research and news: recent publications

November 28, 2023Weighted blankets help children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) who struggle with sleep disorders by improving both sleep quality and duration, according to a new study published in The Journal of Sleep Research.1 While the results revealed weighted blankets can be beneficial for all children with ADHD, the effects were particularly notable in children aged 11 to 14 years with inattentive type ADHD.Specifically, the study found that weighted blankets increased sleep duration by 8 minutes, on average, for all study participants and by 16 minutes, on average, for children aged 11 to 14 with inattentive ADHD. The study also found that children without weighted blankets were awake for three minutes more during the night, on average, than were children with weighted blankets.Children with ADHD frequently experience a host of sleep problems including difficulty falling asleep, waking throughout the night, daytime sleepiness, and circadian abnormalities.

February 13, 2024Energy drink consumption is associated with an elevated risk for physical and mental health conditions such as ADHD, depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation among children and adolescents, according to a new study published in the journal Public Health.1The study’s U.K. research team linked energy drink consumption with a higher-than-average risk of poor academic performance, sleep problems, unhealthy dietary habits, and risky behaviors.

February 13, 2024Energy drink consumption is associated with an elevated risk for physical and mental health conditions such as ADHD, depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation among children and adolescents, according to a new study published in the journal Public Health.1The study’s U.K. research team linked energy drink consumption with a higher-than-average risk of poor academic performance, sleep problems, unhealthy dietary habits, and risky behaviors.

January 12, 2024Hoarding disorder (HD) is significantly more common in people with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) than it is in people with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), according to a study published in the Journal of Psychiatric Research.1Researchers from the Brain Center Firenze in Italy and McMaster University in Canada found that adults with ADHD had a substantially higher prevalence of hoarding disorder (32%) than did adults with OCD (8%) or adults in the control group (4%).A similar pattern emerged during a second analysis focused on hoarding disorder symptoms of excessive clutter and difficulty discarding. Twenty-two percent of the ADHD group had the condition compared to 6% of the OCD group and 4% of the control group.The American Psychiatric Association defines hoarding disorder as a distinct psychiatric condition characterized by persistent difficulty discarding possessions, regardless of their actual value, resulting in severely cluttered living spaces, distress, and impairment.The APA classified hoarding disorder as a subtype of OCD in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) in 2013.

December 6, 2023Long-term use of ADHD medications may increase the risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in children and adults, according to a new study published in JAMA Psychiatry.1 However, ADHD experts caution against changing ADHD treatment based on these findings.“The substantial improvement in ADHD impairments significantly outweighs the study’s risk, which is easily monitored and addressed by the prescribing clinician,” David W. Goodman, M.D., LFAPA, assistant professor in psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, told ADDitude.

November 22, 2023Treatment rates worldwide are consistently low for children and adolescents with diagnosed mental disorders, according to an international study published by JAMA Open Network1 that showed significant variations in treatment by age, income level, and region.The meta-analysis included data for 310,583 children across 40 studies from 1984 to 2017. The lowest combined treatment rate was reported for youth diagnosed with anxiety disorders (31% treated), followed by depressive disorders (36%), behavior disorders (49%), and ADHD (58%).Timely treatment of common mental disorders reduces the risk of negative outcomes later in life, such as substance abuse.

November 6, 2023Pediatrics Research has retracted a paper on the effectiveness of using homeopathy to treat ADHD, citing “substantial concerns regarding the validity of the results presented in this article.” 1The original article “Is Homeopathy Effective for Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder? A Meta-Analysis” reported that “individualized homeopathy showed a clinically relevant and statistically robust effect in the treatment of ADHD.”1 This retraction directly challenges those results and addresses the concerns of critics, who argue that science does not support the use of homeopathy for addressing ADHD symptoms.The journal’s editor-in-chief issued the retraction after a review found four “deficiencies,” including the following:The paper’s retraction comes more than a year after critics first questioned the validity of the studies included in the meta-analysis. Shortly after the paper’s June 2022 publication, Edzard Ernst, M.D., Ph.D., MAE, FMedSci, FRSB, FRCP, FRCPEd, asked the editors of Pediatrics Research to add a caution notice or withdraw the paper.“We conclude that the positive result obtained by the authors is due to a combination of the inclusion of biased trials unsuitable to build evidence together with some major misreporting of study outcomes,” he wrote.In a follow-up letter sent in June 2023, Ernst wrote, “In our comment, we point out that the authors made a lot of errors — to say it mildly.

