November 16, 2023
The US Center for Disease Control's (CDC)review of ADHD starts with the statement: "Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a serious public health problem affecting many children and adults" (http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/adhd/research.html). My colleagues and I recently reviewed the ADHD literature. That let us describe ADHD as "... a seriously impairing, often persistent neurobiological disorder of high prevalence..." (Faraone et al., 2015). The figure 1, which comes from that paper, provides an overview of the lifetime trajectory of ADHD-associated morbidity.
Especially compelling data about ADHD and injuries comes from a recent paper, in Lancet Psychiatry, which used the Danish national registers to follow a cohort of 710,120 children (Dalsgaard et al., 2015a). Compared with children not having ADHD, those with ADHD were 30% more likely to sustain injuries than other children. Pharmacotherapy for ADHD reduced the risk for injuries by 32% from 5 to 10 years of age. Pharmacotherapy for ADHD reduced emergency room visits by 28.2% at age 10and 45.7% at age 12.
These results are shown in Figure 2, taken from the publication.
Especially compelling data about ADHD and injuries comes from a recent paper, in Lancet Psychiatry, which used the Danish national registers to follow a cohort of 710,120 children (Dalsgaard et al., 2015a). Compared with children not having ADHD, those with ADHD were 30% more likely to sustain injuries than other children. Pharmacotherapy for ADHD reduced the risk for injuries by 32% from 5 to 10 years of age. Pharmacotherapy for ADHD reduced emergency room visits by 28.2%at age 10and 45.7% at age 12.
These results are shown in Figure2, taken from the publication. The Figure compares the prevalence of injuries among three groups. ADHD children treated with medication, ADHD children not treated with medication, and children without ADHD. The Figure shows how ADHD risk for injuries occurs for all age groups. It also shows how the risk for injuries drops with treatment so that by age 12, the prevalence of injuries among treated ADHD children is the same as the prevalence of injuries for children without ADHD.
Documented examples of ADHD-associated injuries which impact day-to-day functioning include severe burns (Fritz and Butz, 2007), dental injuries (Sabuncuoglu, 2007), penetrating eye injuries (Bayar et al., 2015), the hospital treated injuries (Hurtig et al., 2013), and head injuries (DiScala et al., 1998). In one study (DiScala et al., 1998), when compared to other children admitted to the hospital for injuries, ADHD children were more likely to sustain injuries in multiple body regions (57.1% vs 43%), sustain head injuries (53% vs 41%), and to be severely injured as measured by the Injury Severity Score (12.5% vs5.4%) and the Glasgow Coma Scale (7.5% vs 3.4%).
Injuries are a substantial cause of ADHD-associated premature death. This assertion comes from the work of Dalsgaard et al. (2015b)based on the same Danish registry discussed above. In this second study, ADHD was associated with an increased risk for premature death and 53% of those deaths were due to injuries. They reported the risk for premature death in three age groups: 1-5, 6-17, and >17. For all three age groups, they found a greater risk for death in the ADHD group. For ages 6 to 17 and greater than 17. The ADHD-associated risk for mortality remained significant after excluding individuals with antisocial or substance use disorders.
There are currently no data about the effect of ADHD treatment on ADHD-associated premature death. We do, however, know from the data reviewed above that ADHD treatment reduces injuries and that half the deaths in the ADHD group were due to injuries. From this, we infer that ADHD treatments could reduce the risk of ADHD-associated premature death.
Two other ADHD-associated mobilities, obesity and cigarette smoking, have clear medical consequences. In a meta-analysis of 42 cross-sectional studies comprising 48,161 people with ADHD and 679,975 controls, my colleagues and I reported that the pooled prevalence of obesity was increased by about 40% in ADHD children compared with non-ADHD children and by about 70% in ADHD adults compared with non-ADHD adults(Cortese et al.,2015). The association between ADHD and obesity was significant for ADHD medication-naïve subjects but not for those medicated for ADHD, which suggests that medication reduces the risk for obesity.
Likewise, a meta-analysis of 27 longitudinal studies assessed the risk for several addictive disorders with sample sizes ranging from 4142 to 4175 for ADHD and 6835 to 6880 for non-ADHD controls (Lee et al., 2011). Children with ADHD were at higher risk for disorders of abuse or dependence on nicotine, alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, and other unspecified substances. Another meta-analysis (42 studies totaling, 2360 participants) showed that medications for ADHD reduced the ADHD-associated risk for smoking (Schoenfelder et al., 2014). The authors concluded that, for ADHD patients, "Consistent stimulant treatment for ADHD may reduce the risk of smoking". This finding is especially notable given that, for ADHD youth, cigarette smoking is a gateway drug to more serious addictions (Biederman et al., 2006).
