ADHD
MYTHOLOGY 2011
LESSON
201
This article follows up on
Lesson 101 and further addresses many of the widely held but false beliefs
about ADHD introduced in the previous discussion. My reference for this lesson is the excellent book More
Attention, Less Deficit authored by Ari Tuckman, PsyD, Speciality Press,
Inc., 2009. {PsyD is an abbreviation
for a Doctoral degree in Psychology.}
This book is primarily devoted to discussion of “Success Strategies for
Adults with ADHD.” I would rate it as
deserving 3 ½ – 4 stars.
Dr. Tuckman's book
presents
modern scientific concepts about ADHD very well, and his extensive
discussions
about managing problem symptoms of the condition is excellent. This is
the greatest strength of the book. His commentary about medication
treatment is
not very sophisticated; he is a
psychologist who cannot prescribe medication for people who have ADHD,
so one
would not expect this area to be a strong point of a book like this.
He does address cause(s) of ADHD
very well and quite directly debunks a lot of the baloney and overt Quackery we
find creating folie en masse in this field. Please refer especially to his summaries on this matter pages 60
to 63.
1)
“Bad parenting” does not cause ADHD. “Bad parenting” does not cause ANY major Neurobiological
condition. These conditions include
Major Depression, Bipolar Disorder (formerly known as “Manic-Depressive
Disorder”), OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder), TS (Tourette's Syndrome), or
any form of Autism and related “Autism Spectrum Conditions,” among many other
well-known and widely-studied disorders which are generated by genetic and
developmental abnormalities of brain anatomy and chemistry.
2) Diet and Food Additives have been decisively proven to
have no influence whatsoever generating symptoms of ADHD. This entire theory was conjured up in the
late 60's by Dr. Ross Feingold, a pediatric allergist at a Kaiser facility in
California, and amazingly became a widely accepted theory even by some serious
academic physicians well into the 70's until carefully designed and controlled
research proved the entire notion to be wrong.
Diet has no effect whatsoever on ADHD symptoms (unless you are eating
lead, or feeding lead to your children).
“Additives” have no effect on ADHD symptoms. Sugar has nothing to do with ADHD symptoms. *
3) Modern
Society as a presumed cause of ADHD symptoms has been debunked and dismissed as
silly since the early 70's. The
increasingly rapid “pace” of our personal life in modern times is not
experienced by any of us as a sudden change, and ADHD has been found to be just
as frequent in seemingly primitive village societies as it is in modern cities
and suburbs.
There is
no evidence ADHD is becoming more prevalent now compared to 10 or 20 or 30 or
more years ago. It is being diagnosed
more frequently now than in the past because parents, grandparents, teachers,
and physicians are far better informed than any of us were many years ago, when
behaviors we now identify as suggestive of ADHD were just labeled “bad,” and children
who were hyperactive and/or inattentive were sent to the Principal to be
paddled, and then on to “Reform School” if they did not respond to physical
punishment.
4) Natural
Selection for a Different Time – the old “Hunters and Farmers” theories are still
sometimes mentioned by people who enjoy reading “fantasy science.” The basic notion is something like
adolescents and adults who have ADHD are historically displaced “hunters” who
are now forced to live in modern world which favors “farmers.” Dr. Tuckman addresses and dismisses this
foolishness quite cleverly.
His closing comments about the
brain-based differences between individuals who have ADHD and those who do not
are very well summarized. Distinct
differences in the anatomy and physiology (chemistry) of the brain
comparing ADHD and “normal” individuals
were first reported in 1991, and subsequent research has expanded on and
refined these findings.
Lesson 301 will
delve much deeper into ADHD mythology and complete this section of our web-based
presentations. I will discuss some of
the myriad Quack remedies in Lesson 301, including many other old myths about
the cause of ADHD as well as some of the goofiest proposed “cures.” I bet some of you don't know how convinced
many folks were in the 70's and early 80's ADHD was caused by fluorescent
lighting, and how influential this unproven theory became for a while. Many schools were forced to eliminate use of
fluorescent lighting in classrooms because administrators and politicians
embraced this foolishness.
I guarantee the section on Quack
remedies will be fun to read. “Nature's
Alternatives to Ritalin” websites once dominated cyberspace, starting way back
with the old Compuserve before the Internet got into full swing. Well-meaning, otherwise seemingly
sophisticated men and women and parents and grandparents actually embraced many
of these scientifically absurd “treatments” for a long time, and many folks
still do, because of 1) a distrust of physicians' judgment; 2)
an aversion to modern medications;
3) parents' fears about “toxic side effects” and “long-term side
effects,” often in part due to successful anti-medication propaganda promoted
by the so-called “Church” of Scientology;
4) a desperate wish for a “natural alternative.”
I have a great story to tell
about magnets in Lesson 301.
· There is a serious “downside” to this historical
discussion. As a direct result of Dr.
Feingold's unsubstantiated and unproven theories about the cause of ADHD, many
tens of thousands or even millions of children with this disabling
condition were NOT treated with truly effective medications in the late 60's,
all through the 70's, and even for a few years in the 80's.
Pediatricians
who were employed at Kaiser Foundation clinics routinely prescribed the
“Feingold Diet” for ALL newly diagnosed ADHD children. This bizarre diet essentially forced mothers
to ferret out “organic” foods from all sorts of sources and to avoid including
ANY artificial coloring or preservatives in the food they fed their kids. Obviously, these mothers could not serve
“pure” kale and ochra plus freshly slaughtered hedgehogs to just one or two
kids in the family. Everyone in the
family had to eat these foods.
When
this diet failed (as it always did) to reduce or eliminate ADHD symptoms, the
blame for failure always fell on Mom for not eliminating all natural
salicylates or food coloring agents or some other presumed toxins, OR on the
child for sneakily eating or drinking some forbidden substances at school or at
a friend's house. You can imagine the
consequences of this borderline insanity, which for many children and families
were far worse than merely delaying effective treatment for ADHD for months or,
usually, years.