As a genetic epidemiologist with ADHD, I find this article rather misleading. Foremost, the authors appear to equate association with causation. Demonstrating causation requires a lot more work than demonstrating an associaiton between genetic variant X and disease Y (or disease correlate). No such work was done here. Secondly, did the authors actually measure ADHD in the tribesmen? More likely they evaluated numerous biologic traits that could be correlates of ADHD and choose to highlight those that were statistically compatible with their hypothesis. Ultimately, I am concerned what research like this communicates about complex chronic diseases to those outside our small community - a sort of deterministic notion that completely negates the roles of other environmental factors and/or other genetic variants.

Classic_girl:

Absolutely! This article is misleading and Saletan's tone was too cavalier, if not glib. As did you, I can say this from the perspective of a research psychologist with ADHD-Inattentive type. ADHD is too important for a science reporter to be flippant with the most shallow of explanation and critique. I benefit greatly from a lot of Saletan's reporting, but this one is off the mark.

For the benefit of those who may read your post: ADHD is well understood in terms of its effects on those who have it, and those with whom they live and work. The causes are minimally understood, to say nothing of the neurological substrate through which it operates. Fortunately, we do have treatments that are effective.

ADHD is not a disease, but it is terribly consequential to those who have to deal with it, directly or indirectly.

How do you explain to your calc prof why, if you are two steps ahead in class when they introduce new material, you just got an F on the test because you can not sit for even 1 hour a day to do problems. Meanwhile some kid who can slog through the problems for hours without understanding gets an A, then asks in class if it is true that Newton and Einstein hated each other. It's humiliating.

Luckily, contrary to the anti-med propaganda, the meds that allow me to study for 6-8 hours straight do not remove the described positive traits. Yet some parents would rather their children suffer than take "drugs", guess what your kid suffers enough they will turn to drugs.

We need to separate the traits into functional and non-functional, i.e. being able to pay attention to multiple things, as opposed to not being able to pay attention to what you need to, like starting a math problem and finding yourself in another room two hours later the problem unfinished.

If by "meds" you're talking about Adderall, a form of methamphetamine, I'll agree with you to a point. When I take the stuff, I can hyper-focus, completing vastly more writing and other mental activities than I could otherwise. I don't even notice a decrease in quality; conversely, with a more focused attention span, my writing seems more focused, even iin the first draft, than otherwise.

Like anything else, medication comes with a cost. The loss of bodily fluids reduces my libido to near-asexuality. I couldn't get a "rise" at a strip bar even with a professional lap dance! That had never happened before. The work I have at hand is often superseded by other, less consequential work which my judgment-impaired psyche sees as necessary before the main task is completed. I usually do complete the main task, however, but not without loss of family and/or sleep time.

It also sped the deterioration of my gums, a known side-effect of meth.