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	<title>Health &#38; FamilyTag: ADHD &#124; Health &#38; Family &#124; TIME.com</title>
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		<title>Health &#38; FamilyTag: ADHD &#124; Health &#38; Family &#124; TIME.com</title>
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		<title>Watch: This Week in Health</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2013/05/22/watch-this-week-in-health/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2013/05/22/watch-this-week-in-health/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 22 May 2013 18:33:02 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Alice Park</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[ADHD]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Alzheimer's Disease]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Depression]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Diabetes]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Diet]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Diet & Fitness]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Medicine]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obesity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Pregnancy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[club drug ketamine]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ketamine]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marijuana]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[postpartum depression]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=87144</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[How marijuana contributes to weight loss &#8212; and a reduced risk of diabetes; researchers zero in on the first genes associated with postpartum depression; and ADHD in childhood may be linked to obesity later in life. These were the stories making health news this week; for more, visit TIME Health &#38; Family.<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=87144&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Medicine</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/medicine/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">apark7</media:title>
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		<title>Early Exposure to Air Pollution Tied to Higher Risk of Hyperactivity in Children</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2013/05/21/early-exposure-to-air-pollution-tied-to-higher-risk-of-hyperactivity-in-children/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2013/05/21/early-exposure-to-air-pollution-tied-to-higher-risk-of-hyperactivity-in-children/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 21 May 2013 18:00:54 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Bonnie Rochman</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[ADHD]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Environmental Health]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mental Health]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[air pollution]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[car exhaust]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[environment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hyperactivity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[traffic]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=87038</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Breathing in pollutants released into the air isn&#8217;t healthy for developing lungs, but a new study says it&#8217;s harmful for developing brains too. Kids exposed to higher levels of traffic-related air pollution in childhood scored higher on measures of hyperactivity at age 7, according to a new study published in Environmental Health Perspectives. The researchers say it’s believed to be the most comprehensive study to date on the effect of traffic-related air pollution on children’s behavior. “It appears that air pollution is part of the story of childhood behavior, but it’s not the whole story,” says the study&#8217;s lead author Nicholas Newman, director of the Pediatric Environmental Health and Lead Clinic at Cincinnati Children&#8217;s Hospital Medical Center. “We don’t know if air pollution is causing this or if it’s something else that people who live near main roads are also being exposed to.” Researchers followed 576 children from the time they were born in the Cincinnati metro area until they reached the age of 7. The children were separated into two groups — those who lived near a major highway or bus route — defined as less than four football fields away — and those who lived more than a mile away from heavily trafficked areas. Cincinnati, it turned out was an ideal location to study the long-term effects of exposure to air pollution since it sees a relatively high amount of truck traffic and has many hills and valleys that encourage pollution to linger in the area. Previous research suggested that the effect of traffic-related air pollution is greatest within a few hundred meters — a football field, for example — of the source of the pollution. About 11% of Americans live within a football field’s length of a four-lane highway, and 40% of U.S. children go to school within four football fields of a bustling highway. (MORE: Car Pollution Linked to Childhood Cancers) When the children were 7, their parents were asked to fill out a questionnaire about their kids’ behavior, including symptoms that could indicate attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=87038&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://healthland.time.com/2013/05/21/early-exposure-to-air-pollution-tied-to-higher-risk-of-hyperactivity-in-children/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>ADHD</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/mental-health/adhd/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/102006615.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">brochman</media:title>
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		<title>ADHD May Prime Boys for Obesity</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2013/05/20/adhd-may-prime-boys-for-obesity/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2013/05/20/adhd-may-prime-boys-for-obesity/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 20 May 2013 09:45:28 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Bonnie Rochman</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[ADHD]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Childhood]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Family & Parenting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Medicine]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mental Health]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obesity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[boys]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[men]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[pediatrics]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=86966</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[ADHD has been linked to struggles with drugs and alcohol, less schooling and more arrests, but the latest study shows it may also contribute to problems with weight as well. In the study published in Pediatrics, researchers connected the impulsive behavior that can characterize attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) with the overeating that contributes to calorie overload. In the 33-year study that tracked boys with ADHD into adulthood, men who were hyperactive as children were twice as likely to have higher body-mass-index readings and rates of obesity than men who didn’t have the condition as children. Of men diagnosed with ADHD as kids, 41% were obese compared with 22% of men who didn’t have ADHD as children. The average rate of obesity for men in this age group was 24%. The researchers say they did not set out to explore the relationship between ADHD and weight; the study was designed to investigate new insights into brain-structure differences among people with ADHD. But in 2003, when researchers received a grant to perform brain MRI scans on the men to evaluate their psychiatric health, many of the study participants were too large to fit in the scanner. “One of these gentlemen really wanted to help out, but we had to squeeze him in, inch by inch,” says Dr. Francisco Xavier Castellanos, the study’s senior author and a professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at New York University’s Langone Medical Center. (MORE: Majority of Doctors Do Not Follow Treatment Guidelines for ADHD) For practical reasons, the scientists began asking the men for height and weight measurements to see if they would fit inside the MRI machine, which has a diameter of about 2 ft. They found that nearly three times as many men from the childhood hyperactivity group couldn’t fit in the scanner — 17 men compared with six who did not have the disorder. Intrigued, they decided to systematically collect data on the men’s weight. “There had been suggestions in the past that ADHD might be related to obesity,” says Castellanos. “There were a lot<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=86966&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://healthland.time.com/2013/05/20/adhd-may-prime-boys-for-obesity/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>ADHD</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/mental-health/adhd/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/114227867.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Boy eating ice-cream</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">brochman</media:title>
