And what they found was that compared to individuals without inflammation, hay fever i'm just calling it hay fever those with hay fever faced a 1.83 fold higher risk of developing adhd which it literally just blew my mind this whole paper is filled with just me writing question marks and exclamation points everywhere

Yeah.

I mean, as you said, with correlation, it's we don't know which way it's going, but it is seeing that result.

It's like, oh, yeah, if you have allergies, you're more likely to have ADHD.

And if you have ADHD, you're more likely to have allergies is wild.

And this is somewhat interesting in the US as we have like been seeing.

we're having a spike in allergies because of climate change issues and how long trees are releasing pollen and how much they're releasing.

And for those of you, now we have another one.

And quite frankly, I could have used something like that as a child, 'cause I did not know, [laughs] did not know what was going on.

And it was l- very much looking at this, like, near transfer versus far transfer of skills.

In this episode, we're going to be discussing a paper called Virtual Reality Interventions for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: A Systematic Review.

And this paper is actually a...

You know, it's a review that provides a comprehensive look at how virtual reality is transitioning from a high-tech novelty to perhaps more of a legitimate clinical tool for managing ADHD.

Also, as a note, this was a listener-submitted paper, and definitely something I would've never thought to look into on my own.

So I was really excited to get this submission, 'cause I had no idea that this was something people were doing.

So it makes sense, but it is interesting, because I don't know if virtual reality is really, I guess, something that is widely used on a daily basis by lots of people yet.

And so we'll, uh, get into a few more details about what that paper is in a bit, but it had a huge impact on how we view ADHD, especially in highlighting how to think of this shift into thinking of ADHD as a chronic condition that requires, you know, a sustained management rather than just something that you cure.

Yeah.

Yeah, 100%.

Yeah, it was really interesting 'cause obviously they're doing, like, multiple methods of treatment, which I think was the most, the, obviously the thing that made this study the most interesting.

So they had different kinds.

They had, you know, they had systematic medication management, they had multi-component behavioral therapy, then they had a combination, and then they had the usual community care.

So they were looking at these four different methods to see the effect that they had on these children over time.

What I thought was more interesting, though, was that even the medicated group still did not have the same intervention level as the, the initial 14 months did.

And, you know, I think if there's one thing we can see from this, from the, both of these papers regardless of the outcome, is that doing that was really helpful

Yeah.

And I think it's a really good point for people to understand, is that you don't have to do just one thing, and often it feels like, you know, you come across some- ADHD has such black and white thinking often, that you come across things and you're like, "This is the thing I have to do." And really, as long as you're doing something, you're going to be making progress.

You don't even have to...

Like, it's, a- again, with the black and white thinking, you don't have to even be...

Like, we're like, "Not only do I have to meditate, I have to meditate three hours a day" or something, you know? And-

Yeah

... it's like, okay, no, just maybe if yous like, "Oh yeah, I could to- I could try meditating and I could try doing five minutes a day, we'll see how that helps," or, you know, whatever is a doable option for you.

[laughs] You're losing your time, Spen.

Yeah.

They, they ...

My kids borrow them all the time because it's so helpful for them.

Like, they were specifically, like, things that we got for the kids to help them be like, "Okay, this is how long you need to have to get ready," and I highly recommend that if you have kids.

But they're also something that are, like, vital for my own time management, especially when I'm, like, wanting to take a break or divide up my time in ways that where I don't have, like, these like, "Okay, now I have to go to this next thing," when it's, "Oh, I want to only do this for this amount of time and then move on to the next thing." That's when it's really helpful, 'cause otherwise I just don't have a sense.

I used to work, back in the day, with students who were given extra support for their ADHD, and one of the things that they would get was they would get extra time on their assignments, and it didn't help because [laughs] because of this exact problem.

And so yeah, I think that is something just for us to keep in mind, in that more time doesn't always equal better results for us.

So do you wanna take us through what some of those are?

Yeah.

So they were, like, looking at, you know, like, 73 to 78% of people with ADHD are experiencing this delayed sleep-wake cycle.

We have this, uh, shifted melatonin.

So naturally for humans, when things get dimmer, we start developing melatonin.

This just, like, this is what the circadian rhythm is.

It's our connection with the sun, our 24-hour clock, and it is often set by light.

Yeah, I have three children four and under, so I don't need [laughs] melatonin right now to go to sleep.

Like, there are-If I'm at home and I want to enjoy my hobbies, it is better if I am taking my medication and I can focus on, like, playing a game or watching a movie and not getting distracted while I'm doing it, or being able to clean my house.

It speaks to a, an interesting relationship that certain medical professionals have with ADHD medication.

I think that's the most interesting thing about the medication vacation discussion, is that this is supposed to be medication that you're taking to support you with your ADHD.

In order to get diagnosed with ADHD, you have to have this struggle across all parts of your life, and it has to be negatively affecting you across all parts of your life.

But it feels like there is... 'Cause, you know, 'cause we're about to talk about schizophrenic, uh, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder medication.

There's no vacations from, you know, those kinds of medications as far as I'm aware.

I'm not an expert.

Or it, it at least makes sense in my head 'cause I'm wor- about what I'm worried about could happen.

It's crossing the barrier, the placental barrier.

