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Surprising 16-year-long ADHD study proves researchers' hypothesis completely wrong

The findings from first-of-their-kind, long-term ADHD studies keep rolling in and surprising researchers along the way.

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Scientists continue to be surprised by the findings of long-term ADHD studies.

Our understanding of ADHD has come a long way in just a few short years. Though it wasn't even formally recognized as a medical condition until the 1960s, by the time the 90s rolled around, diagnoses and stimulant prescriptions were extremely prevalent. (Raise your hand if you grew up in the era of "Anyone who struggles in school gets Ritalin!") Today, diagnoses and treatment are a lot more thoughtful and individualized, and there are more options for treatment and therapy including but not limited to stimulants like the well-known Ritalin. Even with all these advancements, though, we still have more to learn.

A new long-term study published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry has proven to be an excellent next step in getting a better understanding of the disorder, showing that a lot of what's commonly believed or assumed about ADHD is incomplete or just flat-out wrong.

Researchers studied 483 participants who were diagnosed with ADHD in childhood and continued to assess them for a period of 16 years. The study's authors wanted to get a sense of how ADHD symptoms might change over time.

What the researchers found surprised them. In most participants, symptoms of ADHD fluctuated greatly over the years rather than staying consistent. What surprised them even more were the environmental factors that seemed to play a role in those fluctuations.

adhd, children, kids, mental health, neurodivergent, brains, psychology, medicine, research, medical studiesADHD brains work in mysterious ways, but we're starting to get a clearer picture. Photo by BUDDHI Kumar SHRESTHA on Unsplash

Researchers expected that greater life demands—like more responsibility at work, a heavier workload at school, major life changes, etc.—would exacerbate ADHD symptoms. What they found was the opposite.

It makes sense that a person that struggles with inattention or hyperactivity might have more trouble focusing when they have more "going on" and more distractions to pull them in different directions. It was a huge surprise to the researchers that, actually, people's ADHD symptoms seemed to ease up when life got hectic.

“We expected the relationship between environmental demands and ADHD symptoms to be the opposite of what we found,” study author, professor, and clinical psychologist Margaret H. Sibley explained. “We hypothesized that when life demands and responsibilities increased, this might exacerbate people’s ADHD, making it more severe. In fact, it was the opposite. The higher the demands and responsibilities one was experiencing, the milder their ADHD.”

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I have a 4-year-old with ADHD and the findings totally track for me based on what I've witnessed in our own life.

We find it's actually easier to be in perpetual motion sometimes—out running errands, doing activities, visiting friends and family—versus staying put too long. When we're just relaxing at home, that's when she tends to start bouncing off the walls! Her ADHD tendencies come out strong in these quiet periods, including what we sometimes playfully refer to as her "hoarding" dozens of coloring sheets or surrounding herself in giant piles of toys, blankets, and stuffed animals; thereby making a huge mess in the house.

Doing nothing or doing very little is not often a restful state for people with ADHD. Typically, people with ADHD experience more background noise than neurotypical brains—so a quiet, seemingly restful environment can sometimes amplify racing thoughts, negative self-talk, and impulsive behavior versus dampening it. You know how kids sometimes act out in school not because they're not smart, but because the material is actually too easy for them and they're bored? Something similar is at play in both of these scenarios.

Of course, as always in science, you have to be careful assuming causation from the findings.

adhd, children, kids, mental health, neurodivergent, brains, psychology, medicine, research, medical studiesThe results show that staying busy may actually help relieve some ADHD symptoms. Annie Spratt/Unsplash

It's important to note that the results of the study don't definitively prove that being busy causes a decrease in ADHD symptoms.

“This might mean that people with ADHD perform their best in more demanding environments (perhaps environments that have stronger immediate consequences, like needing to put food on the table for a family or pay rent monthly). It also might mean that people with ADHD take more on their plate when their symptoms are relatively at bay," Sibley says. Either way, the correlation is certainly strong and worthy of more study.

