Posts from — June 2010

If I told you that women who received only basic education were 130 % more likely to have a child on ADHD medication than women with university degrees, you’d see a link, wouldn’t you? 

Well, that’s what a  study published this month in Acta Paediatrica found.  That implies that nearly half of the serious cases of ADHD  in children are closely tied to social factors. The study reveals that factors like single parenting and poor maternal education were directly tied to ADHD medication use.

While we know that a genetic propensity likely exists, the human brain develops based on a complex interplay between nature and nurture; between genetic endowment (nature) and environment/social factors (nurture). Epigenetic theory tries to explain this relationship.

Curiously, few large-scale studies have tried to determine the impact of social and family influences on ADHD. Researchers at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden assessed data on 1.16 million school children and examined the health histories of nearly 8,000 Swedish-born kids, aged six to 19, who had taken ADHD medication.

"We tracked their record through other registers … to determine a number of other factors," said lead author Anders Hjern.

Here’s what the researchers found:

• Living in a single parent family increased the chances of being on ADHD medication by more than 50 percent.
• A family on welfare upped the odds of medication use by 135%.
• Boys were three times more likely to be on medication than girls.
• Social dynamics affected both sexes equally.

"Almost half of the cases could be explained by the socioeconomic factors included in our analysis, clearly demonstrating that these are potent predictors of ADHD-medication in Swedish school children," Hjern said.

It’s clear that this study found a link between socioeconomic factors and ADHD medication use/diagnosis. Other US studies have found that minority children and children of low socioeconomic status were more likely to receive ADHD medication.

Factors like low income and diminished quality time are more common in single-parent families. These typically lead to stressors like family conflict and a lack of social support, Hjern said.

While more research must be done, one has to ask, is medication the answer to social stressors like lack of time and money? Sounds too silly to ask, but it seems that our answer, ridiculously, is a resounding, YES!

We are the masters of our lives. We can make significant personal changes, but we must have the tools to do so. That’s why I began Play Attention (www.playattention.com) years ago.

A study performed in the Netherlands and published in the BJOG ( British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology) reveals that  the common drugs used to treat hypertension in pregnancy may affect child functional development.

The Dutch researchers investigated a Labetalol, a drug sometimes given to pregnant women to reduce high blood pressure. They examined the records of 4,000 women from 12 hospitals and tested 202 children.  The children were tested for IQ, concentration level, motor development, and behavior.

The women had high blood pressure that had either been caused by their pregnancy or had been exacerbated by their pregnancy.  They then compared Labetalol to another blood pressure drug, methyldopa. Labetalol was found to be twice as likely to cause ADHD.  When the researchers compared mothers who were given no drugs to the mothers who were prescribed Labetalol , they found that the Labetalol children were four times more likely to have ADHD.

The Dutch scientists did not find that other functional development  differed between the children.

The scientists said they are still developing a hypothesis and confirming a link between the drugs and a baby’s development would require further research.

Professor Philip Steer, BJOG editor-in-chief, said “The results of this study are interesting although they could have occurred by chance. Nonetheless, there are plausible reasons why antihypertensive drugs may be harmful to the functional development of the fetus, with long-term effects. One always has to balance the short-term benefits of a treatment against possible long-term consequences. The results suggest that more large-scale studies looking at the effects of antihypertensive drugs on the baby long-term are warranted.”

The study is limited due to possible bias in data collection. It is similar to other studies which find that pesticides, mercury, lead, allergens, etc., etc., etc., are the culprits. The bottom line is that there nothing conclusive here. More investigation is needed.