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Comment by corobo | Hacker News Reader

> All this raises the question of whether the disease is being overdiagnosed.

No chance of it not actually being a disease?

Maybe different brain types are as common as blood types. We'll never know while we label anything that doesn't play nicely with commercialism as diseased haha

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This idea has been proposed multiple times before but, from what I remember (and I’m paraphrasing here) we’re identifying it as a disorder not because it’s a disease per se but because it affects the lives of those people and in general has been deteriorating ever since humans changed their lifestyles from hunters to farmers.

I think this video talked about this concept in more depth https://youtu.be/QUjYy4Ksy1E

Not a disease? That's down to semantics and personal opinion. What isn't opinion is the fact that the symptoms of ADHD have been objectively identified on a global scale, in people from very different cultures and social classes.

I agree that it isn't beneficial to label a very livable condition with the same word that we use for much harsher illnesses, and it doesn't help that it's not a visible condition. But as somebody with ADHD, it really hurts me to keep seeing this argument repeated ad nausea.

Maybe the issue isn't that it is being overdiagnosed, but rather the fact that the only treatment we consider worthwhile is prescribing amphetamines to children.

> But as somebody with ADHD, it really hurts me to keep seeing this argument repeated ad nausea.

I've not seen or made this argument before, where does it usually go and/or what is the end result?

I too have ADHD, I'm sorry if my curiosity and thoughts have caused you harm. I'm new to it and want to know what's what.

Do you have any wikis or articles or twitter threads that can get me up to speed on the basics without traumatising people?

It isn't a disease, it's a disorder.

We know a lot about ADHD and what causes it. We know its effects and how beneficial it is to treat it, especially with medication.

I was using the article's wording, for what it's worth.

I've also been diagnosed with ADHD myself, but it was relatively recently so I'm not a part of that we that knows everything just yet :)

The royal "we", as it were, definitely doesn't know everything. Most of us are not on the same page. Our society's collective consciousness is getting better, though.

> Maybe different brain types are as common as blood types.

Different blood types don't impact people's life differently. Disorders like ADHD do affect the lives of people who have it.

They do if you transfuse the wrong type into them.

It was an example of something biologically common anyway, I didn't compare it to ADHD the way you've read it.

> Maybe different brain types are as common as blood types.

What this research shows is that at least a significant part of ADHD diagnosis rates results from bureaucratic reasons, and unrelated to either disease or brain types.

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