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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

to wonder if a lot of adult ADHD is actually neuroinflammation?

76 replies

sportio · 25/08/2025 21:30

Before anyone has a canary I have an adult diagnosis of ADHD myself and have been both medicated and unmedicated. However the more research I do the more I keep hearing about neuroinflammation. The symptoms of neuroinflammation are very much a match for those of ADHD and modern western lifestyles are for the most part a one way ticket to neuroinflammation.

Looking at medications they often work as a kind of brute force for executive function but they do nothing to address any underlying neuroinflammation. I am not on any medication at all now due to side effects but I am finding addressing neuroinflammation things like diet, lifestyle, sleep and exercise and supplements really helpful although it is early days for me I do like the idea of tackling the root causes.

Has anyone else explored this?

OP posts:
Oftenaddled · 25/08/2025 22:45

Here's a podcast on ADHD and inflammation by Dr James Kustow (London-based psychiatrist specialising in adult ADHD)

https://open.spotify.com/episode/4l2p6ybAV3gOgTBWSsn97q

I haven't listened to it, but I've read his book.

TheFallenMadonna · 25/08/2025 22:47

BertieBotts · 25/08/2025 22:33

Can you please quote your source? This sounds incredibly dubious.

Re the suggestion about diet and Omega-3s - various diets have been trialled for help with ADHD but none have been shown to have an effect.

It's very easy to test food supplements using a double blind randomised control trial, so if there's something in the saffron thing I would imagine it would be easy to prove.

I'm not that poster, but was also interested...

2024 review

TheFallenMadonna · 25/08/2025 22:49

Meant to link this one too

Yesitisred · 25/08/2025 23:07

BertieBotts · 25/08/2025 22:33

Can you please quote your source? This sounds incredibly dubious.

Re the suggestion about diet and Omega-3s - various diets have been trialled for help with ADHD but none have been shown to have an effect.

It's very easy to test food supplements using a double blind randomised control trial, so if there's something in the saffron thing I would imagine it would be easy to prove.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/10870547231203176

Inthebleakmidwinter1 · 25/08/2025 23:08

What research and what are your sources? If it’s just some YouTube shite then it’s not credible

Inthebleakmidwinter1 · 25/08/2025 23:11

I think adhd is a hyper sensitised nervous system caused by genetics, epigenetics and the environment your were raised in.

RitaFromThePitCanteen · 25/08/2025 23:30

Interesting, OP. I have ADHD and also various conditions associated with inflammation. My siblings have neither. I'm going to have to look into this more.

appledoors · 25/08/2025 23:40

I think it’s possible, or it could be among several different factors that combine along with a genetic pre-disposition. I don’t know.

I am ND with ND children. I do wish there was less stigma behind trying to actually work out what ADHD and autism are and what’s causing them.

jeansgenie · 25/08/2025 23:45

There was a time before I discovered I had pernicious anemia that i thought I had ADHD. I had the loading injections and could physically feel the pressure in my head lifting, and liquid in the back of my nose. I am convinced my brain was inflamed. I've never had the symptoms as strongly since, although some mild inattentiveness when I get tired/brain-foggy. I feel like a completely different person. I also have a friend who had thyroid issues who felt the same way. I'm sure in a few years they'll link it all up - hormones/pituitary glad and the effects of the modern diet.

NeverDropYourMooncup · 25/08/2025 23:48

Yes, there is a link between measurable inflammation and mood entirely separate to things such as depression (and is why sticking women on antidepressants when they actually have autoimmune diseases is a bloody travesty). But that doesn't mean that ADHD is caused by unmeasurable (or measurable for that matter) inflammation or that it isn't ADHD in the first place.

If there is measurable inflammation, then there are medications to address this where clinically necessary. Drinking water and having a curry a week is not the same - and is as much of an insult to people with autoimmune diseases as all of the other snake oils that people seem to want to punt at you when they find out that you have an autoimmune disease.

BertieBotts · 25/08/2025 23:51

OK, so the saffron link is nothing then? Or very much in its infancy if more research to be done. I don't see very much to convince me in the review, they are all tiny samples, hardly found any results anyway and only one study seemed much good in its methodology - which is the one linked separately - but even the findings of this don't seem to make much sense, they said that the effects of both methylphenidate (Ritalin) vs methylphenidate + saffron were similar but that the positive effects were reported after 4 weeks in the combination group whereas only after 8 weeks in the single group.

