Dr. Hansa Bhargava, a practicing pediatrician and medical editor with Medscape, is starting to recognize that drugs should not be the first line of therapy for children with symptoms of difficult behavior.
While ADHD itself is a fake illness, the observed symptoms are real, and the root causes must be diagnosed, recognized, and treated for whatever they are.
Children are being diagnosed with symptoms of so-called ADHD at younger and younger ages. Instilling good behavior and lifestyle habits as they grow will help them improve as they move into adolescence and adulthood.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that almost 1 in 2 preschoolers with a “diagnosis” of ADHD get no behavioral therapy, but instead get drugs as the first form of “treatment.”
There is growing evidence that the first approach in addressing these symptoms should be nonpharmacological.
For example, the National Sleep Foundation reported that as many as 80% of teens do not get enough sleep. Sleep-deprived kids often lack focus and may have symptoms of hyperactivity, which can mistakenly be attributed to this fake disease. Dehydration may have effects on one’s ability to control one’s behavior. And exercise is well established as important for overall physical fitness, growth, and mood, but it turns out that it may be particularly helpful in kids with behavioral symptoms.
A “diagnosis” of ADHD is based solely on opinion, and should never be taken as a fact before non-psychiatric, clinical evidence determines what is actually medically the case.
What is ADHD then? In 1987, “Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder” (ADHD) was literally voted into existence by a show of hands of American Psychiatric Association members and included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). Within a year, 500,000 children in America alone were diagnosed with this. It is an excuse to sell drugs and make money.
ADHD actually represents the spontaneous behaviors of normal children. When these behaviors become age-inappropriate, excessive or disruptive, the potential causes are limitless, including: boredom, poor teaching, inconsistent discipline at home, reading difficulty, tiredness, street drugs, nutritional deficiency, toxic overload, and many kinds of underlying physical illness.
There is no valid ADHD test for children. There is no valid ADHD test for adults. ADHD in adults is just as bogus as ADHD in children.
The ADHD diagnosis does not identify a genuine biological or psychological disorder. The diagnosis is simply a list of behaviors that may appear disruptive or inappropriate.