ADHD has become a multi-billion dollar industry (10% of all children are currently diagnosed with the "disease"). For a while, boys were diagnosed at rates of 5 to 1 compared to girls, but the pharmaceutical industry could not allow female children to remain an untapped market, so the diagnosis gap has closed to 3 to 1 in last couple of years.
There is a huge downside to this, however. There seems to be increasing evidence that ADHD may be less of a dysfunction and more of an adaptation to the rapidly increasing amounts of information and the rapidity of its change, and this includes a creative component, as discussed in the first article.
In the second article, below, which comes from a discussion on NPR yesterday, a neuroscientist has generated good evidence that diet is better than drugs for treatment - the essence of her research is that chemicals in the diet make ADHD into a disease for about 2/3 of children and simply removing those things from the diet will reduce or eliminate the dysfunctional symptoms.
Creativity is an upside to ADHD
Posted On: March 11, 2011Parents who believe that attention deficit hyperactivity disorder makes their kids more creative got a little more scientific support recently.
A new study in the Journal of Personality and Individual Differences found adults with ADHD enjoyed more creative achievement than those who didn't have the disorder.
"For the same reason that ADHD might create problems, like distraction, it can also allow an openness to new ideas," says Holly White, assistant professor of cognitive psychology at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida and co-author of the paper. "Not being completely focused on a task lets the mind make associations that might not have happened otherwise."
White and Priti Shah at the University of Michigan gave 60 college students – half of them with ADHD – a series of tests measuring creativity across 10 domains. The ADHD group scored higher across the board. The ADHD group showed more of a preference for brainstorming and generating ideas than the non-ADHD group, which preferred refining and clarifying ideas.
The study is a follow-up to one done in 2006, which focused on laboratory measures of creativity and found that ADHD individuals show better performance on tests of creative divergent thinking. "We didn't know if that would translate into real-life achievement," says Shah. "The current study suggests that it does."
According to Dr. Lidy Pelsser's study, 64 percent of children diagnosed with ADHD are actually experiencing a hypersensitivity to food.
Hyperactivity. Fidgeting. Inattention. Impulsivity. If your child has one or more of these qualities on a regular basis, you may be told that he or she has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. If so, they'd be among about 10 percent of children in the United States.
Kids with ADHD can be restless and difficult to handle. Many of them are treated with drugs, but a new study says food may be the key. Published in The Lancet journal, the study suggests that with a very restrictive diet, kids with ADHD could experience a significant reduction in symptoms.
The study's lead author, Dr. Lidy Pelsser of the ADHD Research Centre in the Netherlands, writes in The Lancet that the disorder is triggered in many cases by external factors — and those can be treated through changes to one's environment.
"ADHD, it's just a couple of symptoms — it's not a disease," the Dutch researcher tells All Things Considered weekend host Guy Raz.
The way we think about — and treat — these behaviors is wrong, Pelsser says. "There is a paradigm shift needed. If a child is diagnosed ADHD, we should say, 'OK, we have got those symptoms, now let's start looking for a cause.' "
Pelsser compares ADHD to eczema. "The skin is affected, but a lot of people get eczema because of a latex allergy or because they are eating a pineapple or strawberries."
According to Pelsser, 64 percent of children diagnosed with ADHD are actually experiencing a hypersensitivity to food. Researchers determined that by starting kids on a very elaborate diet, then restricting it over a few weeks' time.
"It's only five weeks," Pelsser says. "If it is the diet, then we start to find out which foods are causing the problems."
Teachers and doctors who worked with children in the study reported marked changes in behavior. "In fact, they were flabbergasted," Pelsser says.
"After the diet, they were just normal children with normal behavior," she says. No longer were they easily distracted or forgetful, and the temper tantrums subsided.
Some teachers said they never thought it would work, Pelsser says. "It was so strange," she says, "that a diet would change the behavior of a child as thoroughly as they saw it. It was a miracle, a teacher said."
But diet is not the solution for all children with ADHD, Pelsser cautions.
"In all children, we should start with diet research," she says. If a child's behavior doesn't change, then drugs may still be necessary. "But now we are giving them all drugs, and I think that's a huge mistake," she says.
Also, Pelsser warns, altering your child's diet without a doctor's supervision is inadvisable.
"We have got good news — that food is the main cause of ADHD," she says. "We've got bad news — that we have to train physicians to monitor this procedure because it cannot be done by a physician who is not trained."
Great article!
ReplyDeleteThis is something I'll be forwarding onto a few parents I know.
Thank you!