Free Republic

The genetic legacy of nomadism may be an inability to settle ABOUT one in 20 children (those under 18) have a group of symptoms that has come to be known as attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). About 60% of them carry those symptoms into adulthood. For what is, at root, a genetic phenomenon, that is a lot—yet many studies have shown that ADHD is indeed genetic and not, as was once suspected, the result of poor parenting. It is associated with particular variants of receptor molecules for neurotransmitters in the brain. A neurotransmitter is a chemical that carries messages between nerve...

About 2.5 million children in the United States take stimulant drugs for attention and hyperactivity problems. But concerns about side effects have prompted many parents to look elsewhere: as many as two-thirds of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or A.D.H.D., have used some form of alternative treatment. The most common strategy involves diet changes, like giving up processed foods, sugars and food additives. About 20 percent of children with the disorder have been given some form of herbal therapy; others have tried supplements like vitamins and fish oil or have used biofeedback, massage and yoga. While some studies of...

Did hyperactivity evolve as a survival aid for nomads? 11:39 10 June 2008 NewScientist.com news service Ewen Callaway Impulsivity and a short attention span may be the bane of every parent with a hyperactive toddler, but those same traits seem to help Kenyan nomads keep weight on. A gene mutation tied to attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD) is also associated with increased weight among a chronically undernourished group of nomads called the Ariaal. Notably, the mutation offers no such benefit to a cousin population that gave up the nomadic lifestyle in the 1960s. The nomads' active and unpredictable life centred...

Associated Press Children should be screened for heart problems with an electrocardiogram before getting drugs like Ritalin to treat hyperactivity and attention-deficit disorder, the American Heart Association recommended Monday. Stimulant drugs can increase blood pressure and heart rate. For most children, that isn't a problem. But in those with heart conditions, it could make them more vulnerable to sudden cardiac arrest - an erratic heartbeat that causes the heart to stop pumping blood through the body - and other heart problems. About 2.5 million American children and 1.5 million adults take medication for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, according to...

CHILDREN who use Ritalin for a long period of time could be more at risk of delinquency and substance abuse, a study has found. Doctors are suggesting children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) should take a break from medication after three years of use. An American study - published in the Medical Observer _ has found that while drugs such as Ritalin can initially help sufferers, the benefit of prolonged use is in doubt. Some children stay on medication until they reach 18, but researchers believe it may not protect them from all the symptoms. Has your child been...

ADHD Breakthrough by: Amanda Busse, January 09, 2008 A new study suggests that Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in children may be a matter of maturity. According to the study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, ADHD in children is caused when portions of the brain mature at a slower pace than normal. For many, the condition eventually normalizes and nearly 80 percent of children grow out of the disorder, the researchers found. Researchers used a new image-analysis technique to measure the thickening and thinning of thousands of cortex sites in 223 children with ADHD and...

Drugs given to thousands of hyperactive children have no long-term benefits and could in fact be stunting their development, a major study has said. The study of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) found that, while powerful drugs such as Ritalin and Concerta resulted in short-term behavioural improvements, after three years those benefits had disappeared. Children who took the drugs for the full three years were also found to have stunted growth, according to the Multimodal Treatment Study of Children with ADHD (MTA). The MTA has followed 600 children in the United States with ADHD since the 1990s and has just...

In youth with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), the brain matures in a normal pattern but is delayed three years in some regions, on average, compared to youth without the disorder, an imaging study by researchers at the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) has revealed. The delay in ADHD was most prominent in regions at the front of the brain’s outer mantle (cortex), important for the ability to control thinking, attention and planning. Otherwise, both groups showed a similar back-to-front wave of brain maturation with different areas peaking in thickness at different times. “Finding...

Researchers have also employed this technology for use in special 'night lights' Scientists at John Carroll University, working in its Lighting Innovations Institute, have developed an affordable accessory that appears to reduce the symptoms of ADHD. Their discovery also has also been shown to improve sleep patterns among people who have difficulty falling asleep. The John Carroll researchers have created glasses designed to block blue light, therefore altering a person’s circadian rhythm, which leads to improvement in ADHD symptoms and sleep disorders. How the Glasses Work: Jumpstarting Melatonin Production The individual puts on the glasses a couple of hours ahead...

As cousins Travis and Chuckie Jones stroll off the South Broward High campus on school days, they're "gooned out." Wearing oversized T-shirts and low-riding jeans, they mimic the hard core look that gangsta rappers first popularized in the 1990s. The Jones boys' jean shorts, held up by belts, are hanging around their thighs and sag so low that you can't help but see the gym shorts they wear underneath. "I like saggin'," said Travis, a 15-year-old sophomore. For him, wearing baggy, ill-fitting jeans, is cool — and makes a strong statement. It's all about attitude. "It tells everybody to kiss...

