Why Does Everyone Suddenly Have ADHD?
Summary
TLDRThe video script discusses the significant rise in ADHD diagnoses, particularly among adults, with a 123% increase from 2007 to 2016 and a 30% increase in prescriptions from 2020 to 2022. It highlights concerns over technology startups offering quick diagnoses and the potential over-prescription of ADHD medication. The script also addresses historical biases in ADHD research, focusing on hyperactive boys and overlooking groups like women and ethnic minorities. Changes in diagnostic criteria have improved inclusivity, but the video raises questions about the role of technology in mental health and the need for comprehensive healthcare over tech-driven solutions.
Takeaways
- 📈 Between 2007 and 2016, ADHD rates in adults increased by 123%, and ADHD prescriptions rose by 30% from 2020 to 2022.
- 💊 Multiple countries have reported shortages in ADHD medication, indicating a growing demand.
- 🌐 The internet plays a role in the perception of ADHD, with some content suggesting that viewers might have ADHD.
- 👨⚕️ ADHD was first described by Dr. George Still in 1902 and officially defined in the DSM-III in 1987, with subsequent updates changing its understanding.
- 🔄 ADHD is categorized into three subtypes: inattentive, impulsive, and a combination of both.
- 🤔 Having ADHD symptoms does not automatically mean one has ADHD; a medical professional's assessment is necessary.
- 🚫 Tech startups offering online ADHD assessments have faced criticism for overprescribing medication and prioritizing customer retention over health.
- 💼 Cerebral, a tech startup, was sued for allegedly focusing on prescribing stimulants to retain customers and for privacy violations.
- 👩⚕️ Historical ADHD research has been biased towards hyperactive boys, leading to an underrepresentation of other groups like women and adults.
- 📚 The DSM-5 updated the age threshold for ADHD symptoms to appear, allowing for more accurate diagnoses, especially in adults.
- 🌐 The internet may exacerbate ADHD symptoms in individuals, but there's little evidence that it directly causes ADHD.
Q & A
What was the increase in ADHD rates among adults between 2007 and 2016?
-The ADHD rates among adults increased by 123% between 2007 and 2016.
How much has the rate of ADHD prescriptions increased from 2020 to 2022?
-The rate of ADHD prescriptions has gone up by 30% from 2020 to 2022.
What is the role of Dr. George Still in the history of ADHD?
-Dr. George Still, a famous pediatrician, described ADHD symptoms in 1902 as a 'morbid defect of moral control', marking an early recognition of ADHD-like symptoms.
What is the DSM and how does it relate to ADHD diagnosis?
-The DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) is a book used by psychologists and psychiatrists to diagnose mental disorders, including ADHD, which was officially defined in its third version in 1987.
What are the three subtypes of ADHD?
-ADHD is divided into three subtypes: the inattentive kind, the impulsive kind, and a combination of both.
What are some symptoms of ADHD?
-Symptoms of ADHD include difficulty sustaining attention to tasks, being easily distracted by extraneous stimuli, forgetfulness in daily activities, excessive talking, blurting out answers, and reluctance to engage in tasks requiring sustained mental effort.
Why is online diagnosis of ADHD potentially problematic?
-Online diagnosis of ADHD is problematic because it often lacks the comprehensive assessment by a medical professional and can lead to over-prescription and misdiagnosis, as seen with companies like Cerebral.
What concerns have been raised about the practices of some tech startups in ADHD treatment?
-Tech startups like Cerebral have been criticized for over-prescribing stimulant medications to retain customers and for selling patient data to advertisers, raising ethical and privacy concerns.
How has the understanding and diagnosis of ADHD changed over the years?
-The understanding and diagnosis of ADHD have evolved significantly, with the DSM-5 updating the age threshold for symptom onset to 12 years old, recognizing ADHD in adulthood, and allowing co-occurrence with other conditions like autism.
What is the gender dynamic in ADHD diagnosis?
-Women are still less likely to be diagnosed with ADHD than men, with a current ratio of 2:1, despite evidence suggesting no significant biological difference predisposing men over women to ADHD.
What is the relationship between the internet and ADHD?
-While there is a link between ADHD and internet addiction, it is not causal. The internet can exacerbate symptoms that appear in everyone, but there is little evidence to suggest it directly induces ADHD.