October 24, 2023Older drivers with ADHD face an elevated risk for receiving traffic tickets, slamming on the breaks, and having car crashes, according to new research published in Jama Network Open. 1Car crashes were 74% more likely, traffic tickets were 102% more likely, and hard-breaking events were 7% more likely among adults aged 65 to 79 with ADHD than they were among neurodivergent drivers of the same age, according to a cohort study lead by researchers at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.

October 19, 2023Red Dye No. 3 is one of four food additives now banned by the landmark California Food Safety Act, the first law of its kind in the United States.

October 10, 2023Adults who suffer from migraines have a higher prevalence of ADHD symptoms, a new study published in the Journal of Attention Disorders found.1 While studies have previously demonstrated the higher incidence of migraines in ADHD patients,2 this study is the first to show that the association works the other way, establishing a bidirectional relationship between the two conditions. In addition, most previous studies were conducted in children or adolescents and were based on patients with ADHD who were assessed for migraines.

The science of ADHD is evolving and, with it, so is our understanding of the condition. Over the past 25 years, research has blossomed as institutions share data sets to combine and test earlier findings, says Dave Anderson, Ph.D., of the Child Mind Institute.The use of fMRI brain scans in ADHD research has helped scientists spot abnormalities in underlying neural networks and circuitries.

September 28, 2023Then: ADHD is a behavioral disorder.Now: “ADHD is a cognitive disorder, a developmental impairment of executive functions.” — Thomas E. Brown, Ph.D.Then: ADHD is hyperactivity and impulsivity.Now: ADHD is emotional dysregulation and executive dysfunction. — Russell Barkley, Ph.D.Then: ADHD is deficient attention.Now: “The hallmark of the ADHD nervous system is not attention deficit, but inconsistent attention.” — William Dodson, M.D.Then: Adult women can’t have ADHD.Now: ADHD is a highly impairing and potentially dangerous condition for girls and women.

September 26, 2023Children of immigrant parents are less likely to be diagnosed with ADHD, according to a U.S. nationwide study published in the Journal of Attention Disorders,1 which found the ADHD diagnosis rate was lower for children with one or more immigrant caregivers than it was for children with U.S.-born caregivers.Using data from the National Survey of Children’s Health (NSCH), 109,881 children aged 3 to 17 were assigned to one of three groups based on caregiver nativity: U.S.-born (71.94%), non-U.S.-born (18.99%), or both (9.07%).The more time foreign-born caregivers spent in the U.S., the more likely their child was to receive an ADHD diagnosis.

September 25, 2023Mindfulness training, even when delivered digitally, reduces symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in children, including inattention, executive dysfunction, and social difficulties, according to a new study published in the Journal of Psycholinguistic Research.1The study investigated the efficacy of digital cognitive mindfulness training, based on dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT), by measuring a host of symptoms in children diagnosed with ADHD aged 8-10.The study’s 90 participants were divided into two groups: an experimental group, which received the digital training, and a control group, which did not. The training consisted of four hour-long weekly Zoom sessions of mindfulness training, conducted by a DBT-trained psychologist.The participants’ ADHD symptoms were measured before the training, immediately after the training, and one month after the training was completed.

September 8, 2023A bi-directional link between attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and major depressive disorder (MDD) means that 35% to 50% of all adults with ADHD will experience one or more depressive episodes in their lives, according to a new study published in the journal BMJ Mental Health.1 The research, which demonstrates “a familial association and shared genetic risk between ADHD and depression,” also found that patients with ADHD are at elevated risk for post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD), anorexia nervosa (AN), and suicide attempts.Observational studies have shown past associations between ADHD and mood and anxiety disorders; however, ADHD’s connections to other mental health conditions have remained somewhat less clear. Using the Mendelian randomization (MR) method, researchers in this study gathered genetic evidence to determine potential links between ADHD and MDD, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorder, schizophrenia, PTSD, AN, and suicide attempts.The MR data and subsequent meta-analyses revealed the following relationships, among others:Other findings showed that ADHD increased the chances of developing PTSD by 18%.

