ADHD diagnoses are growing. What's going on?

nature.com

4 points·bikenaga··4 comments

Article also makes no mention of the fact that childhood trauma/adverse experiences can induce adhd symptoms.

Fact? Far from and if only in a small minority. I know Gabor Maté likes to push trauma as a cause (as far as his ridiculous remote diagnosis of Prince Harry), if not main cause for ADHD but the vast majority of ADHD is due to genetics, 70-80% as the article states. Don't forget siblings and parents when looking at an ADHD person. When the parent has ADHD there's a higher risk for the child to have adverse experiences as this study describes: https://www.academicpedsjnl.net/article/S1876-2859(16)30416-...

adhd diagnoses are largely based on self-reported symptoms to gain access to otherwise-prohibited performance-enhancing drugs; Shirley an increasing volume of diagnoses is inescapable?

Before posting your comments, please can you read the article first and do a little more research including what people with ADHD experienced in their life before they got their diagnosis and help?

Many get (mis-)diagnosed with depression where the meds are much less easy and effective compared to ADHD. Un-diagnosed ADHD often leads to self-medication with alcohol or drugs, two things with very adverse side-effects even though one of them is legal. Studies show that treating ADHD with medication does lower the risk of substance abuse: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4147667/

Btw, there are no indications that ADHD medication has a positive long-term effect in non-medical use. If you can already focus your mind at the things before you without ADHD medication then you'd only waste your money if you took meds.

PS: Don't call me Shirley

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