Outlines
📈 ADHD Trends and Concerns
This paragraph discusses the significant increase in ADHD diagnosis rates among adults between 2007 and 2016, with a 123% rise, and a 30% increase in ADHD prescriptions from 2020 to 2022. It highlights the extreme nature of the issue, leading to medication shortages in multiple countries. The paragraph also touches on the potential over-diagnosis facilitated by online platforms, which may not provide comprehensive assessments, and the ethical concerns surrounding tech startups in ADHD treatment, such as Cerebral, which has been accused of prioritizing customer retention over patient health.
👩⚕️ Gender and Ethnic Disparities in ADHD Diagnosis
The second paragraph delves into the gender dynamics of ADHD diagnosis, noting the current 2:1 male to female ratio despite a lack of clear biological differences. It discusses the historical focus of ADHD research on hyperactive boys and the recent shift towards understanding adult ADHD. The paragraph also addresses the under-diagnosis of ADHD in women, particularly those with inattentive ADHD, and the challenges faced by intelligent individuals and those from ethnic minorities in receiving a diagnosis. It mentions the changes in DSM-5, which expanded the age criteria for symptom onset and acknowledged ADHD's persistence into adulthood, potentially leading to a more accurate diagnosis rate.
🌐 The Impact of the Internet on ADHD Perception
The final paragraph explores the relationship between internet use and ADHD, suggesting a correlation between internet addiction and ADHD rather than a causal link. It critiques the notion that the internet is causing ADHD, instead arguing that it may exacerbate existing symptoms in individuals. The paragraph emphasizes the importance of accurate ADHD diagnosis and treatment, advocating for healthcare over tech-based solutions. It also discusses societal changes that have influenced the perception and diagnosis of ADHD, drawing a parallel to the historical increase in left-handedness acceptance. The speaker expresses concern over technology companies' involvement in healthcare and the need for comprehensive treatment options, concluding with a call for more open discussions on mental health.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡ADHD
💡DSM
💡Inattentive type
💡Impulsive type
💡Combination type
💡Technology startups
💡Gender dynamic
💡Ethnic differences
💡Internet addiction
💡Co-occurring conditions
💡Mental health awareness
Highlights
ADHD rates have increased by 123% in adults between 2007 and 2016.
ADHD prescriptions have risen by 30% from 2020 to 2022.
Multiple countries have reported medication shortages due to increased ADHD diagnosis.
The internet is filled with content either diagnosing or seemingly promoting ADHD.
ADHD symptoms have been known for centuries, but the term ADHD was officially defined in 1987.
ADHD is categorized into three subtypes: inattentive, impulsive, and combined presentations.
A medical professional's assessment is required for an ADHD diagnosis, not just the presence of symptoms.
Technology startups promise ADHD assessments in under 30 minutes, raising concerns about accuracy and ethics.
Cerebral, a tech startup, was valued at $4.8 billion but faced lawsuits over unethical practices.
Some virtual health platforms have been accused of over-prescribing stimulants to increase customer retention.
Traditional healthcare providers do not show the same over-prescription issues as tech startups in ADHD treatment.
Gender dynamics play a role in ADHD diagnosis, with women historically underdiagnosed.
Historically, ADHD research focused on hyperactive boys, neglecting other presentations and demographics.
Recent years have seen a significant increase in ADHD diagnosis among women aged 23 to 49.
Changes in DSM-5 have expanded the age of symptom onset and acknowledged ADHD in adulthood and co-occurrence with autism.
The rise in ADHD diagnosis may be due to better recognition rather than an actual increase in prevalence.
The internet is linked to ADHD and internet addiction, but there's no evidence that the internet causes ADHD.
Concerns about technology companies filling healthcare roles and the potential over-prescription of medication.
The importance of discussing mental health and ensuring access to comprehensive treatment options.
