Parents often worry that their children who take stimulants to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) may be at higher risk for substance abuse later. Now, a surprising new study finds that risk was actually lower when medicines such as Ritalin and Adderall were started earlier and taken longer.

A new study suggests women with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are much more likely to have a wide range of mental and physical health problems in comparison to women without ADHD. Researchers at the University of Toronto were surprised by the various health issues — including suicidal ideation — which women with ADHD evidently experience...Investigators examined a representative sample of 3,908 Canadian women aged 20 to 39 of whom 107 reported that they had been diagnosed with ADHD. Data was drawn from the 2012 Canadian Community Health Survey-Mental Health.

Writers, entrepreneurs, and creative leaders of all types know that intense focus that happens when you're "in the zone": You're feeling empowered, productive, and engaged. Psychologists might call this flow, the experience of zeroing in so closely on some activity that you lose yourself in it. And this immersive state, as it turns out, also happens to be something that some adults with ADHD commonly experience.

The amount of off-label uses of atypical antipsychotic drugs (AAPs) prescribed for children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) raises questions about the appropriateness of AAPs for this indication. In a recent study, investigators analyzed outpatient data from the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey and the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey. They found that between 1993 and 2010, AAP prescriptions written for patients aged between 4 and 18 years grew significantly, and that two-thirds of these prescriptions were written for off-label indications.1

Contrary to conventional wisdom, adult-onset attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is not necessarily a continuation of the childhood disorder but instead may be a separate syndrome with unique patterns of progression, two new longitudinal studies suggest. "Above all, our findings do not support the premise that adulthood ADHD is always a continuation of childhood ADHD," write the authors of the first study.

Children with atopic diseases such as asthma, allergic rhinitis, or eczema, and those whose parents who were exposed to attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and atopic disease medications, were more susceptible to developing ADHD, according to study results.

Today I want to share some strategies I’ve found helpful for managing anxiety that accompanies ADHD. Doing these things didn’t wipe out my anxiety in one fell swoop, but it did make my anxiety less overwhelming and help me reframe it in a way where I could start making progress.