September 1, 2023The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved several generic forms of Vyvanse (lisdexamfetamine dimesylate), the stimulant medication used to treat ADHD in patients six years or older and moderate-to-severe binge-eating disorder (BED) in adults.1Fourteen companies may now manufacture and sell generic versions of Vyvanse capsules and chewable tablets, according to the FDA.

August 29, 2023Adults diagnosed with ADHD are more likely to change jobs, move residences, and have unstable relationships, according to a new study in BMC Psychiatry, which showed that these risks increased from young to middle adulthood.1Using large national registers from Sweden, researchers followed adults with and without ADHD over 14 years and found that real-life instability was higher in people with the disorder. Three register-based indicators were used to measure real-life instability: residential moves, job switching, and relationship volatility.

August 18, 2023Habit replacement training significantly reduced body-focused repetitive behaviors (BFRBs) for more than half of patients with excoriation (skin picking), trichotillomania (hair pulling), nail biting, lip-cheek biting, and other BFRBs, according to a six-week proof-of-concept study published in JAMA.1Of the study’s 268 participants, 53% of those who practiced habit replacement techniques reported improvement compared to 20% of the control group. Those who exhibited nail-biting benefited the most.Further, 80% of those who practiced habit replacement said they would recommend it to a friend with similar problems, and 86% reported overall satisfaction with the training, which substituted the pleasurable sensation of skin picking, nail-biting, or hair pulling with another action that feels good but isn’t harmful to the body.“BFRBs refer to recurrent and chronic behaviors inflicted upon the body (like trichotillomania and excoriation) that often result in physical damage,” said Roberto Olivardia, Ph.D., in the ADDitude webinar “Nail Biting! Skin Picking! Hair Pulling! Understanding Body-Focused Repetitive Behaviors with ADHD.”The TLC Foundation for Body-Focused Repetitive Behaviors estimates that BFRBs affect about 3% of people worldwide.

August 3, 2023Amid the ongoing shortage of prescription stimulants used to treat ADHD, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) issued a joint letter this week urging key stakeholders, including manufacturers, distributors, pharmacies, and payors, to work together to resolve drug shortages as quickly as possible. The letter calls for the development of ADHD diagnostic criteria for adults, re-evaluation of drug quota allotments, adoption of non-stimulant and digital therapeutics where appropriate, and the thoughtful and responsible prescription of stimulant medications.Since the FDA first reported a shortage of Adderall (the brand name for the immediate-release formulation of amphetamine mixed salts used to treat ADHD) in October 2022, 38% of ADDitude readers say they have experienced problems accessing ADHD medication, according to a recent survey of 10,044 caregivers and adults.

Not available August 23? Don’t worry. Register now and we’ll send you the replay link to watch at your convenience.The exact causes of ADHD are not yet known. ADHD is believed to be highly heritable —researchers have made strides in recent years identifying genes involved in the disorder — but it is also understood that ADHD may be influenced by non-inherited risk factors, such as trauma and stress.

July 15, 2023Prescription stimulant medication use for the treatment of ADHD does not increase adolescents’ risk for illicit drug use as young adults; however, adolescents who divert and/or misuse stimulants are 2.5 times more likely to use cocaine or methamphetamine during young adulthood, according to a new study published in the journal JAMA Open Network.1The University of Michigan study of 5,034 U.S. high school seniors found that adolescents with ADHD who used stimulant therapy were no more likely to use cocaine and methamphetamine at ages 19 to 24 than their neurotypical peers.

July 10, 2023Distribution of amphetamine-based prescription medications varies considerably across the U.S., according to data obtained from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) for 2019 that charted distribution of amphetamine, a common ADHD medication, and methamphetamine. The misuse of methamphetamine is a major public health concern; however, amphetamines play a mainstream therapeutic role in the effective treatment of ADHD. Stigmatization, differences in accessibility, and initiatives like the Montana Meth Project likely contribute to regional disparities in accessibility for both medications.1The DEA’s Automation of Reports and Consolidated Orders System (ARCOS) was used to collect per capita drug weight distribution data (milligrams per 1,000 people) for prescription methamphetamine and amphetamine in a regional analysis published by the Journal of Attention Disorders.