Yes, ADHD is a serious disorder. Although most ADHD people will be spared the worst of these outcomes, they must be considered by parents and patients when weighing the pros and cons of treatment options.
Bayar, H., Coskun, E., Oner, V., Gokcen,C., Aksoy, U., Okumus, S. & Erbagci, I. (2015). Association between penetrating eye injuries and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in children.Br J Ophthalmol99, 1109-11.
Biederman, J., Monuteaux, M., Mick, E., Wilens, T., Fontanella, J.,Poetzl, K. M., Kirk, T., Masse, J. & Faraone, S. V. (2006). Is cigarette smoking a gateway drug to subsequent alcohol and illicit drug use disorders? A controlled study of youths with and without ADHD. Biol Psychiatry59, 258-64.
Cortese, S., Moreira-Maia, C. R., St Fleur, D., Morcillo-Penalver, C.,Rohde, L. A. & Faraone, S. V. (2015). Association Between ADHD and Obesity: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Am J Psychiatry, appiajp201515020266.
Dalsgaard, S., Leckman, J. F., Mortensen, P. B., Nielsen, H. S. &Simonsen, M. (2015a). Effect of drugs on the risk of injuries in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: a prospective cohort study. Lancet Psychiatry2, 702-9.
Dalsgaard, S., Ostergaard, S. D., Leckman, J. F., Mortensen, P. B.& Pedersen, M. G. (2015b). Mortality in children, adolescents, and adults with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: a nationwide cohortstudy. Lancet385, 2190-6.
DiScala, C., Lescohier, I., Barthel, M. & Li, G. (1998).Injuries to children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Pediatrics102, 1415-21.
Faraone, S. V., Asherson, P., Banaschewski, T., Biederman, J.,Buitelaar, J. K., Ramos-Quiroga, J. A., Rohde, L. A., Sonuga-Barke, E. J. S.,Tannock, R. & Franke, B. (2015). Attention deficit hyperactivitydisorder. In Nature Reviews: DiseasePrimers.
Fritz, K. M. & Butz, C. (2007). Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder and pediatric burn injury: important considerations regarding premorbid risk. Curr Opin Pediatr19, 565-9.
Hurtig, T., Ebeling, H., Jokelainen, J., Koivumaa-Honkanen, H. &Taanila, A. (2013). The Association Between Hospital-Treated Injuries and ADHD Symptoms in Childhood and Adolescence: A Follow-Up Study in the Northern Finland Birth Cohort 1986. J Atten Disord.
Lee, S. S., Humphreys, K. L., Flory, K., Liu, R. & Glass, K. (2011).Prospective association of childhood attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder(ADHD) and substance use and abuse/dependence: a meta-analytic review. Clin Psychol Rev31, 328-41.
Sabuncuoglu, O. (2007). Traumatic dental injuries and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: is there a link? Dent Traumatol23,137-42.
Schoenfelder, E. N., Faraone, S. V. & Kollins, S. H. (2014).Stimulant treatment of ADHD and cigarette smoking: a meta-analysis. Pediatrics133, 1070-1080.
Precocious puberty (PP) is defined as the onset of secondary sex characteristics before age 8 in girls or age 9 in boys.
Because it accelerates skeletal maturation by prematurely shutting down the cartilage growth plate at the tip of long bones, it tends to lead to shorter height in adulthood. It is also known to place an additional psychological burden on children, especially girls. Girls are four to 38 times more likely to develop PP than boys.
Taiwan has a single-payer national health insurance system, called National Health Insurance, that encompasses 99.6% of the island’s population. The Ministry of Health and Welfare uses it to maintain the National Health Insurance Research Database (NHIRD), enabling researchers to conduct nationwide population studies.
Using this database, a Taiwanese study team investigated the relationship between ADHD and precocious puberty among children and adolescents (under 18). And because methylphenidate (MPH) is the only psychostimulant approved for the treatment of ADHD in Taiwan, the team also explored the effect of MPH on this relationship.
Most diagnoses of ADHD in the NHIRD are made by board-certified psychiatrists, enhancing diagnostic validity.
Of the more than 3.3 million persons born in Taiwan between 1997 and 2001, 186,681 were diagnosed with ADHD. Of these, 122,302 were prescribed MPH.
After adjusting for sex, low-income households, and neuropsychiatric comorbidities, children diagnosed with ADHD were twice as likely to be diagnosed with PP. This held equally true for boys and girls.
However, children diagnosed with ADHD and prescribed MPH were more than a third less likely to subsequently be diagnosed with PP than those diagnosed with ADHD but not prescribed MPH.
