Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM)

TCM generally combines various treatment methods, just like Western “multimodal” therapy. These include herbal treatments, which can be assumed to intervene in the neurotransmitter structure in the same way as conventional medication. The risk lies in the limited knowledge of the pathways of action, the side effects and the cross-effects with conventional medication.
A meta-analysis found a surprisingly good effect of TCM on ADHD (as good or better than MPH), but at the same time poor to very poor quality of the individual studies, including a risk of considerable bias, which is why TCM cannot yet be recommended as a treatment for ADHD.¹²