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Comment by russell | Hacker News Reader

Another myth, even among doctors, is that this is a condition of children who run up walls and across ceilings. Not so. It afflicts adults who are not hyperactive. It is characterized by periods of intense concentration and other periods of complete inability to focus. It is pretty easily treatable with amphetamine type prescription drugs, which help them to calm down and concentrate, exactly the opposite effect from most of us. Unfortunately it is harder to diagnose in high IQ adults, because they are better at disguising the symptoms.

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I had to explain to my neurologist yesterday, that it was the old model for ADD where it just 'went away' and that the new model for ADHD is that it often persists until adulthood, and that even though I'm almost 30 I most definitely need to take amphetamine salts daily to accomplish meaningful work with computers.

Even doctors don't understand.

"It is characterized by periods of intense concentration and other periods of complete inability to focus."

"They tended to procrastinate and be forgetful and had difficulty in harnessing their talent to complete many daily tasks"

Crap, I guess I really might have ADHD. Would effective and safe is the prescription medication?

Everyone is that way to some extent, but if you have ADHD its severe. Treatment is effective for most people, and its completely safe for adults. Occasional concern for children.

"It is characterized by periods of intense concentration and other periods of complete inability to focus."

"They tended to procrastinate and be forgetful and had difficulty in harnessing their talent to complete many daily tasks"

What's scary for parents is that a lot of that sounds like "teenage boy," and I'm not sure how well I understand differential diagnosis of ADD as contrasted with adolescent brain restructuring. I know young people whose parents have told me that the young people have ADD, and some of those young people are BRILLIANT. Some other young people I know seem every bit as disorganized, but who am I to diagnose someone, even my own child, without a lot of clinical experience?

I'm sure I'll get downmodded for even mentioning this, but in the natural health community we don't believe that ADHD is really a brain disorder, certainly not to the extent the APA maintains. I find it absurd that close to 1/4th of school age children in some schools supposedly need to be on brain altering pharmaceuticals. Why don't we see this in other countries?

Some dietary triggers for the ADHD like behavior commonly mentioned are artificial colors, sugar, MSG, and processed grains (and a lack of sufficient nutrition in general.)

For instance, there was a segment in the movie SuperSize Me describing a school for behaviorally problematic children. The staff found they could improve things by changing only the school lunch selection.

Some dietary triggers for the ADHD like behavior commonly mentioned are artificial colors, sugar

Rather than downmod I'll ask a follow-up question and request research citations to back up that statement mentioning two distinct triggers for ADHD behavior.

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1659835,00.ht...

That was at the top of Google and describes a 2007 study in The Lancet. There's plenty more if you go looking.

The trouble with dispersal of natural health information is that the pharmaceutical and food industries are two of the biggest advertisers in mainstream media, have enormous influence, and they both profit tremendously from an ignorant public who's willing to buy low cost low quality foods and then take drugs to treat the resulting symptoms.

The trouble with dispersal of natural health information is that the pharmaceutical and food industries are two of the biggest advertisers in mainstream media

That should have nothing to do with publication in peer-reviewed scientific journals, which is what I was really asking about. [After edit: I see the Time magazine link you posted refers to an interesting study in the journal The Lancet, which is very well regarded. Now I'll have to look that up and follow up further citations. Thanks.] Scientific journals can have their problems too, article by article,

http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html

but that's where I'd like for carefully verified information about what triggers ADHD.

I'll read the Time article in light of the link I've just posted here, which I recommend highly and often to readers of HN. [After edit: I see the Time article ended with a suggestion, from an expert, that it might be a good idea to eat more "organic" foods. Interestingly, there is also a lot of research on phytotoxins suggesting that many "natural" sustances found in plants, which after all evolved defenses of various kinds against being eaten by animals, may sometimes be many more times risky for human health than some "artificial" substances commonly found in lower doses in typical foods. But again thanks for posting the link, which gives me something to follow up on.]

Follow-up by a European regulatory agency on the study mentioned in the Time magazine article you kindly linked:

http://www.gencat.cat/salut/acsa/Du12/html/es/dir1592/dn1592...

There's some interesting discussion of statistical tests applied to the data.

I'm generally a "natural health freak" (rest of my family says), but I have also seen (and teachers in my family testify, too) the impact on productivity for kids when on/off their meds (ritalin,etc).

I'd also say it's not inconceivable that there could be a huge chunk of today's children who have ADHD - way larger than a generation or two ago. For a similar (though not as prevalent) phenomenon, look at how autism has been ramping up in recent decades.

The profile is usually pretty clear: the kid is unable to behave himself or perform any action for which there is not an instant reward. Its not something that shows up with hormones, it is the central characteristic of the child's life from day one.

Thanks to you and to the other participants for your replies. I see a real opportunity here to further advance the psychology of human mental abilities by further investigating the distinction Keith Stanovich

http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=97803001238...

http://www.amazon.com/What-Intelligence-Tests-Miss-Psycholog...

draw between "intelligence" (I would say "IQ," but his terminology is standard) and "rationality." There are various forms of human cognition, and IQ tests miss many of them. Stanovich reports that there are mental tests that would reliably show, among adults with high IQ, who has executive function problems and who does not.

Are you related to this Stanovich guy, or do you just like repeating yourself?

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=536558

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=565842

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=588797

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=518828

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=559054

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=514086

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=480331

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=497733

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=483771

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=514856

This is just from a quick Google search. I'm sure there are more.

I think it's an important clarification of the conceptualization of human cognitive abilities, and I can't count on everyone to do the Google search that you have done, especially on a site with new participants every day.

No, I'm not related to him at all. Are you related to someone who has an opinion on research on human cognitive psychology?

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