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		<title>Majority of Doctors Do Not Follow Treatment Guidelines for ADHD</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2013/05/06/majority-of-medical-specialists-do-not-follow-guidelines-for-treating-adhd/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2013/05/06/majority-of-medical-specialists-do-not-follow-guidelines-for-treating-adhd/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 06 May 2013 09:45:10 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Alexandra Sifferlin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[ADHD]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mental Health]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[AAP]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[preschoolers]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=86089</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[More than 90% of pediatric specialists who diagnose and manage attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in preschoolers do not follow the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) clinical-treatment guidelines. That&#8217;s the conclusion of researchers from the Cohen Children&#8217;s Medical Center of New York, which sent the Preschool ADHD Treatment Questionnaire to a random sample of 3,000 physicians who specialize in diagnosing and treating neurobehavioral conditions nationwide. The doctors reported on how often they recommended strategies such as training parents in behavioral management of ADHD, how often they relied on medication as a first- or second-line treatment, as well as which drugs they prescribed most often. (MORE: ADHD Diagnoses Continue to Climb) In 2011, the AAP released revised guidelines for diagnosing kids with ADHD. &#8220;Those guidelines were important in that they extended down from age 6 down to age 4. For the first time pediatricians were given guidance in how to approach the management of ADHD in preschoolers,&#8221; says the study&#8217;s lead author Dr. Andrew Adesman, the chief of developmental and behavioral pediatrics at Cohen Children&#8217;s Medical Center in New Hyde Park. Along with the expansion of the population that could be diagnosed with the condition came advice for how to treat the youngest patients. Adesman says, in general, pediatricians have been especially uncomfortable with diagnosing ADHD in very young children, so they have turned to medical specialists like child neurologists, child psychiatrists and developmental-behavior pediatricians to make the call. &#8220;When we undertook this study, we were interested in seeing what the specialists in the field were doing, since pediatricians turned to them and parents turned to them,&#8221; says Adesman. &#8220;Actually, the AAP in their guidelines specifically state that if a pediatrician is not comfortable with evaluating children — especially young children — for ADHD, then they should turn to these medical specialists.&#8221; Currently, the AAP recommends that behavioral therapy should be the first type of treatment offered to preschoolers with ADHD, followed by medication only if the behavior interventions are unsuccessful. (MORE: ADHD Medications Improve Decisionmaking, but Are They Being Overused?) However, the<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=86089&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://healthland.time.com/2013/05/06/majority-of-medical-specialists-do-not-follow-guidelines-for-treating-adhd/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>ADHD</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/mental-health/adhd/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/jg5353-001.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Letter Blocks</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">asifferlin</media:title>
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		<title>Google Searches Reveal Seasonal Trends in Mental Illnesses</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2013/04/10/google-searches-reveal-seasonal-trends-in-mental-illnesses/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2013/04/10/google-searches-reveal-seasonal-trends-in-mental-illnesses/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 10 Apr 2013 11:00:14 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Maia Szalavitz</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Mental Illness]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ADHD]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[attention deficit disorder]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[bipolar]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Depression]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Google]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[google searches]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mental illness]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[psychiatric disorders]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=84317</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[It&#8217;s easy to appreciate the seasonality of winter blues, but web searches show that other disorders may ebb and flow with the weather as well. Google searches are becoming an intriguing source of health-related information, exposing everything from the first signs of an infectious disease outbreak to previously undocumented side effects of medications. So researchers led by John Ayers of the University of Southern California decided to comb through queries about mental illnesses to look for potentially helpful patterns related to these conditions. Given well known connections between depression and winter weather, they investigated possible connections between mental illnesses and seasons. Using all of Google’s search data from 2006 to 2010, they studied searches for terms like “schizophrenia” “attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD),” “bulimia” and “bipolar” in both the United States and Australia.  Since winter and summer are reversed in the two countries finding opposing patterns in the two countries&#8217; data would strongly suggest that season, rather than other things that might vary with time of year, was important in some way in the prevalence of the disorders. MORE: How Treating Wrinkles May Also Relieve Depression “All mental health queries followed seasonal patterns with winter peaks and summer troughs,” the researchers write in their study, published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. They found that mental health queries in general were 14% higher in the winter in the U.S. and 11% higher in the Australian winter. The seasonal timing of queries regarding each disorder was also similar in the two countries. In both countries, for example, searches about eating disorders (including anorexia and bulimia) and schizophrenia surged during winter months; those in the U.S. were 37% more likely and Australians were 42% more likely to seek information about these disorders during colder weather than during the summer. And compared to summer searches, schizophrenia queries were 37% more common in the American winter and 36% more frequent during the Australian winter. ADHD queries were also highly seasonal, with 31% more winter searches in the U.S. and 28% more in Australia compared to summer<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=84317&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Mental Illness</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/mental-health/mental-illness-mental-health/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/102263449.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">MaiaSzalavitz</media:title>
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		<item>
		<title>Understanding the Rise in ADHD Diagnoses: 11% of U.S. Children Are Affected</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2013/04/02/understanding-the-rise-in-adhd-diagnoses-11-of-u-s-children-are-affected/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2013/04/02/understanding-the-rise-in-adhd-diagnoses-11-of-u-s-children-are-affected/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 02 Apr 2013 11:32:47 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Alice Park</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[ADHD]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Childhood]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mental Health]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Parenting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[adderall]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[adhd diagnoses]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ADHD drugs]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[adhd medication]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[attention defecit hyperactivity disorder]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[cdc adhd]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[childhood ADHD]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ritalin]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=83607</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The rates of U.S. children affected by attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are skyrocketing, according to a recent report, but experts caution that the latest numbers require a bit of decoding. That information shows that 11% of children ages 4 to 17 were diagnosed with ADHD, a 16% increase since 2007, the last time that researchers at Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) did a comprehensive survey for the prevalence of the neurobehavior disorder. The rise was especially dramatic among