This study looked at 440 university students in Turkiye, aged 18 to 24. Of them, 61.4% were women. Researchers scored how closely each student's eating matched the Mediterranean diet. Students rated their own ADHD symptoms on a screening questionnaire. The paper says none had an ADHD diagnosis, but also says it never asked whether they had ever been diagnosed.
Close to half had low alignment with the diet (45.2%). They reported more attention problems and more hyperactivity and impulsivity than those with moderate or high alignment. Overall, a higher diet score went with fewer symptoms, and this was unlikely to be down to chance. This held after accounting for sex, chronic disease, supplement use, smoking and alcohol. Students who took nutritional supplements (12%) reported fewer symptoms than those who did not, but the types of supplements were not recorded.
The study took one snapshot in time, so it cannot show that diet causes changes in symptoms. The questionnaire is a screening tool, not a diagnosis. The authors call for clinical trials and research in people diagnosed with ADHD.
The authors suggest that promoting healthy eating patterns such as the Mediterranean diet could help reduce ADHD symptoms in young adults, while noting that cause and effect still need to be shown.
Talk to a clinician about your own situation.
The numbers Stats and what the terms mean
The statistics behind the plain-language claims above.
- Aksoy, 2025: average total symptom score by diet group, low 37.06 +/- 7.89, moderate 26.85 +/- 6.86, high 19.42 +/- 7.14 (p reported as 0.000).
- Aksoy, 2025: link between diet score and total symptom score, r = −0.681 (p < 0.001).
- Aksoy, 2025: link between diet score and attention symptoms, r = −0.643 (p < 0.001).
- Aksoy, 2025: link between diet score and hyperactivity and impulsivity symptoms, r = −0.533 (p < 0.001).
- Aksoy, 2025: change in total symptom score for each one-point rise in diet score, after accounting for other factors, B = −2.333, p < 0.001.
- Aksoy, 2025: average total symptom score without versus with supplements, 30.70 +/- 9.94 versus 26.85 +/- 9.54 (p = 0.005). What the terms mean:
- +/- The number after it shows how spread out the scores were around the average.
- p The chance of seeing a result this large if there were no real difference; below 0.05 is usually taken as unlikely to be chance.
- r How closely two measures move together, from 0 (not at all) to 1 (perfectly). A minus sign shows the direction of the link, not its size.
- B How much the symptom score changed for each one-point change in the diet score, with other factors held steady.
Source: Aksoy Z, Doguer C. Dietary Alignment with the Mediterranean Diet is Associated with a Lower Risk of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in University Students: A Cross-Sectional Study. Journal of the American Nutrition Association (2025). doi:10.1080/27697061.2025.2480140