But their conclusion from this is that treatment duration can be shorter, and that doesn't make any sense. You don't treat ADHD for 8 weeks and then stop, you have to keep taking the medication or the effects will go away.

sportio · 25/08/2025 23:56

Goinggreymammy · 25/08/2025 22:30

How do you give saffron to children? In a tea? In cooking? What sort of quantity? Im interested in this.

The studies have been done with supplements i.e. standardised extracts. I think 30mg a day was the quantity used. If you google it you will find the studies.

OP posts:
OP posts:
Spookyspaghetti · 26/08/2025 00:18

sportio · 25/08/2025 21:38

Yes I did have traits and was diagnosed with dyslexia as a child. However neuroinflammation is also still possible in children I grew up in the 80's and existed on a diet of freezer shop processed food and sugar, I wasn't breastfed, my mum was a heavy smoker and we were poor and my parents were very stressed about money most of the time. So it is very possible I had neuroinflammation as a child.

I think UPFs are the latest fad blamed for everything. There are proven cancer links which is fine, no problem with facts, but the fad diet people are really pushing the idea that every condition can be ‘cured’ or prevented by cutting out UPFs.

I find it a bit insulting to suggest that ADHD is caused by diet. Im undiagnosed but my DD is a carbon copy of me and ADHD/autism traits have been mentioned at her preschool. I was brought up with coke for breakfast and turkey twizzlers but my DD was breastfed until age 2 and has mostly a much better diet than I had. (Although meals were often meat and two veg in the past too)

The only way to explain that is genetics imo. Also, I’ve been a vegetarian for over 20 years now (since before it became fashionable) so surely my reduction in UPF meat would improve my executive function. Unfortunately, it’s the same as ever. Now I have some idea why I am the way I am I can find coping strategies that might improve things.

sportio · 26/08/2025 00:22

I'm veggie as well and my Dad has ADHD too. I'm not denying genetics but we know ultra processed food is indeed bad for us and food isn't the only cause of inflammation but its something we have a bit more control over. Try not to be so triggered by the suggestion that lifestyle can play a part it does in many things. See it as a positive, another tool we can use to get the best from ourselves.

OP posts:
FairKoala · 26/08/2025 00:27

sportio · 26/08/2025 00:22

I'm veggie as well and my Dad has ADHD too. I'm not denying genetics but we know ultra processed food is indeed bad for us and food isn't the only cause of inflammation but its something we have a bit more control over. Try not to be so triggered by the suggestion that lifestyle can play a part it does in many things. See it as a positive, another tool we can use to get the best from ourselves.

Some of us were born before fast food and supermarkets.
Bread came from the Bakery. Meat from the Butcher and fruit and vegetables from the green grocer.
If there was temptation you couldn’t afford it

All of our family have ADHD.

Spookyspaghetti · 26/08/2025 00:32

Onlyinthrees · 25/08/2025 22:26

If I could get my shit together enough to do that, there would be nothing wrong with me in the first place.
it’s like when people say if only depressed people exercised, socialised, ate a balanced diet and got enough sleep they wouldn’t be so depressed.

Exactly.

ThePure · 26/08/2025 00:33

’neuroinflammation’ is a total internet diagnosis isn’t it? It’s not something a Dr would diagnose. It sounds like quackery to me. What tests would reveal if you had this then? Or is it just a collection of nebulous symptoms that everyone has to some degree or another?

Spookyspaghetti · 26/08/2025 00:39

sportio · 26/08/2025 00:22

I'm veggie as well and my Dad has ADHD too. I'm not denying genetics but we know ultra processed food is indeed bad for us and food isn't the only cause of inflammation but its something we have a bit more control over. Try not to be so triggered by the suggestion that lifestyle can play a part it does in many things. See it as a positive, another tool we can use to get the best from ourselves.

Wow I seem to have really triggered you.

I’d actually be interested to know what you are hoping to get out of this thread? Why are you so keen to blame a condition you don’t have on something like a lifestyle choice? Several people have commented that ADHD was a thing before UPFs. A healthy lifestyle can help in lots of ways but it can’t change how you were born. A lot of people with ADHD already have a healthy lifestyle as has been explained to you. It’s not much of a discussion if you only want us to talk about supplements.