boys, with an estimated 1 in 5 boys in high school diagnosed with ADHD. What’s more, about two-thirds of the children diagnosed were treated with stimulant medications that can improve attention but also come with side effects. Are rates truly climbing at such an alarming rate? Possibly. But many experts believe that’s unlikely. The data was collected by the CDC and analyzed and reported by the New York Times; the CDC plans to publish its own report on the data in the coming months. (MORE: ADHD Medications Improve Decisionmaking, but Are They Being Overused?) To start, the information on ADHD rates came from parents reporting on the diagnosis for their children during telephone interviews. Such reports are useful but not as reliable as the verified diagnoses from medical or school records, says Dr. William Barbaresi, director of the developmental-medicine center at Boston Children’s Hospital. Second, such records-based data suggests that ADHD rates among children may be somewhere between 7.5% and 9.5%, with boys at the higher end of the range, not 11%. In its previous round of analysis, CDC found that ADHD diagnoses rose by 22% between 2003 and &#8217;07, based on the same telephone surveys of 76,000 families in the U.S., climbing by an average of 3% to 6% each year between 2000 and &#8217;10. But the latest figures, which included responses collected between 2011 and &#8217;12, show a far higher prevalence that hints at classrooms full of hyperactive and impulsive kids. “By definition, ADHD requires that symptoms have to have a significant effect on life,” says Barbaresi. “To say that<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=83607&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>ADHD</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/mental-health/adhd/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/128637045.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">apark7</media:title>
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		<title>Why ADHD is Not Just a Problem for Kids</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2013/03/04/why-adhd-is-not-just-a-problem-for-kids/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2013/03/04/why-adhd-is-not-just-a-problem-for-kids/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 04 Mar 2013 10:45:44 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Bonnie Rochman</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[ADHD]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mental Health]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[adult ADHD]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[attention]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[childhood ADHD]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=81367</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The effects of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) can extend well beyond childhood, according to the latest research. In the largest study of its kind, researchers at Boston Children’s Hospital and Mayo Clinic found that close to a third of children with ADHD — 29.3% — still have the disorder as adults, along with an increased rate of other psychiatric problems. “We have trivialized this condition,” says lead author Dr. William Barbaresi. “We need to recognize that this is a chronic health problem that often persists into adulthood.” Previous estimates of the rate at which ADHD persists into adulthood had ranged widely, from 6% to 66%, but those studies relied on small groups of children. Barbaresi and his colleagues identified 379 cases of ADHD in the 5,718 children born during a six-year period from 1976 to 1982 in Rochester, Minn. Between 7% to 9% of the Rochester kids developed ADHD, which is consistent with current national estimates of 7.5%. Decades later, they were able to track down and enlist 62% of those now-adults — 232 people — to participate in the research. Of the third who still had ADHD at age 27, 81% had at least one additional psychiatric disorder and 47% of those who no longer had ADHD had at least one other psychiatric diagnosis, according to the study published in the journal Pediatrics. The findings suggest that ADHD may frequently occur with other mental health disorders, and may serve as a marker for these condition. “That group with ADHD is at highest risk for having additional mental health problems,” says Barbaresi, who is director of the Developmental Medicine Center at Boston Children’s Hospital and an associate professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. “We have to stop trivializing ADHD as just another childhood behavior problem. The nature and duration of this study show we have to recognize it as a chronic serious health problem that deserves a lot more attention than it has received.” (MORE: ADHD Diagnoses Continue to Climb) It&#8217;s not that the condition isn&#8217;t being addressed adequately, or<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=81367&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>ADHD</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/mental-health/adhd/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/970_hl_adhd_0304.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">ADHD</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://0.gravatar.com/avatar/ccc18529897902c0767bf2d7d088828e?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2Fs0.wp.com%2Fi%2Fmu.gif&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">brochman</media:title>
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		<title>Most Common Psychiatric Disorders Share Genetic Roots</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2013/02/28/most-common-psychiatric-disorders-share-genetic-roots/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2013/02/28/most-common-psychiatric-disorders-share-genetic-roots/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 28 Feb 2013 19:00:55 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Maia Szalavitz</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Genetics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mental Health]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ADHD]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Autism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[bipolar disorder]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Depression]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[developmental disorders]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dsm]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[DSM5]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[genetics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mental illness]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mood disorders]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[NIMH]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[psychiatry]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=81213</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Diverse mental illnesses may actually represent variations on a common theme rather than separate disorders. A quiet autistic child is certainly unlike a manic adult with bipolar disorder, or a person suffering a bout of paranoia due to schizophrenia, but new research suggests that these varied conditions may be more alike than previously thought. Researchers analyzed genetic data from some 33,000 people of European descent who had either autism, schizophrenia, major depression, bipolar disorder or attention deficit/ hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).  They were compared with nearly 28,000 unaffected controls. Scanning the entire genome, the scientists found variants in four different regions that affected risk for all or most of these conditions. MORE: America&#8217;s Failing Mental Health System: Families Struggle to Find Quality Care The results suggest that it may be possible to move away from classifying psychiatric disorders primarily based on profiles of symptoms and focus on biological causes of mental illness, according to the study&#8217;s lead author, Dr. Jordan Smoller of Massachusetts General Hospital. “This was a really well done study and the best yet at trying to address the question of whether there might be common processes underlying what we have long though to be very different psychiatric conditions,” says Dr. Bryan King, director of child and adolescent psychiatry at the University of Washington and Seattle Children&#8217;s Hospital, who was not associated with the research. “It’s really very exciting to see scientists from 19 countries bringing together data on tens of thousands of different patients to ask questions about the genetic architecture of these various mental illnesses,” says Dr. Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute on Mental Health (NIMH), which provided some of the funding for the research that was published in The Lancet. Two of the four variants are involved in regulating calcium channels, which are crucial for the proper functioning of nerve cells.  “They are fundamental to the working of neurons,” says King. “Calcium and chloride balance is critical to the proper electrical activity of the neuron.” MORE: Redefining Craze: Changes to the Bible of Psychiatric<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=81213&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Mental Illness</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/mental-health/mental-illness-mental-health/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/121846316.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">121846316</media:title>
