I have seen many children respond to treatment with Essential Fatty
Acids. This article may be a little off, or more than a little off,
concerning even the positive things that it says concerning Essential
Fatty Acids. I have seen literature that the more serious problem
with ADHD children with atopic allergies is a problem with certain
omega 6's and not the 3's from the fish oil.
So using fish oil can help, but is a near miss. At the end of this
article I am including a little something that was not in the
mainstream news item that took me under a minute to find. I find it
interesting that Dr. Goodman warns about -- "nutraceuticals" often
take preliminary research and "run with it from a marketing
perspective."
I guess he knows something about marketing that I don't.
Nachum
------------------------------------------
This was from Yahoonews:

Study: Kids with eczema more likely to have ADHD Story Highlights
Kids with eczema are 54 percent more likely to have an ADHD diagnosis

Possible that eczema and ADHD could share an underlying cause

Other theory: itching or sleep disturbances may exacerbate ADHD
symptoms

By Anne Harding

Children with eczema are more likely to also have attention deficit
hyperactivity disorder than those without the skin problem, according
to a study.

About 20 percent of children in Western nations have atopic eczema by
age 6.

The children in the study had atopic eczema, a scaly, itchy skin
rash that is typically caused by allergies and is common among
infants. The rash often improves as a child gets older, although it
does signal an increased likelihood that he or she will go on to
develop allergies, hay fever, or asthma.

German researchers spotted the link in a study of 1,436 children and
adolescents aged 6 to 17 who had atopic eczema and 1,436 young people
without it. They found that 5.2 percent of eczema patients had ADHD,
compared with 3.4 percent of eczema-free youngsters, according to a
research letter in this week's issue of the Journal of the American
Medical Association.

Young people with atopic eczema were 54 percent more likely to have
an ADHD diagnosis than those without it. And the more frequently they
had visited a doctor for eczema, the more likely they were to have
attention problems, say study coauthors Jochen Schmitt, M.D., a
dermatologist at Technische Universität in Dresden, and Marcel
Romanos, M.D., a child and adolescent psychiatrist at the Hospital
Clinic of the University of Wuerzberg, both in Germany.

About 20 percent of children in Western nations are found to have
atopic eczema by age 6. About a third of those children go on to have
hay fever or asthma.

"Atopic eczema is highly prevalent in children and it is known to
gravely affect the quality of life," Schmitt and Romanos wrote in an
email. "Therefore the assumption that it might be related to or
influence the presence of psychiatric problems is not far-fetched."

However, the link needs to be confirmed by additional research, they
said. It's possible that eczema-related itching or sleep disturbances
may exacerbate ADHD symptoms in some children, the researchers
suggested. It's also possible that atopic eczema and ADHD could share
an underlying cause.
(I have a book writen 20 years ago by Patrica Kane that discusses an
underlying
cause. This was a study done in England with an 80% response rate
from the
sweaty, allergic children taking evening primrose oil, borage oil is
better,
Nachum)

"It is important to note, however, that this finding might only be
relevant for some and not all children with ADHD," the researchers
said.(that is true)

Special diets (for example, regimens that eliminate food additives
and sugar) have been proposed for treating ADHD, but the role of diet
and food sensitivity in the condition has been highly controversial.
No high-quality studies have been able to show that changing a
child's diet has any impact on ADHD symptoms(WHAT!!!!!), notes David
W. Goodman, M.D., an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral
sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in
Baltimore, Maryland.

Some research has linked ADHD to allergic conditions such as hay
fever, added Goodman, who directs the Adult Attention Deficit
Disorder Center of Maryland in Lutherville, but "the research is in
no way conclusive or definitive." Health.com: Celebrities with
attention deficit hyperactivity disorder

"The report adds additional circumstantial evidence to our
hypothesis" that immune-system factors are involved in ADHD,
according to Jan Buitelaar, M.D., Ph.D., of Radboud University
Nijmegen Medical Center in Nigmegen, The Netherlands. Buitelaar was
not involved in the current study but coauthored a 2008 paper
suggesting that ADHD may be an allergic condition in some patients.

"There is data that allergic mechanisms could alter brain
neurotransmission and brain functioning," Buitelaar noted via email.
He also pointed out that children could develop "disruptive and
restless behavior" as a result of the itchiness and pain caused by
the skin condition.

While the current findings are "an interesting scientific pursuit,"
Goodman says, he says they're not that useful in caring for
patients. "As yet, it's not ready for prime time clinical practice
and runs the risk of delaying otherwise proven effective treatment."

Goodman said he has nothing against complementary or alternative
approaches, as long as they don't supplant medication and behavioral
therapy, which are known to work. Unfortunately, he added, companies
that make "nutraceuticals" often take preliminary research and "run
with it from a marketing perspective."

He added, "Ultimately, treatment is a combination of medication for
ADHD and environmental changes that promote behavioral changes."

Goodman noted that two out of five studies have found some evidence
that omega-3 fatty acids may benefit ADHD patients. "Do my patients
take fish oil? Yes, but I have them take fish oil with proven
effective medication."
-----------------------------------
The following was not from yahoonews:

David W. Goodman, MD
Director, Adult Attention Deficit Disorder Center of Maryland;
Assistant Professor, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Department of
Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Baltimore, Maryland

Disclosure:
David W. Goodman, MD, has disclosed that he received research grants
from Cephalon, Forest Labs, Lilly and Company, McNeil, New River
Pharmaceuticals
and Shire Inc.
Dr. Goodman has disclosed that he receives honoraria from Forest
Labs, Lilly and Company, McNeil, Novartis, Shire Inc., and Wyeth.
Dr. Goodman also disclosed that he serves on the speakers' bureau for
Forest Labs, McNeil, Novartis, Shire Inc., and Wyeth.
Dr. Goodman has also disclosed he is a consultant for Clinical Global
Advisors, Forest Labs, GlaxoSmithKline, Lilly and Company, McNeil,
New River Pharmaceuticals, Novartis, Shire Labs, and Thompson
Reuters.