Saffron for ADHD
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Anonymous
| I wonder what the rates of ADHD are in people who regularly consume saffron in their diets. |
Anonymous
well even the most optimistic reading of the very limited and garbled research on saffron and ADHD doesn't suggest it can change whether you have ADHD -- just maybe be an effective alternative treatment to stimulants. |
Anonymous
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https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9573091/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37740887/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37864351/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30741567/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26165367/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38424688/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31725101/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35276955/ For those interested in a little more reading on saffron. The reference lists of these articles also have more research. Just because something isn't mass produced for profit in an American pharmaceutical lab, doesn't mean that it has no value. |
Anonymous
Finding the rate of adhd in Iran would be like finding the rate of homosexuality in communist russia |
Anonymous
Thank you. Really interesting reading. I think there were only two links in there that were actual studies of adhd though—two had to do with other types of disorders and a bunch were literature surveys (so included the two studies that were included). All the studies seem small and a lot of them aren’t designed as classic studies — eg not randomized, not blind, some use self reporting of symptoms. Definitely seems like there is something there though and would love more research. Also I think your slam on pharma companies is a little misplaced — there’s money in supplements too. The best study you linked seemed to be by Spanish researchers and used a supplement produced by a Spanish manufacturer so I wouldn’t be surprised if it was funded at least in part by the manufacturer. Dietary supplements are like a 200B industry in the U.S. — I’ve got a cabinet full myself so I do believe they have some benefits but it’s naive to think that this is driven by profit the same way pharma is. NIH sponsored research is just about the only thing that isn’t driven by the $$$z. |
Anonymous
pharma may be a gross industry, but you know who they are. you do not know who the supplement industry is and you really, really, really don't know who the saffron industry is—you might know the retail operation that sells it, but there is no way to authenticate what you are actually getting is saffron. |
Anonymous
+100 The info is welcome. Exposure of junk science is welcome. But snark is not what this forum does. If you need the snark to convey your point, you're just as bad. You change the tone of this forum at your (and all of our) peril. |
Anonymous
You can buy saffron at the grocery store. |
Anonymous
correction, you can buy what you THINK is saffron at the grocery store. You don't know. |
Anonymous
You’re an idiot. |
Anonymous
It's called economically motivated adulteration, or food fraud and it's extremely real... size of the illicit EMA industry is $10-15 billion a year, could be as high as $40b... For context, the US cocaine market was about $28b last year. So, it's a very big thing. The biggest examples are honey/maple syrup, fish, olive oil and spices. There was a big deal about pine nuts recently—if you buy pine nuts at the grocery store for most of the last 15 years, you probably weren't actually buying pine nuts, which raises real questions about WTF you were buying and what was in it. Sometimes it's outright fake—dried oregano apparently is relatively common—but adulteration is a big thing... you buy saffron, and it does have SOME saffron in it, but also has safflower, or it has low or poor quality saffron that has been dyed or has had saffron flavor added to it. And there's no regulation of it, because it's not medicine—even at places like Whole Foods you can find adulterated spices... it happens on the wholesale level, so the company that is selling the product may not know—testing for authenticity with saffron is tedious and expensive. You're not necessarily getting the wrong thing, but if you're trying to dose a child with ADHD with any precision, you really need to know that what you have is not only authentic, but of a certain quality. It wouldn't necessarily make a difference for it's effectiveness—a lower quality saffron could be double-dosed, etc. but you need to know it's lower quality. Do your own reading: https://www.fda.gov/food/compliance-enforcement-food/economically-motivated-adulteration-food-fraud |