Lower Blood Iron Levels Linked to More Severe ADHD
At the 57th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP) in October 2010, Chadi Calarge of the University of Iowa’s Carver College of Medicine reported that among children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), blood iron levels were inversely correlated with the severity of ADHD symptoms. That is, those with lower iron levels in their blood had greater severity of ADHD symptomatology and, in addition, required higher doses of stimulants to achieve effective results.
Editor’s note: It would appear clinically useful to check blood iron levels in patients with ADHD symptomatology, particularly when symptoms are severe or when the illness requires very high doses of stimulants to achieve therapeutic effects.
Comments
Leave a Reply
