Welcome back to another iteration of the nutritional mental health newsletter! If you’re in the States, it’s been a hectic last week with huge devastation. I hope that you’re not affected, but if you are there have been so many places offering support and should be continuing to do so for a while. This article has a non-comprehensive list. On the flip side, there have been a number of people trying to sell supplements, detoxes, and the like to victims of the fire, and honestly if you notice this I would recommend reporting them. We can’t supplement ourselves out of extreme stress and hardship. There are some things we could do to help, such as air filtration and drinking enough water, but exploiting grief and tragedy is never ok.

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That all being said, if you’re in the headspace to work on your nutrition for ADHD, I have the ultimate kickstart resource for you 👇️ 

Discover the Five Keys to ADHD Nutrition

With my recently updated packet The 5 ADHD Food Families, you'll:

• Know exactly what to eat for better focus, energy, and calmness.

• Understand the nutrients your ADHD brain craves and how to get them.

• Stop googling which foods have the nutrients you need and quickly calculate how much to eat with simple guidelines and tables that both outline what foods are high in the nutrient and how much is in a serving.

All for just $7.

Your ADHD brain deserves it. Ready to feel prepared, nourished, and in-the-know?

Let’s talk tryptophan.

Depending on how long you’ve been around, you might know that tryptophan is one of my favorite amino acids (AKA, what we get when we eat protein). Why? It’s one of the few food sources that have been shown to help protect against depressive episodes! As a person who experiences those waves, tryptophan is one of my best friends.

But what if I told you that tryptophan is important for ADHD as well?

The logistics of this is still relatively unknown, but we do see some alterations in the serotonin system of those with ADHD as well as the obvious dopaminergic system. For instance, we see issues with serotonin production all the way at the start: just like with depression and chronic stress, people with ADHD have an overactive kynurenine pathway, meaning that our bodies have less tryptophan to turn into serotonin!

But why does this impact ADHD? Again, it’s not entirely known, but we have evidence (among other things) that it can actually affect the reward system - you know, that thing that dopamine has been so widely touted for.

Let’s get into it!

Serotonin, the reward system, + decisions

Link to the study

Ok, ok, I know - it’s a little confusing. Let me try to simplify it a little bit.

Essentially, the people with less tryptophan in their systems:

• were more impulsive

• had an impaired reward perception - AKA, their brains didn’t register the difference between a large reward and a small reward.

Sound familiar?

It sort of feels like how people with ADHD tend to need a larger reward to get the same motivation needed to complete the task as neurotypicals.

So, what does this meaningfully mean to me?

Well, if you’re asking…

Eat protein.

Seriously. While I love saying that we need to eat enough protein as ADHDers because it’s the building block to dopamine, it’s also essential in this aspect as well. As long as you’re eating enough food, you don’t need to micromanage the specific amino acids, such as tryptophan or tyrosine. That being said, some of the highest sources of these are found in pumpkin seeds and chicken.

If you’re curious about how much protein you should eat if you have ADHD according to the current research, my packet, The 5 ADHD Food Families, outlines that exactly! Don’t forget to grab your copy!

Thanks for reading!

If you have any thoughts, questions, or comments, be sure to shoot me a DM on Instagram @Nutrimindcoach or simply reply to this email. I LOVE hearing from you!

This week on the Nutritional Mental Health Podcast: The Intersection of Mental Health and IBS: Current Research and Realistic Steps to Manage IBS. My friend Samina, a registered dietitian and face behind the Instagram account @inclusive.ibs.dietitian (p.s. 10/10 recommend following her if you have IBS) chat all about the best ways to approach IBS if you have a mental health condition along with some fun facts you probably never heard before.

P.S. I’m still navigating YouTube - I have the video format of this episode done, but my computer doesn’t have the space to download it! Off to get a flashdrive… (UPDATE: I still haven’t gotten a flashdrive because I’m a person who hates leaving the house. It’s all ready to publish but I’m just …. I’ll get there ok? 😅)