2: ADHD

Today’s disagreement is about ADHD and its meteoric rise in the United States.

Specifically, what are the causes of ADHD? Is it biological or environmental or both? And given that, what is the right approach to medicating and treating our children?

In today’s episode: two health experts with very different perspectives on ADHD.

 

The Guests

Marilyn Wedge (Phd, LMFT) is a practicing Family Therapist in Westlake, CA and author of A Disease called Childhood: Why ADHD Became an American Epidemic. She holds a Phd in Social Psychology from the University of Chicago.

Ryan Sultan (MD) is Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at Columbia University Irving Medical Center and New York State Psychiatric Institute. Ryan is a national expert on ADHD and cannabis use.

 

Show Notes

• What is ADHD? [04:10]
• How does the home environment impact ADHD symptoms? [10:53]
• Use of medication when nothing else works [14:22]
• Does ADHD exist? [17:05]
• Skyrocketing U.S. rates of ADHD [19:07]
• Is ADHD a disease or a constellation of traits? [20:54]
• Conflation of ADHD and other mental health disorders [32:00]
• ADHD underdiagnosis pre-2000s? [34:26]
• The use of amphetamines in treating ADHD [36:45]
• Side effects of ADHD medication [39:16]
• How and why schools identify ADHD in children [45:15]
• Ryan’s personal story with ADHD [46:14]
• Gender differences in diagnosis rates [52:19]
• Steelmanning [54:03]

 

Resources

The original 1937 article by Dr. Charles Bradley about the impact of benzedrine on children in the American Journal of Psychiatry

ADHD Nation: Children, Doctors, Big Pharma, and the Making of an American Epidemic by Alan Schwarz

The ADHD Advantage by Dale Archer