Mediterranean diet and ADHD in adults

A Mediterranean diet has been linked with fewer ADHD symptoms in a study of university students aged 18 to 24, who were measured once and rated their own symptoms. A study like that can't show the diet causes the difference, and a 2022 review calls the evidence in adults limited. It's a link, not a proven effect.

What did a study of the Mediterranean diet and ADHD in students find?

Aksoy, 2025 studied 440 university students aged 18 to 24 at one university in Turkey. Each student filled in a short questionnaire on how closely their eating matched a Mediterranean pattern, plus a screening questionnaire where they rated their own ADHD symptoms, such as trouble paying attention and acting on impulse. Everything was measured once, at a single point in time.

Students whose eating was furthest from the Mediterranean pattern rated themselves as having more attention problems and more hyperactivity and impulsivity than students whose eating was moderately or closely aligned. The closer a student's eating matched the pattern, the lower their symptom score tended to be. The link held after the researchers accounted for sex, long-term illness, smoking and drinking, and it was unlikely to be down to chance.

The authors name the limits. Because the study took a single snapshot, it can't say which came first, or whether something else drives both.

The students also weren't a group of people diagnosed with ADHD. They were young adults from the general student body who rated their own symptoms on a screening tool, and the researchers didn't record whether any of them had ever been diagnosed. A screening score isn't a diagnosis. The diet questionnaire also wasn't checked against detailed records of what people actually ate.

The authors call for research in adults diagnosed with ADHD, and for trials that change what people eat and then measure what happens.

What a large Swedish twin study found about eating and attention

Li, 2020 looked at 17,999 adults aged 20 to 47 from a national register of twins in Sweden. They answered questions about how often they ate different kinds of food and rated their own inattention, hyperactivity and impulsivity. Nobody needed a diagnosis to take part. The study measured symptom levels across the general population.

Adults who rated themselves as more inattentive tended to eat more sugary, high-fat, high-protein foods and seafood, and to follow an unhealthy overall eating pattern more often. They tended to eat fruit and vegetables a little less often and to follow a healthy pattern a little less often. Hyperactivity and impulsivity showed the same kind of pattern, only weaker. The authors describe every one of these links as small.

Because everyone in the study was a twin, the researchers could compare identical twins with each other. Those comparisons hinted at a possible cause-and-effect connection between inattention and diet. The study couldn't test which way it runs, though, so it's just as open whether eating shapes attention or attention shapes eating.

There are limits worth knowing. Only a minority of people answered the food questions, and those who did were more likely to be women, to have lower socioeconomic status and to report more ADHD symptoms than people who skipped them. That means the results may not apply to everyone. Adults rating their own symptoms also tend to score lower than other people rating them would, which could make links look weaker than they really are.

For more on what food studies in adults have found, see Food and adult ADHD: what studies found.

What does the wider evidence say about diet and adult ADHD?

Breda, 2022 is a review in which the authors summed up earlier studies of diet and ADHD in their own words. It adds no new data of its own. It covers research in both children and adults.

Their bottom line for adults is that the evidence for using diet to manage ADHD is still limited. Across studies of children and adults, they report some evidence that healthy diets are linked with fewer ADHD symptoms. The Mediterranean diet was linked with less ADHD in some studies, mostly in children, and the authors say evidence supporting its use in adults is limited.

That difference matters. A finding in children isn't a finding in adults, and the most promising diet results the review describes come from studies of children. Food and ADHD: does what your child eats make a difference? covers that side of the research.

The authors also explain why diet research is hard to read. Cause and effect can't be concluded from the data available. For most nutrients, the trials are too few or too small to guide care with confidence. Blinding people to their diet is hard, other factors can muddy results, and studies that find nothing are less often published.

Their practical advice is modest. People should know that specific diet approaches lack evidence in adult ADHD. Changes to eating, especially big ones, should happen with guidance from an experienced dietitian.

Limited evidence isn't evidence against. It means the question in adults is still open, not settled as a no. You can browse related questions in the nutrition section.

Try this today: Write down one question about food and focus that you'd like to ask a clinician or an experienced dietitian at your next appointment.

Aksoy and Li each measured people once, using self-rated symptoms, and Breda's review calls the evidence for diet in adult ADHD limited. Only a clinician can diagnose ADHD or advise on your own situation.