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not. The proposed method of cold hydrotherapy is safe for most people. Readers need to exercise caution with hot hydrotherapy, especially people taking certain prescription drugs and people with low blood pressure, headache, or inflammatory conditions.
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CHAPTER 3: Attention control, or the ability to concentrate
     

 
Key points:
ADHD is a complex disorder characterized by core symptoms of inattention, hyperactivity, or impulsivity.
The Feingold hypothesis suggests that food additives cause symptoms of ADHD.
Elimination diets are beneficial for some but not all ADHD patients.
Addition of cocktails of food additives to the diet reproduces some symptoms of ADHD in healthy children. Yet the size of this effect is too small to explain the magnitude of symptoms in ADHD.
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Key points:
A recent study out of Australia shows that ADHD patients consume 50% less meat, fish, and eggs than the general population does. The total amount of protein that ADHD patients consume is normal. These data suggest that people with ADHD tend to consume dietary protein of lower quality.
Several pathological changes observed in ADHD patients are similar to the effects of low-protein diets.
These changes include: {1} lowered levels of the amino acids tyrosine and phenylalanine in blood, {2} lowered total level of protein in blood, and {3} a somewhat smaller brain size in afflicted children than in their healthy peers.
ADHD drugs (amphetamine-like stimulants such as Ritalin ®) reduce appetite, but researchers find most of the above changes in both medicated and unmedicated patients. Therefore, the appetite-reducing effects of ADHD medication cannot explain the low consumption or poor digestion of protein-rich foods by ADHD patients.
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Key points:
ADHD drugs, most often amphetamine-like stimulants, improve attention control both in ADHD patients and in healthy people.
The attention-enhancing effect of ADHD drugs has to do with an increase in the level of a chemical called dopamine in several brain regions.
High-protein diets produce chemical changes in the brain that are similar to the changes produced by ADHD medication. Therefore, these diets may enhance attention function in healthy people and in ADHD patients.
Low-protein diets produce the opposite changes in the brain and therefore should worsen attention performance.
Foods containing higher quality protein, such as red meat, should be more effective at improving attention.
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Key points:
The fruit-and-vegetable diet contains tiny amounts of protein and quality of the protein is low.
This diet may serve as an experimental model of ADHD because it induces distractibility, hyperactivity, and impulsivity.
Reintroduction of high-quality dietary protein into this diet reverses all symptoms.
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Key points:
In line with the theory from the previous sections, studies show that high-protein meals and diets indeed improve attention. High-carbohydrate meals tend to worsen attentional performance.
High-fat diets can have antianxiety properties.
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Key points:
My self-experimentation over the last 19 years suggests that attention control will improve if you add the following protein supplement to the diet in liberal amounts: 90 to 95% of the supplement is beef, chicken, or fish; nuts constitute 5 to 10% of the supplement.
You can achieve even better attention performance if you combine the increased consumption of high-quality protein with elimination of all junk food and artificial ingredients from the diet. This is the “balanced high-protein diet” and it consists of fruits, vegetables, nuts, boiled meat and fish.
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Key points:
Studies suggest that high-protein diets can increase fatigue and emotional tension and can lower mood.
These diets can