Research into natural treatments for ADHD
This section is about the ADHD research projects I've done, trying to make life easier for ADHD by testing what works.
The effects of kefir in children with ADHD
Why we did this study
Growing evidence links the gut microbiome with brain function.
Children with ADHD often show differences in gut bacteria, so we explored whether drinking kefir might help their attention, behaviour, or sleep.
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What we did
• 53 children with ADHD drank either daily kefir or placebo milk for six weeks
• We measured their ADHD symptoms, sleep, attention, and stool-sample
What we found
• ADHD symptoms and attention: No overall differences
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• Sleep: children drinking kefir spent fewer minutes awake at night, though self-reported more issues.
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• Gut microbiota: overall diversity didn’t change, but kefir increased several beneficial bacteria (e.g., Bifidobacterium and Alistipes).
What this means
Kefir didn’t significantly change ADHD symptoms overall, but may support better sleep and increase beneficial gut bacteria.
These findings add to growing research on how nutrition and gut health relate to neurodevelopment.
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Lawrence, K., Fibert, P., et al. (2025).
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The STAR Project
Sheffield Treatments for ADHD Research
The STAR project was all about making life easier for those with ADHD by testing treatments as they are experienced in real life clinical practice, to see whether they are helpful.
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What we did.
First we created the STAR cohort of families with ADHD, by asking them to complete a questionnaire
Then we offered treatments to a random selection of the STAR cohort.
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What we offered
Treatment by Homeopaths or Treatment by Nutritional Therapists.
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What we found.
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Treatment by homeopaths was really helpful for children's emotional dysregulation - that means the temper tantrums, the tears, anxiety and the mood swings.
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Treatment by nutritional therapists was really helpful for children's restlessness and inattention.
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Making Cases Count
This project explored how helpful homeopathic treatment was for children with ADHD.
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20 children received homeopathic treatment for a year each, and their results were compared to 10 children who didn't get homeopathic treatment.
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They all completed the ADHD questionnaire every 4 months.
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What we found:
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About 25% saw really big improvements meaning that according to the ADHD questionnaire they no longer reached the threshold for an ADHD diagnosis
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50% saw moderate improvements
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25% didn't see much improvement​
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What are you using to help your child with ADHD?
We asked you this as part of the STAR project, because surveys asking this had not been conducted in the UK before.
What we found:
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As well as medications, families are using a wide variety of main and non-mainstream treatments to help with ADHD management
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Nearly 70% use pharmaceutical medications
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74% had participated in a parenting class
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45% use of non mainstream treatments: the most popular non-mainstream treatments were nutrition, homoeopathy, massage and cranial osteopathy.
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