Transcripts
between 2007 and 2016 ADHD rates have
increased by
123% in adults the rates of ADHD
prescriptions have gone up by 30% just
from 2020 to 2022 and this problem is
getting so extreme that multiple
countries have actually reported
shortages in medication and like to be
honest if you spend 15 minutes on the
internet you'll either find a video that
tries to convince you that you've got
ADHD or a video that feels like it's
trying to give you ADHD so it can feel
like maybe everyone has ADHD today but I
do want to investigate this because
there are some great successes that
we've made in the last few decades but
also some areas of concern some things
that worry me and some things that you
should probably be aware of first of all
I mean we need to start with like what
is ADHD depends who you ask right we've
known about ADHD like symptoms for
hundreds of years but I think a useful
place to start is 1902 with Dr George
still who was a really famous
pediatrician he described ADHD symptoms
as a morbid defect of moral control
which is so extra not exactly the most
like comprehensive description but if we
fast forward to 1987 ADHD became like an
official term in this book the DSM the
DSM is like the book that psychologists
and psychiatrists use to diagnose people
and in the third version it was
officially defined it's since gone
through two more updates and each of
these have progressively changed how we
understand ADHD today it's divided into
into three different subtypes three
different presentations the inattentive
kind the impulsive kind and a
combination so this is obviously you
know not medical advice you should
actually see a doctor if you want
medical advice but these are a few of
the symptoms of ADHD has difficulty
sustaining attention to tasks or play
activity is easily distracted by
extraneous stimuli is forgetful in daily
activities talks excessively blurts out
an answer before a question is been
completed or avoids dislikes or is
reluctant to engage in tasks that
require sustained mental effort all of
which uh you know somewhat relatable and
here in is where we have our our first
problem right because simply having
these symptoms doesn't mean that you
have ADHD typically you need to also
have an actual assessment by a medical
professional who can tell you whether or
not your case is legitimate that is
unless you decide to to go online
because people are struggling to Access
Medical Care in actual hospitals they're
turning to these technology startups who
are promising to be able to do that in
just under half an hour however the
promise that they make is actually not
not great and you'll see quite quickly
that these guys are like the poster
child for everything wrong with ADHD
treatment at the moment if there's one
thing we know about technology companies
is that they have the Public's best
health interests at heart I just want to
talk to you about this company cerebral
this company has actually been valued at
around $4.8 billion they've also been
sued by their own vice president of
engineering who alleged that the CEO was
tracking whether giving people stimulant
medication would keep them as loyal
customers this is crazy this is a direct
quote from this lawsuit when cerebral
determined that the patients who were
prescribed stimulants were more likely
to remain customers the CEO directed
employees to find ways to prescribe
stimulants to more ADHD patients to
increase retention unsurprisingly this
same company was also finded $7 million
over careless privacy violations which
means that they were selling patient
data to advertisers d health another
virtual prescriber has been in similar
trouble the founder and CEO has been
arrested and is on trial with the
Department of Justice in the USA so this
is another quote from this lawsuit that
was filed by the American government the
CEO and president allegedly obtain
subscribers by targeting drug Seekers
and spending tens of millions of dollars
on deceptive advertisement on social
media networks they also allegedly in
intentionally structured their platform
to facilitate access to adol and other
stimulants including by limiting the
information available to the prescribers
instructing their prescribers to
prescribe adol and other stimulants even
if the member didn't qualify and
mandating that the initial encounters
would be under 30 minutes interestingly
enough you'll see that if virtual Health
appointments are carried out by actual
hospitals then they don't have the same
problem of over prescribing medication
it's purely a problem with tech startups
That masquerade as healthcare companies
but ADHD rates have been rising for long
before this it's been a trend for
several decades whereas these companies
have simply Arisen in the last few years
and if we do consider this this question
from a few different other angles we get
a conclusion that feels a lot more
comprehensive and that reveals a lot of
a lot of big positives actually in the
space it's really important to consider
the gender dynamic because the reality
is women are still today far less likely
to be diagnosed than men currently the
ratio is 2:1 and yet there seems to not
be too much evidence that there's
actually a biological difference that
predisposes men towards ADHD than women
and if we look at what you know
researchers say about this we find that
there's a really big problem in how
we've actually researched ADHD over the
last few decades this is Dr Kathleen
nedu the director of the Chesapeake
Center on ADHD learning and Behavioral
Health and she talks a about the the
history of ADHD research and the changes
that have happened pretty significantly
over the last few decades she says that
historically research on ADHD has
focused almost exclusively on
hyperactive little boys and only in the
past six or seven years has any research
focused on adult
ADHD and this kind of tracks a lot with
what we think of as the general
perception or the general stereotype of
what ADHD looks like the hyperactive
little boy in a classroom and this isn't
just like a social stereotype it's
something that affects actual research
in clinical studies the male to female
ratio is actually around 4 to one so
even if men men are twice as likely to
have ADHD in general in actual research
men are even more over represented which