InMyShowgirlEra · 26/08/2025 00:45

Oh right, so we can just cure a core part of our personalities and identities by eating better? Great, I'll let my husband and friends know that we're all just mistakes caused by unhealthy lifestyles and with the right choices can become completely different people who are neurotypical and I suppose therefore deserving of existence.

TheLivelyViper · 26/08/2025 00:54

Inthebleakmidwinter1 · 25/08/2025 23:11

I think adhd is a hyper sensitised nervous system caused by genetics, epigenetics and the environment your were raised in.

It's around 80% genetic though and 20% environmental, it has a much lower impact and wouldn't change a someone getting a diagnosis or not.

Even if some of the things mentioned above, saffron and water etc, that's things that help everyone (and easier for those with resources, money, more time) - doing most of those is going to help you, so it's no surprise it also helps people with ADHD but it's in no way a replacement for medication or better than the meds. Some people may do both, and say it helps them (that's fine, along as they understand the evidence base research on the meds etc), as in many people will be on a supplement and meds, but credit the supplement as the reason they feel better which is curious. I think we're seeing these discussions crop up more, as the anti-intellectual movement grows, and we see this with more people drinking raw milk, not using folic acid in pregnancy.

It's also because there's a difference in medicine between something being signicant and being clinically significant. So a blood pressure medication may work and reduce people's blood pressure but one or two points, so it's significant. But on the scale of things a few points is nothing (especially compared to other meds) - so it's not clinically significant. I think there needs to be more, I guess transparency between the science and people, so they understand it because otherwise that's how misinformation grows. Many people believe that the pill means you'll definitely get multiple cancers - when it actually significantly reduces the risk of endometrial cancer and ovarian cancer, and whilst it has a minor likelihood of causing breast cancer, it's a much smaller number than sensationalised (by people who are anti-birth control etc, which is happening here now and they want to curtail women's access to such meds), we also know that all the side effects of it, are of a much higher likelihood in pregnancy anyways - which isn't spoken about because that fits with the roles they want for women. All this to there I'd a growing wellness, MAHA movement, which uses anti-scientific information (not referring to posters on this thread btw but there's definitely beem more aggressive discussions blaming family structures, lack of discipline etc as the cause lf ADHD. For the general public it's confusing and is having a big impact on people's health particular women. So we do need to be careful when we talk about things like this and realise that on balance those methods may improve wellbeing but won't alleviate ADHD symptoms directly.

P.S not saying this thread is necessarily going that way, but that across SM and rising figures of the right, think tansk etc the research shows this is the way we're going, and whilst science doesn't always get it right, a part of all studies is trying to disprove yourself and peer review which is obviously not a requirement for SM, that comes with some pros but definitely some cons.

NeverDropYourMooncup · 26/08/2025 02:03

sportio · 26/08/2025 00:22

I'm veggie as well and my Dad has ADHD too. I'm not denying genetics but we know ultra processed food is indeed bad for us and food isn't the only cause of inflammation but its something we have a bit more control over. Try not to be so triggered by the suggestion that lifestyle can play a part it does in many things. See it as a positive, another tool we can use to get the best from ourselves.

After fifty years of hearing all of the magical cures that have at best a subatomic level of truth in them (such as drinking water might make you feel a bit better - if you're generally dehydrated and it's hot) anybody punting out yet another 'all you need to do is take this random food item, drink water ('alkaline', acidic or plain tap as applicable) and exercise and you'll be cured/there's no need to take actual tested medication/Big Pharma's got it in for you and you're too stupid to see that as you poison yourself for their executives to go swimming in fifties like Scrooge McDuck' shite can shove it right up their arse as far as I'm concerned.

I'm just so over this bloody magical thinking and 'let your food be your medicine and it's just as good as actual tested and standardised medicine based upon actual scientific method, don't you know' by now.

SiameseBlueEyes · 26/08/2025 02:22

My son grew up in a family with no shortage of money, a large detached house, and two involved parents. He had and has a diet of food mostly cooked from scratch. He got plenty of sleep. He still has an ADHD diagnosis and he's like the male version of my mother.