In this episode, we're going to be discussing a paper called Use of Cosmetics in Pregnancy and Neurotoxicity: Can it Increase the Risks of Congenital Enteric Neuropathies? It's a lot.

In this, the authors explore the hypothesis of neurotoxins such as microplastics, parabens, benzophthalates, and metals that can cross the placental barrier and disrupt the development of fetal nervous system.

And this may not seem very ADHD-centric when you, like, hear that.

We're talking about a lot of things here, but there's some really interesting things we can glean here, and there's definitely some connections.

So of course, with the, uh, little bit of a disclaimer, of course, that we're not doctors and that we are not complete experts in this field, so, uh, we'll be trying to do our best.

So take us through, why are we talking about this in terms of ADHD?

Well, in terms of ADHD, really the paper gave the phthalates as the primary culprit that we see, uh, ADHD symptoms arising from things.

There is a very specific difference in the way your brain works when you're ADHD, because for a lot of people, it just feels like a personal thing.

In this episode, we're going to be discussing a paper called Automoxine Treatment Strengths and Anticorrelation Relationship Between Functional Brain Networks and Medication, i.e.

Adults with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, a Randomized Double-Blind Placebo-Controlled Clinical Trial.

Yes, that's the full study name.

It's quite a lot.

And this study is about this push-pull relationship between the default mode network and the task positive network, and then how atomoxicine treatment can be effective in dealing with that.

Let's get into it by kind of maybe jumping into some of these terms that we're going to be talking about.

So it's a bit of an older paper, but it was also the paper that really nailed this issue topic let's talk about what it is first take us through what the task mode is the default mode and all that stuff

And it's interesting you should say that actually, because this paper to kind of bring it all back around is about subclinical ADHD, which is the one that people are potentially less likely to be managing because they didn't even know that they had it in the first place.

In this episode, we're going to be discussing a paper called The Effects of Subclinical ADHD Symptomatology on Subjective Financial, Physical, and Mental Well-Being of Entrepreneurs and Employees.

And this study looks at how subclinical ADHD traits relates to well-being for two groups, entrepreneurs and employees, asking, does having ADHD traits help or hurt you more? when you're your own boss versus when you're working for someone else.

And so I think a great place for us to start this is to discuss what subclinical ADHD is, because I'm sure a lot of people are not really familiar with this

What resonated or didn't resonate with you?

in this paper.

I mean, most of the ideas, like I'm like, yeah, I've definitely felt the, you know, like financial hardships where you're like, even though I'm doing fine, it's just like, oh, I could be doing more.

There's things that I was thinking about was like, oh yeah, worse health outcomes.

Mm-hmm

... and with ADHD being a developmental disease or disorder, that it can be kind of seen how that might connect there." There are a lot of, like, why might that happen? I, I've talked to people that go way further on this, where they're like, "The gut microbiome is the cause of ADHD," and I'm like, "Mm, let's not go there." That's, I can see how you got there, and I can see some of the thought patterns that would work to make that jump, like, fairly logical.

But I'm also like, this is a very genetic thing.

This is something where there are people that don't have IBS that have ADHD, so that connection does not work that well.

So this mu- gut microbiome, though, then is like, oh yeah, if we have these issues with the microbiome, that can then also exacerbate ADHD symptoms, so you might see worse ADHD symptoms.

'Cause like, yeah, hey, if I'm feeling awful, I'm going to have worse ADHD symptoms, 'cause I, my concentration can only go so many places, and if it's constantly on my stomach, that's going to be-

[laughs]

... you don't know what you want to eat and you're just, "I need to eat something." And I think that's, like, an really important conversation here, too, with, like, ADHD, is like, we can often come to this idea that we need to be doing all these things to improve our health, and oftentimes it was like, let's slow down and, like, make sure we're taking care of the basics and not taking care of the advanced stuff.

So how did they measure bullying? Because they had a whole conversation about the understanding of it, the most cited definition of it, pattern of systematic negative actions by one or more students.

Yeah, so they used this, everything was done through questionnaires for this.

And this was the, this one they used the adolescent peer relations instrument, the APRI.

And it's this self-reported thing of 36 items with like a one to six scale of like, hey, does this never happen? Does this happen every day? And it measures bullying behaviors in physical, verbal, and social ways.

And then also, are you being targeted these certain ways as well? And so that is like 36 things.

How often do these students feel that they're being bullied? And I think this is also an important aspect to understand for bullying too, is that the impacts of bullying don't really matter if someone is doing it on purpose.

It matters how the person is perceiving it happening.

Like, do we have any advice or direction for people besides that book, which I think is a really great one?

And the fact that could be affecting how much you're hyper-focusing and what you're hyper-focusing on.

Yeah, absolutely.

Because, well, and then it makes you know, what I was getting when I was like stepping back and thinking about it was, so is this hyper-focus kind of a precursor in terms to what else is going on? Is losing being bad at tracking my time because I'm too focused on something else and I can't control where my focus is going? And like, that's like an easy gimme there.

But the...

But the same could be go for, Hey, I'm disorganized because I'm not, I'm hyper focused on one thing.

I'm not focused enough on where I'm putting things down and putting things away.

So it's never going into the short-term memory.

It can be very frustrating.