has had kind of like a a
self-reinforcing effect right this
tracks with the fact that a lot of this
rise is especially amongst women the
percentage newly diagnosed between 23 to
49 has nearly doubled just between 2020
and 2022 a few days ago I made a
community post asking members of the the
community what their experience was
getting diagnosed and I just copied one
comment from Ruth who described her
experience and she says that I got
diagnosed at 24 it took me 3 years of
seeking help and failing College to
finally get diagnosed because the nurse
practitioner was refusing to believe me
she kept telling me that I just had
childhood trauma and depression as if I
can't have those things and ADHD
eventually I had to seek out someone
else and pay out of pocket to get
diagnosed I fit the diagnosis for
inattentive ADHD almost completely but I
think it was missed because I never
caused any problems at school as a kid
and my parents didn't know enough or
care I'm not on any medications at the
moment but I'm hoping to within the next
couple of months we've had this huge
problem for decades where certain groups
have simply been ignored by medicine
effectively one of those groups is just
women in general who are more likely to
have the the inattentive kind of ADHD
the education system is really bad at
spotting inattentive ADHD or ADHD in
people who are more intelligent because
it's less likely to be a problem when
they're younger and much more likely to
be a problem once they're older and we
have a similar problem when we look at
ethnic differences so for example black
children in the US are historically 70%
less likely to get a diagnosis even
though they seem to show symptoms at at
least a similar rate if not more
frequently but there there's also been
some some changes in our definition of
ADHD and it's been able to capture a lot
of people who would have been otherwise
missed out by by doctors so in 1994 the
DSM 4 was published and this was the
guide book for psychologists for almost
20 years and one of the Key conditions
for being diagnosed is that symptoms
needed to appear first before the age of
7 years old and there were a few
problems with this well first of all if
symptoms need to appear before the age
of seven then it almost certainly needs
to be a parent or a caregiver that first
notices
because I think the average person can't
really remember how they behaved that
well before the age of seven this meant
that people who didn't have strong
support systems at home or retentive
teachers would be completely ignored
they physically couldn't be diagnosed
with it however in 2013 almost 20 years
later this diagnostic manual was updated
the threshold for when symptoms need to
first appear was increased to 12 years
old this is a like a really good change
because it means that people who might
not have a stronger support system could
still be diagnosed with ADHD because a
lot more of us remember our lives before
the age of 12 than we do before the age
of 7 this dsm5 also acknowledged the
fact that ADHD could continue into
adulthood for a long time it was simply
believed that it was something you could
grow out of and the diagnostic manuals
seem to kind of reinforce this idea some
people learn coping strategies some
people learn masking techniques but
adult ADHD rates are rising much more
quickly than childhood ad ADHD
and importantly before 2013 it was
actually impossible to be diagnosed with
both autism and ADHD you had to have one
or the other autism and ADHD have a
strong tendency to co-occur so a lot of
people who have one have the other as
well there's a there's a really strong
chance that this rise in diagnosis is
something similar to the rise in the
rate of left-handedness between the
early and mid 1900s nothing changed in
human genetics but there were simply
some huge societal changes it could be
very possible that we're just actually
Bridging the Gap between the actual
percentage and the under reported
percentage that we've had for all of
human history thus far but we we do have
to talk about the internet as well
because it is clearly affecting our
minds and it's clearly affecting our
attention spans even anecdotally but
yeah is the internet giving us ADHD well
there is a link between ADHD and
internet addiction this is not a causal
link right it doesn't say that ADHD
causes internet addiction or that
internet addiction causes ADHD simply
that if you have one you're more likely
to have the other it seems like there's
very little evidence to suggest that the
internet is inducing ADHD one of the
problems with the internet though is
that it can induce symptoms which can
appear in anyone if we go back to some
of the symptoms we can see that these
are things that to some extent everyone
struggles with right everyone struggles
at some point with attention focus
yapping but to suggest that the internet
is giving people ADHD is different than
suggesting that it's exacerbating the
symptoms which appear in everyone the
real question we're asking here is will
people get better if they just stop
using the internet whereas if you are a
person who has ADHD even not engaging
with the internet will still not cure
all of those symptoms what ADHD shows is
that the definitions are constantly
changing and so this feeling that
everyone has ADHD is I mean
categorically not true because there are
huge groups of the population that still
being left behind today and that don't
have access to the treatment that they
need and where I personally have
concerned
is in the fact that we are letting
technology companies fulfill the rule
that healthcare companies should be
doing I'm not anti medication or
anything I just think that people should
have access to the full spectrum of
possible treatments that a qualify
Doctor Who can give them the time and
attention that they deserve would
provide in general we have to accept
that ADHD has been adopted into our
vocabulary at large and the difficulty
is really you can't control how and when
people use words but more generally I'm
always going to pick the path that leads
to more people talking about mental
health because that path is more
inclusive and more likely to get people
to actually investigate
[Music]
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