Thanksgiving with a side order of ADHD

If you haven’t joined our online ADHD community at www.ADDerWorld.ning.com you are missing out on some very interesting conversations. Here is an example of a recent reply to a blog post about family, thanksgiving and ADHD! The reply is by Chris AKA Dawg, and is of his own opinion and research. So, if your going to be with family this thanksgiving and some members give you a hard time because they do not believe ADHD exists, Chris’s post may give you some ideas:

Thanksgiving reply By Chris AKA Dawg:

AD/HD is unfairly classified as a mental disorder and the diagnostic language tends to emphasize only what’s wrong. “Impulsive,” for example, is used as a bad term. But you could say spontaneous. Rarely do you meet a person with ADD that isn’t creative somehow, and what is creativity, but a kind of impulsiveness? No one plans to have a creative thought. It just pops into your head.

In my photo’s I uploaded my certificate for the online study course for doctors that I completed. That’s not a fake and I really am registered with the site as AKA_dawgm PHd but I’m not a doctor. If I can come to Thanksgiving dinner I would be more than happy to assist you in educating your family.

See, (ADHD) is one of the most common psychiatric disorders, affecting approximately 8%-9% of school-aged children and 4.4% of adults.( most likely higher because many never get diagnosed.) Although recognized and treated for decades, our understanding of the causes and underlying pathology associated with ADHD has made incredible progress in the past 5-10 years. I like dark meat and I’ll peal potatoes cause I can put a hurting on the spuds.

One thing your family might find astonishing is that ADHD is a highly genetic disorder. Risk of having ADHD is increased substantially if a first- relative is also diagnosed (including parents and siblings) progress is being made in identifying the specific molecular genetic risk factors for ADHD, but given the complexity and heterogeneity, currently no genetic tests can be used to reliably predict the disorder that would be clinically useful.

While sitting down for turkey we could point out that in a widely cited study of 140 children with ADHD and 120 kids without ADHD in the parents of ADHD children were 14.7% compared with 2.7% in the parents of non-ADHD children, suggesting that parents of an ADHD child were 5.4 times more likely to also have ADHD. For siblings, 20.0% of those with an ADHD sibling also were diagnosed, vs 5.0% of siblings of control children, suggesting that having a brother or sister with ADHD makes one 4 times more likely to have ADHD than the general population. Twin studies establish the genetic basis of a disorder by examining the likelihood of 1 child having a disorder if their twin also has the disorder — also referred to as concordance rates. If a disorder is strongly genetic in nature, the concordance rates for monozygotic (identical) twins will be higher compared with dizygotic (fraternal) twins. Results from many twin studies of ADHD support the idea of the disorder being strongly genetic in nature. Across studies, heritability estimates ranging from 0.60 to 0.95 have been reported, suggesting that between 60% and 95% of the variability in ADHD and ADHD symptoms can be explained by genetic factors.

While I’m pretty good a carving the bird I normally don’t use sharp knives in other people homes in case of an accident. I don’t want to bleed on anyone’s carpet.

The strongest evidence for association of a particular gene variant playing a role is associated with the dopamine D4 receptor gene (DRD4). In particular, a specific polymorphism of this gene results in odds ratios for having the disease show a 34%-90% increase in risk for having ADHD in individuals who carry the particular gene variant. That’s off the hook kind of odds.

Other genes positively associated with the disorder are; Dopamine beta-hydroxylase gene, dopamine D5 receptor (DRD5), dopamine transporter gene (DAT1, also known as SLC6A3), synaptosomal-associated protein 25 gene (SNAP-25), also a ton of interest in the serotonin transporter gene (also referred to as SLC6A4) but not positive.

Do folks still eat yams? I like um. Another thing is that brain imaging techniques, including PET, structural MRI, and fMRI, have rapidly advanced our understanding of the specific brain regions that are involved in the pathophysiology of ADHD; while asking for seconds on the stuffing we can point out that the regions implicated primarily include parts of the cerebellum and circuits that connect the frontal lobe and striatum;

I love green bean casserole and fruit salad with cool whip BTW and would be happy to bring one of these dishes

It actually hasn’t always been a part of nature as it’s genetics are relatively new and we can trace it back some 1100 years (or maybe 11,000 can’t remember now but even 11,000 years is “new”) and through natural selection has been shown to be a desirable trait.

Keep in mind while deciding what pie; pumpkin or cherry, to have ,that the majority of children, adolescents, and adults with ADHD are affected by other co morbid psychiatric conditions.

I’ll be stocking up on the miracle whip too, cause I’ll eat a few turkey sandwiches per day until Christmas! Hope this helps!

This is a posting by a member of www.adderworld.ning.com it has been reposted here with permission. If you would like to read all postings, please feel free to become a member HERE.

Thank you Chris!

~Bryan

and scroll down to comment too! You may get an error when commenting, but your comment will post.

Have you read 'One Boy's Struggle: A Memoir', yet?

NOW AVAILABLE - get it: Click Here! Free!

   Send article as PDF