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		<media:content url="http://0.gravatar.com/avatar/0a5ac57e99124922fa628492ad3db6b2?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2Fs0.wp.com%2Fi%2Fmu.gif&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">MaiaSzalavitz</media:title>
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		<title>ADHD Diagnoses Continue to Climb</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2013/01/22/adhd-diagnoses-continue-to-climb/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2013/01/22/adhd-diagnoses-continue-to-climb/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 22 Jan 2013 20:41:49 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Laura Blue</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[ADHD]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Behavior]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Child Development]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Childhood]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Race]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[attention deficit hyperactivity disorder]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hyperactivity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[kaiser permanente]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[racial disparity]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=78444</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[As more children are diagnosed with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), researchers continue to struggle with understanding whether the rise is real, or primarily driven by greater awareness of the condition. In the latest analysis, the rate of new cases of ADHD in California between 2001 and 2010 climbed for both sexes and for most ethnic and racial groups for children between the ages of 5 to 11. But that rise doesn&#8217;t address what&#8217;s behind the growing number of cases. Are more kids truly suffering from hyperactivity and attention deficits, or are we simply better at catching children who show any symptoms? The new research, published in JAMA Pediatrics, is among the first to offer hints at an answer. The study is not the first to suggest that ADHD diagnosis may be increasingly common, but it has important advantages over previous work, says the study&#8217;s lead author, Dr. Darios Getahun of Kaiser Permanente Southern California. For example, instead of counting all cases reported by parents and teachers (who may make mistakes and either under- or over-report cases), the new study counts only confirmed medical diagnoses by doctors. The new study also includes more children than earlier ones, by pooling health-record data from more than 840,000 kids enrolled in a health plan with the non-profit Kaiser Permanente Southern California. Those children resemble the general population of youngsters in California, Getahun says, and the study group is large enough that researchers could look not just at trends overall, but also at trends broken down by race, age group, sex, and more. And that provides some insights into whether susceptibility to ADHD itself is all that&#8217;s changing, or whether our diagnostic criteria are changing too. MORE: Mom&#8217;s Exposure to Mercury Linked to Kids&#8217; ADHD Symptoms Overall, the study found that 2.5% of kids aged 5 to 11 received a new ADHD diagnosis in the year 2001. Ten years later, in 2010, that number had risen to 3.1%, a relative increase of 24% even after the scientists adjusted for factors such as age, sex, race/ethnicity, and neighborhood<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=78444&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>ADHD</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/mental-health/adhd/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/adhd_0122.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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		<media:content url="http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/a069e8b4ff0dc386def0882f71bbfee6?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2Fs0.wp.com%2Fi%2Fmu.gif&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">Laura Blue</media:title>
		</media:content>
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		<item>
		<title>Could A Dopamine Gene Be the Answer to a Longer Life?</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2013/01/11/could-a-dopamine-gene-be-the-answer-to-a-longer-life/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2013/01/11/could-a-dopamine-gene-be-the-answer-to-a-longer-life/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 11 Jan 2013 17:00:40 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Maia Szalavitz</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Addiction]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Brain]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Longevity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Medicine]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ADHD]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Aging]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[attention deficit disorder]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dopamine]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[lifespan]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=77528</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A gene linked to attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and addiction might also help you live to be 100. A study published in the Journal of Neuroscience found that a version of a gene coding for a receptor for the brain chemical dopamine was 66% more common among people who lived to be 90 or older than among a group of younger people who were otherwise similar.  The variant leads to a weaker response to the neurotransmitter, lowering the activity of the dopamine system that is responsible for generating feelings of pleasure, desire and reward, as well as for regulating movement. The study included over 1000 people aged 90 to 109 who lived in the Leisure World retirement community in Laguna Woods, California.  They were part of a group of nearly 14,000 highly educated people of mostly European ancestry who were initially studied in 1981. MORE: When it Comes to Longevity, It&#8217;s Not Years But Microlives That Count Not only did the researchers find that the variant was more common among the oldest participants, they also learned that these people were also more physically active than their counterparts who lacked this particular version of the receptor. Having a less effective pleasure-generating dopamine system, the researchers speculate, may cause people to seek greater stimulation, making them more vigorous in the search for greater arousal. Perhaps as a result, these participants were twice as likely to exercise when first surveyed in 1981— and they remained considerably more active than those without the variant when data was collected again in 2003. That, say the researchers, may be the key to their longevity. When dopamine isn&#8217;t regulated properly, it can contribute to a dysfunctional pursuit of good feelings, such as occurs in addictions, or lead to a hyperactive state as in attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). These conditions are generally associated with an increased risk of early death, rather than longevity, but the latest study suggests that “risk” genes for certain problems in some environments may be beneficial in other situations. It&#8217;s not helpful to think of genes<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=77528&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Longevity</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/medicine/longevity/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/99976601.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
		<media:thumbnail url="http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/99976601.jpg?w=240" />
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			<media:title type="html">99976601</media:title>
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		<media:content url="http://0.gravatar.com/avatar/0a5ac57e99124922fa628492ad3db6b2?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2Fs0.wp.com%2Fi%2Fmu.gif&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">MaiaSzalavitz</media:title>
		</media:content>