July 7, 2023The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued its first-ever draft guidance for clinical trials of psychedelic drugs to treat conditions including depression, mood disorders, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, and substance use disorder.The guidance aims to address the unique challenges inherent in testing “classic psychedelics,” such as psilocybin (magic mushrooms) and lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), and “entactogens” or “empathogens,” such as methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) for treating psychiatric conditions that failed to respond to other therapies. The FDA recommends clinical trial considerations regarding subject safety, data collection, manufacturing controls, and drug application requirements.Ultimately, “the goal is to help researchers design studies that will yield interpretable results that will be capable of supporting future drug applications,” said Tiffany Farchione, M.D., director of the Division of Psychiatry in the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, in a statement last month.In February 2022, researchers from Johns Hopkins Medicine reported that psilocybin-assisted therapy for major depressive disorder produced antidepressant effects up to 12 months after treatment.1Ari Tuckman, Psy.D., and Stephanie Sarkis, Ph.D., recently told ADDitude that using very low (micro) doses of psychedelics, such as LSD and psilocybin is gaining renewed attention as a treatment for anxiety and depression.

June 26, 2023In an effort to identify and treat anxiety disorders early on, clinicians should screen adults ages 19 to 64 in primary care settings, according to a new recommendation by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force released in June and published in JAMA.1, 2 The task force also recommended routine screenings for major depressive disorder among adults, including pregnant and postpartum people.It was the first time the task force, an independent panel of clinicians whose recommendations influence doctors’ standard practices and insurance plans, called for anxiety screenings in adults.

Prescription stimulants such as Adderall (amphetamine/dextroamphetamine salts) and Ritalin (methylphenidate) decrease productivity in people who do not have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), according to a new study published in ScienceAdvances.1In the randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled study, 40 neurotypical adults, ages 18 to 35, were given either 30mg of methylphenidate, 15mg of dextroamphetamine, 200mg of modafinil, or a placebo, before being asked to solve a complex cognitive challenge that was representative of a real-life task. The researchers found large increases in effort and time spent to solve the problem but decreased efficiency and accuracy among study participants on stimulants compared with those given a placebo.Further, participants who performed at a high level under placebo conditions tended to exhibit larger decreases in performance and productivity after receiving the stimulant.

June 17, 2023U.S. college students with ADHD who saw a mental health professional on campus were less likely to receive medication or therapy for the condition than students who saw a mental health professional off campus, according to a new study published in the Journal of Attention Disorders.1Researchers from Johns Hopkins University and Syracuse University found that a higher percentage of students with ADHD using off-campus mental healthcare received medication (68% vs.

June 12, 2023Young adults with ADHD are more likely to meet the criteria for Internet gaming disorder (IGD) or gaming disorder (GD) than are people without the condition, according to a new study published in the Journal of Attention Disorders.1The study’s findings revealed many insights on video game addiction: More than half (59%) of the participants with IGD also had ADHD. Almost three-quarters of study participants with ADHD had IGD, compared to 30% among participants without ADHD.

June 9, 2023Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, we’ve seen an undeniable surge in the prevalence of eating disorders across the lifespan. Social isolation, increased stress, and interrupted access to sources of support likely contributed to the increase. The National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) reported that calls to its helpline shot up 107 percent to almost 70,000 annually — and staff noted that calls weren’t confined to eating disorders.

May 30, 2023Growing up with undiagnosed ADHD negatively impacts women’s self-esteem, mental health, well-being, and relationships, while diagnosis and treatment for ADHD increase feelings of self-acceptance and self-worth, according to new research published in the Journal of Attention Disorders.1Women with undiagnosed ADHD are most likely to experience impairment in the areas of social-emotional well-being, relationships, and life control, according to the research — the first of its kind to examine how under-diagnosis impacts the mental, emotional, and physical health of women.Studies have consistently shown that females are underdiagnosed with ADHD in childhood2, 3,4; to better understand adult women’s experiences living with undiagnosed ADHD and receiving a late diagnosis, researchers conducted a systematic review of three databases that revealed the following themes.Undiagnosed ADHD can profoundly impact self-esteem and self-worth. Findings indicated that girls with undiagnosed ADHD often endured childhood misunderstanding, self-blame, and rejection.“Low self-esteem might result from difficulties endured growing up with an undiagnosed disorder that neither they nor those around them understood,” researchers wrote.

May 30, 2023Social media presents a “profound risk of harm” to children and teens, according to an advisory released by the U.S. Surgeon General this month that calls for systemic change to protect American youth and their mental health.