In the meantime, the study's authors think the results could be viewed in a hopeful light for people just learning to manage their ADHD. “If you’re a doctor talking with a patient who is first getting diagnosed with ADHD, it’s a huge help for that person to hear the message that, ‘You’re going to have good years and not-so-good years, but things can go really well for you if you can get the right factors in place,'” Sibley said. As a parent, I can imagine how reassuring that would have been to hear early on in our own process.

adhd, children, kids, mental health, neurodivergent, brains, psychology, medicine, research, medical studiesWe still have so much to learn. Photo by Europeana on Unsplash

With ADHD diagnoses on the rise, more and more research is being conducted. For example, a recent long-term study out of Sweden was just published linking use of ADHD medication with a reduction in traffic crashes, general injuries, and criminal behavior. That's a strong argument for continuing to hone in on accurate diagnoses and treatment for people who need it, as it clearly benefits society as a whole when done properly!

We're learning more and more about what the factors that affect positive ADHD outcomes are—what might exacerbate symptoms and what types of things can help—and we're starting to get a clearer picture of how people can manage this challenging disorder.

This article originally appeared last year. It has been updated.

Neuroscientists just pinpointed the physical source of anxiety in our brains — and it could lead to a breakthrough treatment.

Using mice. And light rays.

Experiments have located so-called "anxiety cells" located in the hippocampus of mice brains. Using a ray of light, researchers found they could literally turn down the level of anxiety in these cells.


“This is exciting because it represents a direct, rapid pathway in the brain that lets animals respond to anxiety-provoking places without needing to go through higher-order brain regions,” said Mazen Kheirbek, assistant professor of psychiatry at University of California, San Francisco, and a lead investigator on the joint study conducted by UCSF and Columbia University.

Nearly 1 in 5 Americans has experienced an anxiety disorder.

Photo by Alexander Mils/​Unsplash.

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, an estimated 31% of U.S. adults will experience an anxiety disorder in at some point in their lives.

And celebrities are not immune either. Public figures like Kristen Bell, Lady Gaga, and journalist Dan Harris have shared their own difficulties in navigating a mental illness that can seem invisible to everyone else.

The most common treatments typically involve a combination of therapy and medications. Antidepressents, or SSRI drugs, have come under increased scrutiny in recent years, with critics arguing they are often over-prescribed and in less severe cases may even mask symptoms that could be otherwise treated through different approaches.

A ray of hope. Seriously.

Image via Lab of Rene Hen, ColumbiaUniversity Irving Medical Center.

That's what makes this new study so compelling. If there's an alternative approach to treating anxiety that is both more precise and less invasive, it could be a legitimate breakthrough approach to treating anxiety disorders.

Using rays of light, the researchers were able to track the brain activity in freely moving mice, getting real-time feedback about whether the "anxiety neurons" in their brains were activated during stressful situations:

"They found that suppressing the anxiety neuron pathway made animals more comfortable spending time in environments that usually frighten them, while stimulating the same neural connections made mice behave with anxiety even in safely enclosed spaces."

"Now that we’ve found these cells in the hippocampus, it opens up new areas for exploring treatment ideas that we didn’t know existed before," said Jessica Jimenez, lead author of the joint study.

Photo by Ayo Ogunseinde/Unsplash.

There's still a lot more work to be done.

Even though the study offers a ton of potential, experiments on mice don't always perfectly translate to trials on humans.

Even though he calls the initial results "tremendous progress," NIMH director Joshua Gordon said we're still far from a solution. "You can think of this paper as one brick in a big wall," he told NPR.

Still, there's no denying the promise and potential for the millions of people living with anxiety disorders and the countless others affected by such challenges.

People seeking out oral birth control in Colorado will now be able purchase the medication at a pharmacy without making a doctor's appointment first.

Photo by Andreas Rentz/Getty Images.

The law that loosens the restriction was passed in 2016 and went into effect in August — making the Centennial State the third to streamline the process of acquiring birth control pills, along with California and Oregon.