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		<title>ADHD Medications Improve Decision-Making, But Are They Being Over Used?</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2012/11/26/adhd-medications-improve-decision-making-but-are-they-being-used-properly/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2012/11/26/adhd-medications-improve-decision-making-but-are-they-being-used-properly/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 26 Nov 2012 21:00:54 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Maia Szalavitz</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[ADHD]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ADD]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[adderall]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ADHD medications]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[attention deficit disorder]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ritalin]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[stimulants]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sttention deficit hyperactivity disorder]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=74712</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The latest studies show that while attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) drugs can be effective, some kids may be wrongly diagnosed — and therefore inappropriately treated — with the stimulant medications. ADHD is a developmental condition that makes it difficult for children who are affected to concentrate, keeping them fidgety, prone to daydreaming and impulsive behavior, all of which is correlated with problems in school and can lead to delinquent or even criminal behavior. But a large study published in the New England Journal of Medicine involving nearly 26,000 Swedish people with the disorder showed that medications such as Ritalin and Adderall can mitigate this effect; men taking the medications showed a 32% reduction in crime rates while they were taking the drugs compared to periods when they were not, and women showed a 41% lower rate of criminality. Another study of American and British children with ADH, published in the Journal of Medical Ethics, may hint at why: the youngsters in the trial believed the drugs improved their ability to make good choices. MORE: Is Childhood ADHD A Gateway to Smoking in Adulthood? As beneficial as the medications can be, however, other research shows that they may be over-used, as awareness of ADHD has increased and as some seek quick-fix solutions in a pill to treat children&#8217;s challenging behaviors. In a recent study appearing in the journal Pediatrics, an analysis of prescriptions for ADHD shows that the youngest children in a class are 50% more likely to get a diagnosis, raising the concern that these children may simply be less mature than their older counterparts, and not experiencing ADHD at all. The new research adds to the ongoing debate over the use of stimulant medications to treat ADHD, which has ballooned along with diagnosis of the condition.  Around 9.5% of children from four to seventeen have ever been diagnosed with ADHD, according to a 2010 study from the CDC.  And as of 2008, 5% of six to twelve year olds in the U.S. were taking stimulant medication to treat it,<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=74712&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>ADHD</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/mental-health/adhd/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/83606485adhdcrop.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Boy with slingshot in classroom</media:title>
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		<media:content url="http://0.gravatar.com/avatar/0a5ac57e99124922fa628492ad3db6b2?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2Fs0.wp.com%2Fi%2Fmu.gif&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">MaiaSzalavitz</media:title>
		</media:content>
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		<title>Men Diagnosed With Childhood ADHD Struggle More with Jobs, Relationships</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2012/10/16/men-diagnosed-with-childhood-adhd-struggle-more-with-jobs-relationships/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2012/10/16/men-diagnosed-with-childhood-adhd-struggle-more-with-jobs-relationships/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 16 Oct 2012 12:00:12 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Alexandra Sifferlin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[ADHD]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mental Health]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[adult ADHD]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[childhood ADHD]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=71522</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is the most common neurobehavioral disorder among children, and as incidence of the condition continue to rise, parents and patients are asking what happens next. How does ADHD affect children as they become teens and adults and start to form relationships, find jobs and establish families of their own? Does the condition put them at a disadvantage for coping with life&#8217;s inevitable challenges? With 5.4 million children ever diagnosed with ADHD in the U.S., and 3% to 7% of school-aged children currently struggling with the condition, it&#8217;s worth considering how ADHD affects their adult lives. Rachel Klein of the Child Study Center at New York University Langone Medical Center and her colleagues studied the potentially long-term effects of ADHD among men who were diagnosed as kids. In their 33-year follow-up study, Klein and her team looked at 135 middle-aged men with childhood ADHD who were referred to the study by their teachers when they were between six to 12 years old. The researchers compared this group to 136 men without ADHD and found that  men with ADHD struggled more in occupational, educational, economic and social arenas later in life compared to men without the diagnosis. (MORE: Does the ADHD Drug Shortage Herald a Crackdown on Stimulants?) At the 33-year follow-up, when the men were in their forties, those with childhood-diagnosed ADHD without conduct disorders had about 2.5 years fewer years of education compared to the other men; only 3.7% had higher degrees compared to nearly 30% of the control group. The majority (84%) were holding jobs, but at significantly lower positions than peers without ADHD and were therefore at a financial disadvantage. On average, the researchers say, the ADHD group earned $40,000 less in salary than their unaffected counterparts. Socially, men with ADHD also struggled with higher divorce rates, more antisocial personality disorders and substance abuse. On the positive side, however, they did not have higher rates of mood and anxiety disorders, like depression. (MORE: Faking It: Why Nearly 1 in 4 Adults Who Seek Treatment Don’t Have ADHD)<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=71522&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>ADHD</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/mental-health/adhd/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/136251876.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Worried businessman sitting on stairway, outdoors</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/dd9dc95ff828efb70c16a5a509a75150?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2Fs0.wp.com%2Fi%2Fmu.gif&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">asifferlin</media:title>
		</media:content>
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		<title>More Sleep Means More Focused, Emotionally Stable Kids</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2012/10/15/more-sleep-means-more-focused-emotionally-stable-kids/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2012/10/15/more-sleep-means-more-focused-emotionally-stable-kids/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 15 Oct 2012 12:00:23 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Alice Park</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Childhood]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Medicine]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Parenting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sleep]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ADHD]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[attention]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[children]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[emotions]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obesity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sleep deprivation]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=71449</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[How important is sleep for children? Getting too little could leave them more emotional and impulsive. As a nation, we don’t get enough sleep. And we’re passing along our night-owl habits to members of the next generation, which could leave them with less control over their emotions and more prone to impulsivity, according to the latest study. Lead author Reut Gruber, a psychologist at McGill University, and her colleagues describe in the journal Pediatrics a study in which they either added or deprived healthy children ages 7 to 11 of one hour of sleep a night over five nights. Their goal, says Gruber, was to see if such modest changes in the amount of sleep children get could affect their behavior. The children’s teachers were asked to fill out a 10-item standard questionnaire to assess the children’s attention, impulsivity, irritability and emotional reactivity at the end of the study period. (MORE: Do Snoring Babies Become Troubled Teens?) Compared with their same ratings during an initial five days of unmanipulated sleep — in which the researchers asked parents to allow the children to sleep as they normally would to establish a baseline — those who were deprived of an hour’s sleep had worse scores on behavior measures than those who were allowed to sleep an hour more. (The parents were asked to change their children&#8217;s bed times, and while they were able to put the kids to bed an hour earlier when needed, the youngsters ended up sleeping only about 30 minutes more.) In terms of how emotionally reactive, or sensitive, and how attentive the children were, teachers rated the sleep-restricted students on average 4 points higher than their baseline, meaning they showed more irritability, frustration and had more problems paying attention. In contrast, the children who slept more showed an average 3-point drop in these problems. “Nobody became a genius, and nobody became crazy,” says Gruber, “but the findings show that in children small changes can make a big difference, and that is why this is meaningful.” (MORE: A History<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=71449&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Sleep</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/medicine/sleep/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/91279560crop.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Boy Sleeping</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">apark7</media:title>