May 16, 2023ADHD treatment rates are staggeringly low for children, according to a study recently published by JAMA Network that found only 12.9% of 9- and 10-year-olds with parent-reported symptoms had taken ADHD medication during the preceding two weeks. 1 Children who received treatment for their ADHD were more commonly boys, white children, and from families with a lower socioeconomic status.

May 1, 2023A new stimulant medication, Xelstrym (dextroamphetamine), will soon be available for the treatment of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in children ages 6-17 and adults 18 and older. Xelstrym is the only transdermal amphetamine patch to be approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). It was presented at the annual conference of the American Professional Society of ADHD and Related Disorders (APSARD) by drug manufacturer Noven Pharmaceuticals, Inc., in January.Xelstrym is a once-daily patch that should be administered two hours before an effect is needed and removed after nine hours.

April 17, 2023High-intensity physical activity greatly improves mental health symptoms in adults across clinical conditions, according to a meta-analysis recently published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. Vigorous and short-duration exercises were found to be most effective in improving mild-to-moderate symptoms of depression and anxiety, compared to usual care.1Higher-intensity workouts were found to be most effective at improving symptoms of depression and anxiety — the comorbid conditions that most commonly occur alongside ADHD.

April 2, 2023Demand for prescribed stimulants to treat ADHD symptoms increased substantially from 2020 to 2021, especially among women, a new U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report found.

March 27, 2023The use of ADHD medication during pregnancy causes no impairment of a child’s neurodevelopment or physical growth, according to research published in Molecular Psychiatry.1 A large population-based register study found in-utero exposure to medication for ADHD, including stimulants, did not impair a child’s neurodevelopment or growth compared to children whose mothers stopped taking ADHD medication prior to conception.Research was conducted using data from Danish nationwide registers, including more than one million children born between 1998 and 2015. Of those, 898 children were delivered by mothers who started or continued taking ADHD medication during pregnancy; this became the study’s “exposed” group.

March 14, 2023Early childhood sleep problems, including irregular sleep routines, short nighttime sleep duration, and frequent night awakenings, correlate with subsequent ADHD diagnoses, according to research published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. 1Researchers conducted an observational review of the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (a U.K.

March 6, 2023Neurofeedback may not be an effective tool for treating ADHD in boys, according to research published in the American Journal of Psychiatry that studied whether functional MRI neurofeedback (NF) was a safe and effective alternative to pharmacological treatment for ADHD. Cognitive and clinical symptoms of ADHD did not significantly improve in subject who received fMRI-NF in this double-blind, sham-controlled randomized, controlled trial. 1The brain’s frontal cortex — responsible for attention, executive function, and organization — is impaired in people with ADHD.

February 16, 2023Researchers have “refined the genetic architecture of ADHD” after identifying 27 variations in genetic code that are most present in people with the attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. A Danish-led international genome-wide association study (GWAS) published in Nature highlighted these and 76 probable risk genes — including “brain-expressed genes” involved in development and genes known to influence other psychiatric disorders.

January 27, 2023ADHD prescriptions and medication use among 12th grade patients hit an all-time high last year, according to a new study that found 15% of high school seniors reported stimulant or non-stimulant ADHD medication use in 2022 compared to 11% in 2021. The annual Monitoring the Future (MTF) survey published by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) attributed this 36% increase in ADHD medication use to “more stress” or attention issues made “more salient to their parents” during the pandemic’s lockdowns and remote learning.1The legal, or medically supervised, use of ADHD medication was “one of the few substances with increasing prevalence during the pandemic,” according to the report, which found that lifetime use had increased for 8th, 10th, and 12th graders in 2022.

January 19, 2023Virtual reality (VR) games may be used to accurately and objectively diagnose ADHD symptoms in children, according to a team of Finland-based researchers. Their newly developed VR game, Executive Performance in Everyday LIving (EPELI), performed better than standard behavioral tests in distinguishing children with ADHD from those without ADHD in a small study of 76 subjects.

January 22, 2023Physical activity can significantly reduce depressive symptoms in children and adolescents, according to a recent study published in JAMA Pediatrics. 1The meta-analysis of 21 studies involving 2,441 participants (47% boys and 53% girls) between the ages of 11-19 found that physical activity may help alleviate depressive symptoms in young patients.

