Nondrug Treatments for ADHD -- Do They Work?

This is the Medscape Psychiatry Minute. I'm Dr. Peter Yellowlees.

Many nonpharmacologic treatments for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, ADHD, are available and widely used, although their efficacy remains uncertain.

Now a European team of investigators[1] has undertaken meta-analyses of the efficacy of dietary

(restricted elimination diets, artificial food color exclusions, and free fatty acid supplementation) and psychological (cognitive training, neurofeedback, and behavioral interventions) ADHD treatments.

The authors found that free fatty acid supplementation produced small but significant reductions in ADHD symptoms and that artificial food color exclusion produced larger effects but often in individuals selected for food sensitivities.

They concluded that better evidence for efficacy from blinded assessments is required for behavioral interventions, neurofeedback, cognitive training, and restricted elimination diets before they can be supported as treatments for core ADHD symptoms.

It seems that, despite our patients' interest in them, we are still a long way from finding clinically effective nonpharmacologic interventions for ADHD.

This article is selected from Medscape Best Evidence. I'm Dr. Peter Yellowlees.