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		<title>Drugging Poor Kids to Boost Grades in Failing Schools: One Doc Says Yes</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2012/10/10/drugging-poor-kids-to-boost-grades-in-failing-schools-one-doc-says-yes/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2012/10/10/drugging-poor-kids-to-boost-grades-in-failing-schools-one-doc-says-yes/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 10 Oct 2012 17:45:46 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Maia Szalavitz</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Child Development]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mental Health]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[adderall]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ADHD]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[antipsychotics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[atypical antipsychotics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Britain]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[cognitive enhancement]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[psychiatric drugs]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[psychiatry]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[risperdal]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=71236</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Why are so many poor kids taking risky psychiatric medications? A front-page story in Tuesday&#8217;s New York Times offers one surprising answer: some pediatricians are prescribing drugs — medications to treat ADHD — to try to boost kids&#8217; grades and give the most disadvantaged students an edge in school. Unfortunately, however, while well-intentioned, such prescribing may ultimately do more harm than good, as the Times&#8217; Alan Schwarz illustrates in his story about Dr. Michael Anderson, a Georgia pediatrician, and some of his young patients. Writes Schwarz: Although A.D.H.D is the diagnosis Dr. Anderson makes, he calls the disorder “made up” and “an excuse” to prescribe the pills to treat what he considers the children’s true ill — poor academic performance in inadequate schools. “I don’t have a whole lot of choice,” said Dr. Anderson, a pediatrician for many poor families in Cherokee County, north of Atlanta. “We’ve decided as a society that it’s too expensive to modify the kid’s environment. So we have to modify the kid.” While taking amphetamine-like drugs to improve academic performance is typically seen as a vice in richer children, Anderson considers it a virtue for poor kids, helping level the playing field. And there is little disagreement among child psychiatrists that lack of funding and resources means that giving drugs is often seen as the only option to help many children, even in cases where the evidence shows that talk therapies are not only safer but more effective. (MORE: Antipsychotic Prescriptions in Children Have Skyrocketed: Study) But the story of some of Anderson’s patients should give pause to those who promote this approach. Schwarz interviewed the Rocafort family in Ball Ground, Ga., whose four children have received prescriptions for medication from Anderson. Quintn, 11, experienced harrowing side effects from the amphetamine Adderall, which he was prescribed starting around age 6 because of his disruptive behavior at school. As Schwarz puts it: When puberty’s chemical maelstrom began at about 10, though, Quintn got into fights at school because, he said, other children were insulting his mother.<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=71236&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Child Development</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/mental-health/child-development/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/152837459a.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">152837459a</media:title>
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		<media:content url="http://0.gravatar.com/avatar/0a5ac57e99124922fa628492ad3db6b2?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2Fs0.wp.com%2Fi%2Fmu.gif&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">MaiaSzalavitz</media:title>
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		<title>Mom&#8217;s Exposure to Mercury Linked to Kids&#8217; ADHD Symptoms</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2012/10/09/moms-exposure-to-mercury-linked-to-kids-adhd-symptoms/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2012/10/09/moms-exposure-to-mercury-linked-to-kids-adhd-symptoms/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 09 Oct 2012 12:00:55 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Alice Park</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[ADHD]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Diet]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Diet & Fitness]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Family & Parenting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Food & Drink]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mental Health]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Nutrition]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Pregnancy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[attention deficit hyperactivity disorder]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fish]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mackerel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mercury]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Omega-3 fatty acids]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[salmon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[swordfish]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[tuna]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=71114</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The health risks of mercury exposure are well documented, and the harms for still-developing fetuses are particularly concerning. Now, the latest study finds that kids who were exposed to more mercury in the womb were more likely to show problems with attention and hyperactivity and other symptoms of ADHD at age 8. Complicating the matter, however, is that the same study found that children whose mothers ate more fish during pregnancy — fish is known to be a main source of mercury exposure for many people — had a significantly lower risk of ADHD symptoms than kids whose mothers ate less fish. The finding raises the possibility that the health benefits of eating fish, which is rich in the omega-3 fatty acids that are good for brain development, could outweigh the harms of low-level mercury exposure. Previous studies attempting to define the risk of low-level exposure to mercury have been inconclusive: one large study showed that school-age children who were exposed to higher levels of mercury in utero — as measured by samples of their cord blood — showed more errors and lower scores on neurocognitive tests. But another study indicated that children exposed to higher levels of mercury were actually less likely to show problem behaviors such as hyperactivity or chronic inattention. (MORE: Consumer Reports Warns Pregnant Women Against Canned Tuna) So Dr. Susan Korrick and her colleagues at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston studied data on 788 infants born between 1993 and 1998 in the New Bedford, Mass., area. The researchers measured the mercury in the children&#8217;s mothers’ hair samples 10 days postpartum, and used a 59-item questionnaire to evaluate the children’s behavior at age 8. The researchers found that higher mercury levels in the hair samples were associated with a greater risk of symptoms of ADHD, or attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder in children (the researchers did not confirm ADHD diagnosis, but only determined whether the children had symptoms that were typical of the disorder). Even after adjusting for potential factors that could influence the risk of ADHD<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=71114&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Pregnancy</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/family-parenting/pregnancy/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/200566500-002mercuryadhdcrop.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Salmon on ice</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">apark7</media:title>