January 10, 2023Psychiatrist, ADHD expert, and ADDitude contributor Joseph Biederman, M.D., passed away late last week, just days before he was scheduled to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Professional Society of ADHD and Related Disorders (APSARD), which he co-founded, honoring his decades of groundbreaking ADHD research and advocacy.Biederman, age 75, served as Chief of the Clinical and Research Programs in Pediatric Psychopharmacology and Adult ADHD at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Director of the Alan and Lorraine Bressler Clinical and Research Program for Autism Spectrum Disorders at MGH, and Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.Considered the father of pediatric psychopharmacology, Biederman dedicated his career to examining the causes, diagnosis, and ADHD treatment across the lifespan.“He was truly a giant in our field with a brilliant mind and compelling personality,” wrote APSARD president Ann Childress, M.D., on the organization’s website. “As one of the most highly cited child and adolescent psychiatrists in the world, he changed the course of pediatric psychopharmacology.

November 13, 2022Cardiovascular disease is twice as likely to develop in adults with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) than it is in the neurotypical population, according to a large observational study published in the journal World Psychiatry.The research studied the link between 20 different cardiovascular diseases and ADHD when it was separated from other known risk factors such as type 2 diabetes, obesity, smoking, sleep problems, and mental disorders.Researchers at Karolinska Institute and Örebro University in Sweden based their findings on data from a national registry of more than one million Swedish adults without pre-existing cardiovascular diseases born between 1941 and 1983. The registry included about 37,000 people with ADHD.After an average of 11.8 years of follow-up, 38% of individuals with ADHD had at least one diagnosis of cardiovascular disease, compared with 24% of those without ADHD.

August 22, 2022A new electronic health records (EHR) algorithm, which can differentiate attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) from comorbid conditions in children, may lead to more accurate diagnoses and treatment interventions. According to findings published in the journal Neurodevelopmental Disorders, more than half of children with ADHD have one comorbidity or more.

August 16, 2022Some Adderall prescriptions may be difficult to fill in the coming months. Specifically, the Adderall immediate-release tablets (amphetamine and dextroamphetamine) in 20mg and 30mg dosages are on backorder at Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., reports the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP).ASHP said Teva, the largest supplier of name brand and generic Adderall in the U.S., plans to release more Adderall tablets later this month.

August 8, 2022Celiac disease ⁠— an autoimmune disorder that causes intolerance to gluten ⁠— may be linked to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), according to a systematic review recently published in Children.1The review, which comprises 23 studies that reference ADHD and celiac disease published in the last two decades, found that more than half of those studies established a positive association between the conditions. Most of the studies that show a positive association were published in the last five years.A 2021 study of 112,340 participants, for example, found that patients with celiac disease faced an increased risk for ADHD (OR: 1.75) compared to patients without celiac disease.2 A small study published the year prior of 73 pediatric patients with celiac disease found that 16% of the group also had ADHD, higher than the 9.4% prevalence of ADHD found in the general population.34The review included a few small studies on the association between gluten-free foods, celiac disease, and ADHD.

August 4, 2022Up to two-thirds of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have used complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) to address their symptoms, according to a new study published in the Journal of Attention Disorders.Nutrition modifications; natural products, such as herbs, vitamins, and minerals; and mind-body practices like mindful meditation were the most-reported CAMs. The use of alternative therapies was higher in families where the caregiver preferred natural therapies for ADHD and believed CAMs could synergistically boost conventional medicine.1In addition, researchers found two predictive factors for alternative therapy use: parents’ education level (the more educated the parents, the more likely alternative therapies were used) and female gender.“It seems that parents with higher education are open-minded,” the researchers wrote.

August 3, 2022Psychopharmacological treatments for ADHD are likely to improve emotional behaviors in adults with deficient emotional self-regulation, according to a study published in the Journal of Attention Disorders.1In a review of 14 clinical trials of adults with ADHD available on PubMed, researchers found that 13 reports showed methylphenidate, atomoxetine, or lisdexamfetamine treatment interventions had a positive impact on at least one measure of emotional behavior. Methylphenidate (brand names Concerta, Ritalin, Daytrana, Jornay PM, Quillivant XR, and others) and atomoxetine (brand name Strattera) showed the greatest improvement.“Undesirable emotional expression patterns are common in a range of mental health conditions identified in Diagnostic and Statistical Manual classifications of disorders,” the researchers wrote.