Drugging Our Poor by: Bethany Stotts, October 22, 2007 Many public schools have begun incorporating mental health screening tests into their curriculum, and may soon be analyzing family circumstances as a factor influencing low school performance under the No Child Left Behind requirements (NCLB). The proposed We Care Act (H.R. 3762) would amend the NCLB Act to stipulate that “Each State plan shall include an assessment of the nonacademic factors influencing student achievement, a description of public and private organizations and agencies within the State that are working to impact... including but not limited to state departments....and nonprofit youth development...

Insulin's brain impact links drugs and diabetes Insulin, long known as an important regulator of blood glucose levels, now has a newly appreciated role in the brain. Vanderbilt University Medical Center researchers, working with colleagues in Texas, have found that insulin levels affect the brain’s dopamine systems, which are involved in drug addiction and many neuropsychiatric conditions. In addition to suggesting potential new targets for treating drug abuse, the findings raise questions as to whether improper control of insulin levels – as in diabetes – may impact risk for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or influence the effectiveness of current...

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), a state of serious impairments in both learning ability and social functioning, is one of many labels for one of the most prevalent conditions in child psychiatry, and, undoubtedly, the most controversial, which partly persists into adulthood. ADHD is conservatively estimated to occur in 3,0–7,5% of school-age children (Goldman et al., 1998), but more permissive criteria yield estimates of up to 17% (Barbaresi et al., 2002). Up to 20% of boys in some school systems receive psychostimulants for the treatment of ADHD (LeFever et al., 1999). Partly in response to legitimate concern about an apparent rapid increase...

Mr. & Mrs. Fred Thompson will be interviewed on Hannity & Colmes tonight.

Certain artificial food colorings and other additives can worsen hyperactive behaviors in children aged 3 to 9, British researchers reported on Wednesday. Tests on more than 300 children showed significant differences in their behavior when they drank fruit drinks spiked with a mixture of food colorings and preservatives, Jim Stevenson and colleagues at the University of Southampton said. "These findings show that adverse effects are not just seen in children with extreme hyperactivity (such as ADHD) but can also be seen in the general population and across the range of severities of hyperactivity," the researchers wrote in their study, published...

MONDAY, Sept. 3 (HealthDay News) -- Nearly 9 percent of American children have attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), but only 32 percent of them are getting the medication they need. That's the sobering conclusion of a landmark new study, the first of its kind based on what doctors consider the "gold standard" of diagnostic criteria -- the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition. "There is a perception that ADHD is overdiagnosed and overtreated," said lead researcher Dr. Tanya E. Froehlich, a developmental-behavioral pediatrician at Cincinnati Children's Medical Center. "But our study shows that for those who meet the criteria...

> >> >>I have read the information presented on your website. You have shown >>zero >>evidence that ADHD does not exist as a neurological disorder. >>Your opinion about ADHD goes against the findings of the mainstream >>scientific community, and you do many people a great disservice by >>promoting ignorance and stigma. >> >>Lyle Fred Baughman, MD, author THE ADHD FRAUD www.Trafford.com, writes to Bob Collier, author of The Parental Intelligence Newsletter http://www.parental-intelligence.com Dear Bob, Lyle, who writes above, needs to understand a couple of basic things about science and reason. The burden of proof always lies with those who pronounce...

364 DEATHS IN GEORGIA PSYCH HOSPITALS—TIP OF ICEBERG by Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD, Neurologist Author: The ADHD Fraud—How Psychiatry Make “Patients” of Normal Children www.Trafford.com ; 1-888-232-4444 The Atlanta (GA) Journal-Constitution has documented 364 deaths in Georgia’s state mental hospitals in the five years, January, 2002 through mid-December 2006. Two-thirds were said to have died of natural causes, 115 were deemed suspicious. The greatest number of these--36 –died from choking on food, vomit or foreign objects, or by aspirating those substances into their lungs. A like number died from questionable care; 12 committed suicide, and two died under physical...

WHO KILLED REBECCA RILEY? By Fred A. Baughman, Jr., MD, Neurologist, Child Neurologist Author: The ADHD Fraud—How Psychiatry Makes “Patients” of Normal Children www.Trafford.com June 21, 2007 Neurologists, such as myself, diagnose and treat real diseases of the brain. Psychiatrists do not. They only claim to. A disease is a physical abnormality evident macroscopically (lump on the head visible to the naked eye) , microscopically (cancer cells on a ‘Pap’ smear) or by chemical assay (high blood sugar in diabetes). If there is no such objective abnormality, the individual is normal, disease-free. It is fascinating to behold the charges brought...

Is it safe? Nobody knows.More and more, parents at wit's end are begging doctors to help them calm their aggressive children or control their kids with ADHD. More and more, doctors are prescribing powerful antipsychotic drugs. In the past seven years, the number of Florida children prescribed such drugs has increased some 250 percent. Last year, more than 18,000 state kids on Medicaid were given prescriptions for antipsychotic drugs. Even children as young as 3 years old. Last year, 1,100 Medicaid children under 6 were prescribed antipsychotics, a practice so risky that state regulators say it should be used only...