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		<title>Omega-3s as Study Aid? DHA May Help Lowest-Scoring Readers Improve</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2012/09/07/omega-3s-as-study-aid-dha-may-help-lowest-scoring-readers-improve/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2012/09/07/omega-3s-as-study-aid-dha-may-help-lowest-scoring-readers-improve/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 07 Sep 2012 19:37:04 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Maia Szalavitz</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Childhood]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Diet & Fitness]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Family & Parenting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Nutrition]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ADHD]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[attention]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[children]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dha]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[omega 3]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Omega-3 fatty acids]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[omega-3s]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[reading]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[reading scores]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=68177</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Supplementation with the omega-3 fatty acid DHA may help improve reading skills and behavior in kids who need help most — those whose test scores place them in the bottom 20% of their elementary school class — according to a new controlled trial. Researchers at Oxford University’s Center for Evidence-Based Intervention studied 362 7- to 9-year-old children who had placed in the bottom third of their class in reading scores. For 16 weeks, the children were given either a placebo or 600 mg of DHA (docosahexaenoic acid). The DHA was extracted from algae, which are the original source of the omega-3 fatty acids found in fish. Researchers then tracked students&#8217; improvement on a widely used British reading skills test and asked parents and teachers to rate changes in the kids&#8217; behavior, including their attention and restlessness. Over the 16-week trial, the children receiving placebos progressed in their reading skills as expected. But those students who received DHA and had scored in the bottom 20% of readers at the start of the study advanced by nearly an extra month, while those in the bottom 10% gained nearly two extra months of progress. Students whose reading skills were less impaired — those whose scores had placed them at the highest end of the bottom third — did not see extra improvements with DHA. Parents of the kids who received DHA also rated their children as more attentive and less restless, as compared with those who got placebo. However, teachers did not report improvement in the children’s behavior. Noting that prior studies have suggested that omega-3 supplementation can improve behavior in children diagnosed with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), lead author Alexandra Richardson, a senior research fellow at the Oxford Center says: “What’s new here is that we’re showing a benefit outside of a clinical population in healthy children, albeit with reading difficulties, and we showed a meaningful improvement.” DHA is an essential nutrient, which cannot be manufactured by the body, and is used by virtually all cells. It is especially important for vision<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=68177&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Childhood</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/family-parenting/childhood/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/151088199.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">151088199</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">MaiaSzalavitz</media:title>
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		<title>Early Childhood Anesthesia Linked to Problems with Language, Memory</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2012/08/20/study-shows-anesthesia-may-lead-to-language-deficits-in-children/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2012/08/20/study-shows-anesthesia-may-lead-to-language-deficits-in-children/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 20 Aug 2012 12:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Alice Park</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Developmental Disability]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Medicine]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Surgery]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ADHD]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[anesthesia]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[developmental disabilities]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Language]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[learning disabilities]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=66795</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Increasingly, research finds that exposure to anesthesia in early childhood may have long-term effects on kids&#8217; brain development. One 2011 study linked exposure to anesthesia to learning disabilities, finding that exposed kids had lower scores on standardized tests of reading, writing, math and reasoning, and were more likely to have behavioral issues at school. Another study in 2012 found that children who underwent multiple exposures to anesthesia early on were twice as likely to be diagnosed with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder as teenagers, compared with children with fewer exposures to such drugs. However, these previous studies relied on secondary measures of neuropsychological functioning, such as academic scores, standardized test results, medical records and parent and teacher surveys. They also found associations between anesthesia and long-term risks only in children who had had multiple exposures. Meanwhile, other studies examining the issue failed to show any association at all. (MORE: Can Anesthesia Raise the Risk of ADHD?) So, Dr. Caleb Ing, an anesthesiologist at Columbia University, and his colleagues took a closer look. They studied 2,868 children born between 1989 and 1992 in western Australia, 321 of whom had had surgical or diagnostic procedures before age 3 and had therefore been exposed to anesthesia. After adjusting for other factors that could contribute to cognitive deficits as measured by standardized tests, the researchers found that children who had received anesthesia early in life were 87% more likely to show language disabilities and nearly 70% more likely to have cognitive problems — assessed using direct neuropsychological tests — at age 10, compared with those who had not been exposed to anesthetic drugs. What&#8217;s more, even a single exposure to anesthesia was associated with increased risk. Ing and his team were particularly interested in whether anesthesia was affecting overall brain development or just certain brain functions, so they administered specific tests gauging visual tracking, non verbal intelligence and language skills, such as grammar and verbal memory. “We used six different tests that looked at language, reasoning, behavior and motor skills that were directly administered by trained<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=66795&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Surgery</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/medicine/surgery-medicine/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/hl_anesthesia_0817.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">child receiving anesthesia</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">apark7</media:title>
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		<title>Early ADHD Treatment May Improve Girls&#8217; Math Scores</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2012/06/25/early-adhd-treatment-may-improve-girls-math-scores/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2012/06/25/early-adhd-treatment-may-improve-girls-math-scores/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 25 Jun 2012 14:00:44 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Maia Szalavitz</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[ADHD]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mental Health]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[achievement tests]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ADD]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[adderall]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[amphetamine]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[attention deficit disorder]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[attention deficity/hyperactivity disorder]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[girls]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[iceland]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[math]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mathematics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[methylphenidate]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ritalin]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=62709</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The use of medication to treat attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in children remains controversial: while the medications can treat symptoms of the disorder in the short term, there&#8217;s little data showing that they benefit kids — especially in school — in the long run. Now a new study based on data from large national databases tracking medication use and standardized test performance in students in Iceland suggests that earlier use of ADHD medication can lead to smaller declines in grades —  at least in math and especially in girls. “Our main finding was that early rather than late start of drug treatment for ADHD may help avert declining academic performance in these children,” says the study&#8217;s lead author Helga Zoega, a postdoctoral student at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. The study, which was published in Pediatrics, used data collected on nearly 12,000 Icelandic children born between 1994 and 1996. It examined the kids&#8217; prescription records and their standardized test scores in 4th and 7th grades. The study included all Icelandic children born in those years who registered for school and took both tests, including about 1,000 students who received prescriptions for ADHD medication at some point during the study period. (MORE: ADHD: Why the Youngest Kids in a Class Are Most Likely to Be Diagnosed) In Iceland, a diagnosis of ADHD must be verified before payments for medication are reimbursed, so any child having a prescription for ADHD drugs — including Adderall (amphetamine), Ritalin (methylphenidate) and Strattera (atomoxetine) — in the database would have had a diagnosis. Ritalin was the most commonly used drug. (One of the study’s 10 authors reported unrelated consultancy with pharmaceutical companies; the rest did not have affiliations with drug companies.) All the students in the study started medication after their fourth grade test, when they were around age 9. The effects of early treatment were most dramatic for girls, particularly in math. Girls who started ADHD treatment within a year after the 4th-grade testing period were nearly three times less likely to show a future decline in math performance, compared with<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=62709&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>ADHD</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/mental-health/adhd/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/78376672a.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">MaiaSzalavitz</media:title>
