Brain Blog: Krill Oil and ADHD: Ideal Brain Food

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First feed the brain, and then challenge the brain

I often see patients in my neurofeedback practice who do not have enough brain energy to develop new brain patterns. They quickly burn through their glucose (sugar) and completely lose their productivity during the remainder of the session. This is not only unproductive and costly, but also frustrating for both patient and therapist.

Very much like a football coach who doesn’t want the quarter back to show up for training with a major hangover, it is likewise important that ADD and ADHD patients come to their training session in physical (brain) top condition.

Neurofeedback, also called neurotherapy, or EEG biofeedback is a type of biofeedback that uses real-time displays of electroencephalography (EEG) to illustrate electrical brain activity, often with a goal of self regulation of the central nervous system. Electrodes are placed on the scalp to measure electrical cortical activity, with feedback shown as video displays or sounds.

Teach and train the brain

Neurofeedback uses computerized feedback to allow individuals to teach and train their brains to increase certain brainwaves and patterns that are helpful for improved desired functions such as attention, memory, relaxation and sensory integration, to name a few. Both patient and therapist can make an instant analysis and see how they can change their patterns in real time.

Computer games are often used to translate the complex analysis to make it easier to understand how certain actions trigger certain brain states. For example, in one game the objective is to guess an animal’s name on a jigsaw puzzle. The patient starts with one puzzle piece on screen, and with more concentration (focus) she can earn more puzzle pieces.

Brainwave states

Brainwaves are grouped and named after their frequency, called Hertz (Hz). These are similar to the height and length of water waves. How many waves per second is the frequency, or the Hz. The height of the waves shows the intensity, or the amplitude, of the waves. In neurofeedback, we identify several major states as:

• Delta (0-4 Hz) is associated with sleep states
• Theta (4-8 Hz) is associated with daydreaming, creative states
• Alpha (8-13Hz) is associated with body-mind relaxation states, and connects the unconscious to the conscious mind
• Beta (13-32 Hz) is associated with thinking states

There are no right or wrong brain frequencies. It is more about finding the right balance for a given activity between all of the brain frequencies. For example, for sleep you want a different brain pattern than for doing algebra. It’s easy to see that someone with strong brain patterns associated with sleep will not do well in a math exam!

We need energy to think

With ADD patients we often aim to reduce Theta activity, and with ADHD-hyperactivity patients we often decrease Beta activity. I often notice after the first neurofeedback trial (3-10 minutes) that patients have used up most of their brain glucose. They push hard to control their brainwaves, but often do not have enough mental energy for a second trial. Just think of a child at school that after five minutes of class is not able to think or be productive for the rest of the eight-hour school day. The difference between ADHD people and “normal” people is that the first group is unable refocus after a short break, whereas everyone else will be able to focus again after a brief reset.

Food = Brain Quality

The kind of foods that we eat impacts both the short-term quality of the brain, and the long-term quality. We need to feed the brain healthy foods to be able to challenge it!

In simple terms, short-term quality is driven by glucose levels. If the patient is high on soda-pop, fruit juices, candy and cookies, the first brain exercise will burn quickly through the available glucose and then burn them out; they will be wasted for the rest of the therapy session and or day at school until they are refueled. Better energy sources are proteins and good fats, because they burn much slower and longer.

Krill oil is ideal brain food

The foundation for long-term brain metabolism is supported by the fats that we consume. The brain consists of 60% fat, and not just any fat. Most brain fat is an omega-3 phospholipid, like that in krill oil, and not a triglyceride fat like that in fish oil. Fish-oil triglycerides must be converted by the liver to phospholipids, and the omega-3 fish triglycerides have to compete for a place in the phospholipid chain with the multitude of omega-6 fats that are in or common in today’s diets. Supplementation with krill oil omega-3 phospholipids is a more direct approach, and works around absorption and liver conversion problems.

In summary, those with ADHD (and the rest of us) need:

• better short-term nutrition (less sugar) to get them through the day, and
• better long-term nutrition (omega-3 phospholipids) to fundamentally change the composition of the brain fats.

Next: Krill Oil and ADHD: Burn, Sugar, Burn

Debi's previous brain blog: Krill Oil and ADHD, Part 1

You can read Debi Elliott’s full bio here.

You can read Debi Elliot's other brain blogs here. 

Debi Elliott is president of WellWise and one of the leading Boulder therapists for ADHD and ADD.