For girls with ADHD, who without an MPH prescription were nine times more likely than boys with ADHD to be diagnosed with PP, an MPH prescription reduced that ratio to five times more likely than boys with ADHD and prescribed MPH.
That suggests a strong protective effect of MPH.
The team concluded, “Our study found that children with ADHD were at a greater risk of PP, and girls with ADHD were a particularly vulnerable group. … MPH appeared to be protective against PP in patients with ADHD, especially in girls. However, these preliminary results need further validation.”
Maternal infections and inflammatory responses during pregnancy have been proposed as risk factors for neurodevelopmental disorders such as ADHD.
Taiwan has a single-payer health insurance system that covers virtually the entirety of its population. Its Ministry of Health and Welfare maintains the National Health Insurance Research Database (NHIRD), with detailed information on outpatient services, hospitalizations, and medical treatment for nearly 99% of all residents.
A Taiwanese study team used NHIRD to examine to examine the relationship between maternal hospitalization for infection, and early childhood infection, and subsequent ADHD in offspring. The study cohort originated with all 3,260,879 individuals born between 2001 and 2018.
The team excluded births from foreign mothers, still births, births with congenital defects, low birth weights, abnormally late births, twins, triplets, and other multiple births, culminating in a final population cohort of 2,885,662 live-born single infants across 1,893,171 families, and 1,864,660 individuals with full siblings from 872,169 families comprising the full sibling cohort.
Study participants were followed until diagnosis of a neurodevelopmental disorder, their death, or the end of 2021.
After adjusting for sex, birth year, paternal and maternal ages, birthweight, birth season, parity, delivery method, 1 minute APGAR score (evaluating baby’s appearance, pulse, grimace, activity and respiration at birth), gestational age, pregnancy and delivery complications, parental history of neurodevelopmental disorders, maternal asthma and diabetes, urbanization level of the residential area, and family’s insurance amount, offspring of mothers hospitalized for infections had 14% greater odds of being subsequently diagnosed with ADHD.
However, in the full sibling cohort of over 1.8 million, this association vanished. That held true for each of the three trimesters of pregnancy. It also held true for bacterial infections. Surprisingly, offspring of mothers hospitalized for viral infections were 24% less likely to be diagnosed with ADHD than their siblings not exposed to maternal viral infection. Because of that, they also had a 6% lower risk overall.
After the same adjustments, early childhood infection was associated with 16% greater odds of being diagnosed with ADHD.
Nevertheless, in the full sibling cohort of over 1.8 million, this association again vanished. That held true overall, as well as separately for childhood infections in months 1-6 and months 7-12. The association vanished altogether both for bacterial infections as well as for viral infections.
The authors concluded, “the results of this nationwide birth cohort study with population and sibling analyses suggest that the association between maternal infection during pregnancy and offspring neurodevelopmental risk is largely due to familial confounding factors.”
Most previous studies of suicide and self-harm risk among persons with ADHD have focused on adolescents and adults. They’ve also tended to be cross-sectional, analyzing data from a population at a specific point in time.
An Australian study team took a different approach, conducting a before-and-after study through the birth cohort of the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC), comprising 5,107 children who have been followed up every two years since birth.
The diagnosis of ADHD was based on parents reporting that their child had received a diagnosis of ADHD at or before age ten.
Suicide and self-harm were defined as children’s self-report at age 14 of any thought or attempt of suicide and self-harm respectively over the past year.
The team adjusted for the following confounders: socioeconomic status, birth weight, ADHD medication history, maternal education level, maternal age at birth, experience in bullying victimization at age 12, and depression score based on Short Mood and Feelings Questionnaire (SMFQ).
Of the 5,107 participants, 3,696 had all the valid data required for analysis and were included in the final cohort. Of these, 3.6% were diagnosed with ADHD by age 10.
With diagnosis of ADHD at age 10 and all other factors held constant:
Both depression and exposure to bullying were statistically significant mediators for the relationship. Nevertheless, depression and exposure to bullying each accounted for well under 10% of the overall effect.
Neither socioeconomic status nor maternal factors had any significant mediating effect on outcomes.
Conclusion:
The authors concluded, “This study provides compelling evidence that children diagnosed with ADHD at the age of 10 years face significantly elevated risks of experiencing suicidal thoughts, planning, or attempts, as well as self-harm, by the age of 14 years, which underscores the critical importance of recognizing and addressing these heightened risks in children with ADHD.”
While factors like depression and bullying contribute, ADHD itself remains a key risk factor. Early intervention and strong mental health support are crucial to protecting these children’s well-being.
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