ADD and ADHD are "real" but it is a known fact that it is something curable. Giving kids prescription meds is just masking the real issue and never fixing it. With kids with ADD and ADHD stop letting them eat all that sugar food and artificial flavoring for a few weeks and see how they act.
absolutely agree....the meds are nothing more than a band aid on a bullet wound.....as Bree53 states, fix the diet first. Other things can include physical excercise, ie go for a walk, a hike, some kind of athletic activity..biking, running, etc.....and turn off the damn TV/GameBoy/Xbox/Guitar hero....etc.....
Good thing there weren't pharma drugs when I went to school. My second grade teacher threw a blanket over my head so I wouldn't be a distraction, so I'm sure I would have been dosed up. I too, believe that food coloring,sugar and other bad dietary habits contribute very much to these conditions. Other than being born with faulty wiring,diet,exercise and ATTENTION paid to a child by parents, would most likely help more than any drug a for-profit company makes..
I'm very glad that there are a great number of scientists who disagree with you. It is thanks to them that we are finally coming out of the dark ages when it comes to psychology, and those affected by mental illness are beginning to be understood as individuals with a health problem rather than evil sinners, demons or something to mock and needlessly discriminate against. I have a congential heart murmur from a rather common fault in my heart called mitral valve prolapse. It doesn't impact hugely on my life, it just means I get out of breath more easily than those without this issue sometimes. Having a heart defect does not make me any less courageous or loving, it is just an organ which is not entirely in an ideal state. Similarly, there are disorders of the brain which do not necessarily make someone a "bad" person. Naturally, as the brain is such a complex organ, the problems are far more difficult to understand, and because the issue has been clouded by misguided religious ethics and superstitions in the past, psychological sciences are in their infancy. We do know, however, that mental illness is most definitely not "a lie". That's a great starting point.
And for the sake of consistency I'll point out that this jokey response is also incorrect, although I'm sure the author was aware of that
My personally experience with a beloved sibling, for the original topic, is such that he couldn't properly experience and retain information without special regard and treatment. His treatment was not drugs. It was biofeedback, an acceptance of his own sort or brilliance, and heavy dietary changes. I don't think ADHD is entirely made up, though it may be overly compromised by the pharmaceutical money machine.
Funny, in all my hours of searching and reading on Google Scholar I never found any suggestion of there being a cure for this neurological condition. I'd love to see the peer-reviewed papers that back up your claim. :2thumbsup:
OP, come up out of the rabbit hole for a minute, let's talk. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but then there is just plain ignorance. I hate big pharma with a passion, but every now and then, they actually help people. I grew up with great parents, a stable, loving family, a good education, a good diet, etc. There was still something wrong. I couldn't function like other people. I was frustrated, depressed, thought about suicide; I lived that way for 37 years. I tried everything I knew to do. Diet, therapy, alternative therapies... Nothing worked. My sister kept insisting that I had ADD (I'm not hyperactive) and to go see someone about it. Long story short, Adderall has changed my life. I don't particularly like taking it, but I don't like taking my vitamins either. I sure like what they do for me though. It is far too complicated a subject to be addressed in one post, but until you have walked in my shoes or researched it for as many years as I have, your dismissal of it as being a real condition is damned insulting.
Yeah, most kids don't have serious ADHD requiring medication. and yeah, we might all be some level of ADHD, just like we're all some level of schizophrenic and some level of autistic. And just like some people being SERIOUSLY autistic or schizophrenic and needing attention, some people are seriously ADHD and need special attention. I have met at least one of these people, she was simply unfunctioning without amphetamines, and on them she was beyond what most would consider seriously ADHD. But they allowed her to function and have a reasonably normal life, not to mention count to 3 without getting sidetracked. Of course, kids being kids can be frustrating to people underpaid to watch large unruly groups of kids. This has made a market for selling cocaine analogs for children, and the pharma companies love it. But that doesn't mean that real ADHD doesn't exist. /thread
At what level is ADHD real and not real? how can you chemically determine what it really is? You can't. This is my point is that ADHD a lot of the times (not every case becasue everyone is different) is a bad reaction to high fructose corn syrup and if you cut out hfcs out of kids' diets you will usually see a tremendous change in their ADHD symptoms.
There isn't, as far as I'm aware, a definitive chemical test that can say whether someone is ADHD or not, until after they die (whereupon the autopsy can reveal certain things). However, there is simply no debate in medicine as to whether or not ADHD exists - that debate ended long ago when the consensus was firmly that yes, it does; it is a neurological condition relating to the neurotransmitters dopamine and norepinephrine, and it is not yet fully understood. There are many parallels with schizophrenia in that this also does not have a definitive chemical / blood test. The only way schizophrenia is diagnosed is through observation of the behaviour of the patient. It is also thought to be over and often mis-diagnosed, but does this mean that I can stroll into my local mental hospital, point at all the supposed schizophrenics hallucinating and hearing voices and proclaim "THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS SCHIZOPHRENIA BECAUSE THERE IS NO BLOOD TEST THAT CAN CONFIRM IF SOMEONE HAS IT OR NOT"? No. Of course not. The only people still having this debate are ones who have, in the main, never picked up a scientific paper or those who subscribe to Conspiracy Theories Monthly. You're probably right that many kids' hyperactivity is caused by something else and they may indeed benefit from dietary adjustment as you suggest. But please do not write-off the many people who genuinely suffer from this neurological condition. *Edit: this post isn't purely in aimed at bree53 who does acknowledge that not all cases of ADHD are diet related
I would say it most likely is!!!!!! ADHD just means that someone CANT CONCENTRATE on something right?? WELL,IF IT IS SOMETHING THEY LIKE AND ARE INTERESTED IN,THEY WILL HAVE NO PROBLEMS EVEN WITH "ADHD" so maybe it isnt real,good thread!! ADHD could be the natural behaviour of all of us!
No, it's more than not being able to concentrate. Don't assume something isn't real just because you don't understand it. There is actually a list of standard criteria a person has to meet to be diagnosed, and although they seem vague and applicable to any kid, the jist of it is that if these traits are causing you to lose your ability to function in life, it crosses the line and becomes a disorder. Also, there may not be blood tests, but they have done PET scans of the brain and can identify metabolic patterns consistent with ADD. Obviously, most kids are diagnosed without having their brains scanned, and a lot of schools are very insistent that kids get on drugs, so yes it is horribly over-diagnosed, and I think that all non-pharmacological solutions should be exhausted before a child is prescribed drugs, BUT that doesn't mean the disorder isn't real. Believe it or not, a lot of kids and families have been helped by this medication, so don't throw the proverbial baby out with the bath water.
Just because its possibly over-diagnosed does not mean it does not exist. If it did not exist it would not be in the DSM. Also who are you to tell anyone their child is just misbehaving if their child actually does have psychological problems....I suppose you think they could just punish it out of them. But the reality is punishing a child for something that's not fully in their control is usually harmful. Using medication for the wrong reasons can also be harmful, but it is true the medications do help some people function better. But just so its clear where I stand I think misbehaving=child knowingly does something wrong for whatever reason it may be. Misbehaving does not= child with psychological disorder reacts to their symptoms.