The medication still has to be prescribed — but that can be done by a pharmacist. The process involves a consultation, a questionnaire, and a blood pressure check, according to the Associated Press.

Permitting pharmacies to sell oral birth control over the counter has become a bipartisan cause in recent years — though the parties disagree on how to make it work.

Many drug companies are wary to undergo the FDA's approval process, which can be "lengthy and expensive" and includes the risk of incurring a political backlash, according to a 2015 Guttmacher Institute report.

FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb testifies in front of the House Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration and Related Agencies Subcommittee. Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.

Guttmacher, a reproductive health policy advocacy group, praised California and Oregon's partial approach, while noting that it's "unclear how pharmacists will be able to bill insurance companies for the costs of associated counseling and screening services."

Also in 2015, Senators Cory Gardner (R-Colorado) and Kelly Ayotte (R-New Hampshire) proposed a measure that would reward drug companies that filed applications to sell their oral contraceptives over the counter.  

The plan, while supported by a half-dozen other GOP senators, was opposed by both the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and Planned Parenthood on the grounds that such a measure would force potential patients to "pay twice for their birth control," if insurers no longer covered the medication as a result.

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.

A separate plan, proposed by Democratic Senator Patty Murray in 2015, would have required insurers to cover oral contraceptives purchased over the counter.

Neither Gardner and Ayotte's bill nor Murray's bill passed.

This isn't the first time Colorado has experimented with reforming the birth control delivery process.

In 2009, the state began offering free long-acting intra-uterine devices (IUDs) to residents. Teen pregnancies fell by over 40% over the same period.

For now, those who advocate lowering barriers to access have a new laboratory where they can study the potential benefits.

"People could be coming in to buy shampoo or vitamins, and they can have that conversation with a pharmacist," pharmacist Kelsey Schwander told the Denver Post earlier this year in the run-up to the measure's implementation.

For Coloradans who fear the expense of a doctor's visit, it could be a conversation worth having.  

"This is what I want to say to my mom, who 'drugged' me," Jessica McCabe begins in a voice-over.

McCabe's face pops up on the screen, earnest and direct as she finishes her statement: "Thank you."

The video is the latest in McCabe's series on life with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). In this heartfelt video, McCabe explains how her mom stepped up to help her get treatment.

ADHD affects about 11% of children in the United States, and while the symptoms are often misunderstood, ADHD can make it hard for kids to focus on things that are uninteresting to them, or it can make them hyperactive and fidgety. School, with its standardized learning environment, can be particularly difficult for kids with ADHD. Her voice cracking, McCabe recalls how much she struggled in school as a result of her ADHD before she got help.

Unfortunately, there's a lot of stigma around how (or even if) parents should treat their kids' ADHD. Some people even believe ADHD isn't real at all. As a result, many parents who choose to put their kids on medication find themselves accused of, as McCabe said, "drugging" their children.

McCabe wants her mom to know how much she appreciates her making sure McCabe got the help she needed.

In the video, McCabe recounts how she and her mom worked together to find a psychiatrist and medication that worked for her. It's because of her mom, McCabe says, that she was able to actually focus in school again and was able to avoid so many of the pitfalls that other people — whose ADHD goes untreated and undiagnosed — have to run into.

What really mattered to McCabe wasn't just the treatment, though.

It was the simple fact that her mom listened when she asked for help.

It hurts when someone doesn't believe you, especially if that person is your parent. But McCabe's mom didn't think she was being lazy or just not trying hard enough. She listened when her kid asked for help. And that mattered.

"You believed me," says McCabe. "And when you did, when you took me to a doctor who could explain to me what was going on in my brain, you took away so much shame."

McCabe didn't need to feel inferior, and she didn't need to blame herself. She had someone who listened to her. She had her mom.

Watch McCabe's full, emotional video below:

Medication helped McCabe, but everyone's brain is different. If you're living with ADHD or think you might be undiagnosed, you should work with a professional to find a treatment plan that works for you.