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		<title>Prescriptions for Kids: ADHD Meds and Birth Control Pills Are Up, Antibiotics Are Down</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2012/06/18/prescriptions-for-kids-adhd-meds-and-birth-control-pills-are-up-antibiotics-are-down/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2012/06/18/prescriptions-for-kids-adhd-meds-and-birth-control-pills-are-up-antibiotics-are-down/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 18 Jun 2012 16:53:28 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Alexandra Sifferlin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Childhood]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Clinical Practice]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Drugs]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Family & Parenting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Medicine]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mental Health]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Prevention]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Public Health]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Trends]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ADHD]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ADHD drugs]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[antibiotics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[birth-control pills]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FDA]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[prescriptions for kids]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=62171</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The number of prescriptions written for teens, children and infants fell 7% between 2002 to 2010, countering the trend in adults, among whom prescriptions rose 22% over the same time period, according to a new study by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) published in the journal Pediatrics. While overall pediatric prescriptions declined, the use of certain drugs increased: asthma medications, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) drugs and birth control pills. FDA researchers used two commercial prescription and patient databases that held data on prescriptions filled by outpatient retail pharmacies, accounting for about half of all retail prescriptions in the U.S. They looked at prescriptions written for kids up to age 17 between 2002 and 2010. (MORE: Teens Taking ADHD Drugs to Get Good Grades: How Big a Problem Is It?) In 2010, a total of 263.6 million prescriptions were given to U.S. kids in the U.S., a 7% reduction since 2002. Among the drugs that declined in use: antibiotic prescriptions, which fell by 14%, though antibiotics were still the most frequently dispensed medications for kids; allergy meds, which dropped by 61%; cough and cold drugs, down by 42%; pain meds, down by 14%; and depression medications, which fell by 5%. The authors credit the decrease in antibiotics prescriptions to widespread initiatives by public-health experts to encourage doctors and parents to stop overusing the drugs — especially for viral infections that can&#8217;t be cured with antibiotics — and to educate the public on the increase in antibiotic resistance caused by overprescribing. &#8220;Our analyses suggest such efforts may be working,&#8221; the authors write. The authors also cite a 2008 FDA health advisory discouraging the use of over-the-counter cold and cough meds for infants under age 2 as a positive influence on the prescription numbers. (MORE: Performance-Enhancing Drugs O.K. in School, but Not in Sports, Students Say) At the same time, the researchers saw significant spikes in prescriptions for ADHD, asthma and birth control medications. They report a 46% increase in prescriptions for ADHD meds, including drugs like Ritalin and Adderall, which they suggest indicates increases<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=62171&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Drugs</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/mental-health/drugs/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/74878711.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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		<title>Teens Taking ADHD Drugs to Get Good Grades: How Big a Problem Is It?</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2012/06/11/kids-taking-adhd-drugs-to-get-good-grades-how-big-a-problem-is-it/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2012/06/11/kids-taking-adhd-drugs-to-get-good-grades-how-big-a-problem-is-it/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 11 Jun 2012 18:24:57 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Maia Szalavitz</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Adolescence]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Drugs]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Family & Parenting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mental Health]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Teens]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[adderall]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ADHD]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[amphetamine]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[cognitive enhancement]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[performance enhancement]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[prescription drugs]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[prescription stimulants]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ritalin]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[speed]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[stimulants]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[study drugs]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=61626</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[There&#8217;s an epidemic afoot in the country&#8217;s selective high schools: ambitious students under pressure to succeed are increasingly abusing stimulants like Ritalin and Adderall, which they consider as essential as SAT tutors for getting into an Ivy League college. At least that&#8217;s the case according to a most-emailed front page story in Sunday&#8217;s New York Times. But the data on stimulant use from national surveys tells a very different story. The Times&#8216; Alan Schwarz writes: At high schools across the United States, pressure over grades and competition for college admissions are encouraging students to abuse prescription stimulants, according to interviews with students, parents and doctors. Pills that have been a staple in some college and graduate school circles are going from rare to routine in many academically competitive high schools, where teenagers say they get them from friends, buy them from student dealers or fake symptoms to their parents and doctors to get prescriptions. The story contends that an estimated 15% to 40% of students at high-achieving high schools use prescription stimulants to get ahead; these drugs, designed to ease symptoms of ADHD, can sharpen focus and enhance performance in people without the disorder. But national statistics don’t really support the idea that misuse of these drugs among high-school students is growing. Indeed, according to the data, it would be hard to believe that modern-day kids are even approaching the rate of misuse of their parents&#8217; or grandparents&#8217; generations. The National Institute on Drug Abuse’s Monitoring the Future (MTF) study has gathered annual statistics on high school and college drug use from tens of thousands of people since 1975. The sampling is randomized and the questions are carefully designed to get the most accurate picture possible and avoid differences between those who are willing to be surveyed and those who are not. The Times, in contrast, contacted 200 students, parents and school officials for its story, only 40 of whom agreed to talk — a 20% response rate that, at least for a scientific publication, wouldn&#8217;t be acceptable as unbiased.<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=61626&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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			<media:title type="html">MaiaSzalavitz</media:title>
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