom Line Health and many other magazines and periodicals, a health coach certified by the American Association of Drugless Practitioners, and the former editor-in-chief of Rodale Books and Prevention Magazine Books.

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The Miracle Mineral

Plus: Magnesium

I’ve been treating children with ADHD for thirty years--and I can’t remember one child with the disorder who didn’t benefit from taking a magnesium supplement.

Take Noah, for example. Twelve-year-old Noah and his parents were in my office for help with the same stressful symptoms that have brought thousands of frustrated parents and unhappy children to my clinic: Noah was impulsive, hyperactive, and inattentive, and his life at home and at school was in shambles.

His parents told me that as a young child, Noah was often fidgety and couldn’t sit still for more than a few minutes. Noah himself told me the only time he felt happy these days was when he was “wandering around” outside. 

Noah, said his parents, had done well in school until he was in the second grade, when he started to interrupt his teachers constantly. Sometimes the school called, asking that Noah be taken home.

Noah struggled socially, too. He found it hard to make friends. He couldn’t sit down and play a board game without becoming restless when the other children took their turns. Sometimes when he lost the game he threw the board at a friend. Playdates became increasingly rare.

When Noah was eight, his parents took him to a doctor, hoping an ADHD medication might provide relief. The doctor agreed to the treatment and prescribed Ritalin.

But the drug made things worse. Noah became extremely emotional. He cried easily. His appetite disappeared.

He was taken off Ritalin and put on Adderall.

He stopped feeling sad all the time, but instead started feeling agitated and anxious. After a month on the drug, Noah developed a facial tic.

Adderall was halted--and Noah’s problems continued, year after year.

When Noah became my patient, he was hyperactive, found it hard to focus, and--because he couldn’t control his impulsiveness--didn’t have any friends.

Noah’s story and symptoms made my first choice of treatment obvious: Twice daily, Noah was to take 200 milligrams (mg) of brain-balancing, body-calming magnesium.

One month after he started magnesium, I also restarted Noah on a low dose of Vyvanse (20 mg), a stimulant medication.

And this integrative approach--treating Noah with a key nutrient and a dose-regulated stimulant--produced tremendous results.

“I’m doing awesome,” Noah enthusiastically said to me when I saw him and his parents two months later.

He told me that he could sit still and participate in class. And that he was making some friends.

“I used to feel like my brain was a dull knife,” Noah said, sitting between his smiling parents. “It didn’t work right. It couldn’t cut through anything. But now it’s like a sharp knife--it works great.”

Why Magnesium Works

How can one nutrient make such a big difference in the symptoms of an ADHD child--in her life, and in the lives of her parents, teachers, and friends? There are many answers to that question.

The first fact to know: Magnesium plays a role in more than three hundred enzyme systems, biochemical spark plugs that ignite cellular activity. For example, if magnesium is minimal, so is ATP (adenosine triphosphate), the fundamental fuel that powers every cell. Blood sugar isn’t correctly regulated, and the immune system is weakened. Most important for your ADHD child, the brain is compromised.

Too little magnesium weakens the brain because the mineral plays a key role in the formation of neurotransmitters, chemicals that help send messages between brain cells. If magnesium levels are suboptimal, your child is likely to have imbalanced levels of two neurotransmitters: attention-regulating dopamine, and mood-regulating serotonin. Low magnesium can also undercut the functioning of glutamate receptors, areas on brain cells that assist the movement of neurotransmitters.

The end result of a magnesium-deprived brain? In children and adolescents, it’s often the symptoms of ADHD. Research links low magnesium levels in children with:

•    Poor concentration

•    Irritability and anxiety

•    Depression and apathy

•    Mood swings

•    Fatigue

•    Sleeping problems, like insomnia

Okay, low levels of magnesium are bad for your ADHD child. But why are levels low? Shockingly, magnesium deficiency could be a side effect of the ADHD drug your child is taking!

Yes, stimulant drugs like Ritalin and Adderall that are intended to help ADHD might actually be complicating the problem--because they leach magnesium from the body. In my experience, a deficit of nerve-nourishing magnesium is often behind ADHD drug side effects like irritability, agitation, anxiety, insomnia, facial tics, and nail-biting. Add supplemental magnesium to the mix, and all those symptoms are likely to disappear. That’s what happened with Noah. He couldn’t take an ADHD drug without side effects. But when he took the drug and magnesium, he was fine. (Or as Noah said, he was awesome.)

Noah is hardly alone. Relieving the side effects of ADHD with magnesium has generated more “Thank yous” from parents and their children than any other ADHD treatment I use.

Many Children Are Low in Magnesium

But even if your ADHD child isn’t taking an ADHD medication, odds are 50‑50 that he has a low level of magnesium. Research shows that half of Americans (including children) get less than the government’s Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) for magnesium1--probably because we Americans eat so many processed foods, most of which are stripped of magnesium during processing.

In the first decade of the twentieth century, when Americans ate more whole foods, people ingested 475 to 500 mg of magnesium daily. That level of intake has declined decade by decade, until now we consume 175 to 225 mg daily.

The nonstop pace of modern life also puts us under nonstop stress, which drains the body of magnesium.

How many ADHD children are actually deficient in magnesium? Nearly all of them!

In one study, doctors measured the magnesium levels of 114 children with ADHD and found that an astounding 110 of the children--96%--were deficient in magnesium.2 My clinical experience is similar, with rates at 90%.

Because magnesium deficiency is so common among children with ADHD, and because supplementing with magnesium can make such a huge difference in a child’s behavior (on or off medication), I recommend every patient with ADHD take a supplement of the mineral. The appropriateness of my approach to magnesium supplementation is confirmed by many scientific studies on magnesium and ADHD.

Scientific Support for . . . The Power of Magnesium to Heal the Symptoms of ADHD

I’d like to tell you about several studies that show the importance of magnesium in ADHD . . .

Less hyperactivity, inattention, impulsivity, and opposition--with 200 mg of magnesium a day. In the most recent study, Egyptian scientists measured magnesium levels in children with ADHD, finding deficiency in 72%.3 They also found that those with the lowest magnesium levels had the most hyperactivity and the lowest IQs.

They divided the children into two groups: half took 200 mg of magnesium daily and half took a placebo. After eight weeks, the children taking magnesium had “significant improvements” compared to the placebo takers. Specifically:

•    hyperactivity was 90% less

•    inattention was 66% less 

•    oppositional behavior was 33%...