A new study at Columbia University Irving Medical Center challenges the popular notion that psychiatric medications are overprescribed in children and adolescents in the US. Published in the Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology, researchers compared prescribing rates with prevalence rates for the most common psychiatric disorders in children.

Sitting still is something people with ADHD are famous for not doing…Not Sitting StillSo why can’t we sit still? The short answer is that we have an aversion to sitting still for the same reason we have an aversion to other boring tasks: it’s understimulating.”

The way parents interact with their kids is said to affect how well these kids perform in school, especially for kids with ADHD or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. This was according to studies conducted by a group of researchers from the Penn State College of Medicine.

Offspring of a parent with diagnosed type 1 diabetes, particularly a mother with the disease, have an increased risk for ADHD compared with the other children, study data show.

Early antihistamine use in children with atopic dermatitis may be related to attention-deficit-hyperactivity disorder symptoms, researchers report in the journal Allergy. The study, reported in November, suggests that even in the absence of a clinical ADHD diagnosis, pediatric atopic dermatitis patients have a higher tendency than children without atopic dermatitis to develop ADHD symptoms.

The number of young, adult women medicated for ADHD has skyrocketed over the last decade – jumping by 344%, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention…The report does not explain why the number rose so much, but experts in the field note that the public’s understanding of ADHD has…

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a recognized disorder affecting both children and adults, but what is known about ADHD when it affects older adults, especially those nearing retirement age or those who are already retired?…[Kathleen G. Nadeau, PhD], a psychologist in Maryland, spoke about this issue at the 2018 annual meeting of the American Professional Society…

Only 53% of the doses of ADHD medications prescribed to college students are actually taken, according to a study published this month in the Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics. As children grow up, their ADHD treatment, from therapy to educational accommodations to medications are managed primarily by their parents and teachers. But when students…

A large prospective study published in Brain Sciences has found that suboptimal maternal cholesterol levels, in particular low high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, may increase the risk for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in offspring. Yuelong Ji, MS, MSPH, of the Center on Early Life Origins of Disease, Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore,…

Risk factors, such as tobacco or alcohol use by pregnant women, have not been shown to clearly correlate with ADHD in offspring, with results varying among studies. Links between prenatal exposures and later outcomes can be evaluated through large cohort studies, using extensive clinical and socioeconomic data to control for potential confounders. In one such…

At a recent Paris scientific conference, scientists in psychiatry discussed evidence supporting the theory that sleep and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are intertwined. However, some experts caution that more proof is needed to make the association and that many new cases involve children whose sleep disorders cause behaviors that mimic ADHD.

New research finds that children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) engaged in substance use at a younger age than those without ADHD and had a significantly higher prevalence of regular marijuana and cigarette use into adulthood. The study appears online in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry.”