So today we're gonna look at some of the latest research into ADHD, but from a nutritional therapy perspective. We're going to be looking at the underlying mechanisms that we can modulate or support using nutrition and lifestyle. And then over the rest of the audios, we can break down those ideas, so we can really dive into them more deeply, and then see where, where we can do some work, where might be more applicable to you than other areas.So one of the large areas of research for ADHD is dopamine, you've probably heard of it, it's one word that comes up quite often with, with ADHD, and Steve covered it brilliantly in one of his previous audios, but I thought we'd have a quick recap here. So dopamine is a neurotransmitter and hormone, it has both, can do both functions, and it helps with concentration and focus. Now the science behind the mechanism that's causing an issue with dopamine isn't completely understood, but what they are more convinced about is that the use of stimulant medication can support the ADHD symptoms. And what the stimulant medication is doing is blocking the reuptake transporters. The reuptake transporters are the recycling mechanism, so once the dopamine has been used, it needs to be recycled and then re-used and re-tasked by the body. So by blocking those transporters and the recycling, you're allowing a concentration of the dopamine to build up, likely having the greater effect, which is helping the focus and concentration. The next likely contributor to ADHD is genes. There's really strong evidence that heritability from a parent with ADHD to a child is between 50 and 74%, depending on the papers you read. So though, it is genetic, there is also very clear evidence that there's no one gene, there's no one ADHD gene, there's no one switch on and off, that has been identified, and it's very likely to be a poly-genetic effect of multiple gene effects. But compounded with this is also the effect of the environment on our genes, the epigenetics of environment has the ability to switch on and off genes as well as the genes themselves, so it's quite a complicated picture with all these variables included in it.In the last episode, we talked about food being our essential building blocks. And there are some studies linking some of these building blocks, magnesium, zinc, and chromium, and also an omega three oil, omega three fatty acid that we can get from fish. That some of these nutrients that when they insufficient, could be linked to symptoms of ADHD, and could be worth investigating as well.There's also other evidence being researched into perhaps neuro inflammation being a component of ADHD. Now what could be causing this neuro inflammation? There's some research behind immune function or more immune dysregulation, potentially being a cause. If when the body has an invader, or bacteria or virus, whatever it may be, then our immune system's there to raise a response to fight it off, which normally causes inflammation, maybe some heat if you've got a cut, and that response is great and that's what needs to be done, that's very appropriate. But then when it's when it's over, when the battle is over, and the body needs to calm itself back down, it should signal and go, 'Okay, we need to calm down', and everything starts going back to normal and the immune response should calm down and go back to normal, in the kind of watching and waiting state. But sometimes the body can have a heightened immune response, and really struggle to kind of put itself back down into its watching and waiting state. And then this kind of perpetual, heightened immune response can then start causing damage around the body that's kind of fighting battles it doesn't need to be fighting, there's a lot more collateral damage, which then could be leading to more general inflammation and perhaps neuro inflammation.Another area of research is called oxidative stress, and particularly excessive oxidative stress. Now, our bodies are amazing. They're constantly busy, they're constantly having chemical reactions to do stuff to produce energy to detoxify ourselves, and all of these reactions create reactive oxygen species, they're kind of the byproducts of the reactions. And what we know of we often heard of antioxidants, antioxidants, we can eat through our diet, but our body also produces our endogenous antioxidants and they have exactly what they say on the tin, they're antioxidants, they, they sort out this oxidative stress, and kind of level things back up again and kind of neutralise these kind of quite damaging particles. So if you have a state where you have an excessive oxidative stress picture, you're not managing to produce the antioxidants enough in your body to neutralise enough of these reactive oxygen species, then it's kind of like a see-saw that we've got over, overproduction of these damaging particles and not enough of the protective antioxidants. So this will start causing damage in our bodies which could be leading to inflammation and again, neuro inflammation.So the last thing I wanted to talk about today is about our microbiota and how our microbiome could be contributing towards some of the ADHD symptoms. So the microbiome is all the organisms that are kind of, live symbiotically with us, so on our skin, in our digestive tract, in our mouth in our genitals, all the parasites, the viruses, the bacteria that all lives kind of in harmony with us. Now, there are several interesting studies, looking at how that balance of microbiota, we don't like to think about good bacteria and bad bacteria, again, it's all about a balance and how everything kind of works in harmony together in this balance. And if you get a disregulated microbiota, and things are not quite in balance, that maybe the more, more pathogenic bacterias are more prevalent than the healthier, happier bacterias they could start having an effect on on our body, how it functions, on how our nutrient uptake is, it could be a cause of inflammation, so again, adding to the the other inflammatory processes we've already mentioned. And also that kind of gut brain access signalling that's often talked about in the media.So I know I've covered a lot already, and please feel free to re-listen to this, and then we're going to dive into this and really pull it apart in the next audios. So I hope this was helpful and interesting and I will speak to you soon