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How To Find Real Research About ADD and ADHD

Have you ever wondered how to do your own ADD research and find good, reliable resources for ADHD research?

It’s actually easier than you think.

Real ADD Research Studies

A lot of ADD news, or new ADHD research studies come with a lot of hype when reported on by the media. That’s because it takes a flashy headline to get people to click, and flashy, doesn’t always mean accurate. Take the recent study promoted under headlines about people with ADD having smaller brains. That study, kind of, sort of, almost said that, but not really.

To sort through a lot of the fake ADD research and fake ADHD treatments, it helps to go right to the source. Unfortunately, much scientific research is hidden behind paywalls, or only accessible in dense, hard to find, medical and research journals.

That being said, all government funded scientific research (almost all of it, when it comes to ADHD and ADD) is cataloged, with a summary, on various government websites. Most often, you’ll find new ADD research and science on the National Institute of Health (NIH) website, the CDC website, or on the Medline Plus website. Any of these resources catalogs the real research, right from the source.

Unfortunately, the search function on these websites often leaves a lot to be desired. But, Google indexes all of these websites and does a nice job cataloging them. The key is to restrict your research to these sites in order to get a list of “good” ADHD research results.

The SITE Operator

You can go through the steps to setup your own custom Google search, but there is an easier way.

On the regular Google search website, you can add site: to any search to restrict the search to the specified website. For example, if you just wanted to search for ADHD tips on this website, you could do something like this:

adhd tips site:addessories.com

The site:addessories.com part tells Google to only return results from that specific website. So, if you wanted to only see results from the NIH website, you can just type site:nih.gov after your search terms.

Search All Government Websites Together

Unfortunately, not all ADHD data is cross-posted to all of the websites. If you want to know about St John’s Wort for ADD and ADHD, you’ll want to search Medline and NIH. Luckily, it doesn’t take any extra searches to search all of the relevant websites.

Since the .gov domain is actually restricted to government entities, you can get by with using the site operator with “gov” instead of being more specific. (Similarly, you can search only .edu websites by searching for edu with the site operator.)

adhd st johns wort site:gov

Searching like this gives you a normal Google search of terms, but eliminates all the phony ADHD treatment websites, and ADD con-artists, leaving just official government funded research.

You can take it one step further by using the Tools menu on the Google search page to bring up the time parameters and then choose something like “Past year” to only get the most recent ADD news and research.

Managing Your ADHD / ADD

Managing your ADD / ADHD is tricky enough without having to sift through old, disproven, or plain fake ADD news, research and information. So, use the gov searches to get the original documents, even if it is just a summary. That way you know if you are dealing with legitimate data, or just someone who wants to sell you a bunch of ADHD pills that may or may not help treat your ADD.

People With ADD Have Smaller Brains!

Written by ADDer 1 Comment

People with ADHD have smaller brains. Well, that’s what one headline said anyway.

As usual, the media has a hard time turning a large, scientific study into a click-inducing headline with much accuracy. I haven’t had a chance to read anything but various media accounts yet, but the study in question actually appears to show that in a large sample size there are differences in brain structures between children (especially) with ADD, versus kids without Attention Deficit Disorder, or if you prefer, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

What does that mean?

Well, for one thing, it does NOT mean that people with ADD have smaller brains.

What it does mean, is that some physical differences in the brain are detectable in large sample sizes.

What does THAT mean?

It means that there likely is a physical cause (or predisposition) of ADD / ADHD. In other words, it is not just all in your head, although we already knew that. It looks like there may be some connection between ADD and actual brain structure rather than just brain chemistry, and that is interesting.

That big sample sizes thing is not a throwaway, it’s important.

Researchers stated that they could NOT detect a difference in size among individuals, or even among small sample sets. It’s only when you take a LOT of brain scans of people with ADD and statistically average them out (more or less) that you can compare that number to a LOT of brain scans of people without ADD and certain sections in the brain appear smaller overall.

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What does THAT mean!

Well, that means that brain size is not a good way to diagnose or detect ADD because it won’t vary enough from normal for any one individual. It does however, mean that more study would be useful to see what else, if anything differs in an ADHD brain.

One other interesting feature of the study is that most of these size differences go away with age. In other words, a lot of kids out grow ADHD, which has also been known. However, what makes this interesting is the idea that it is simply a later brain growth that triggers ADD. Think of it like how different kids hit puberty at different ages.

Unfortunately, unlike being a “late bloomer” means being smaller for an extra year or two, this requires several years to catch up.

I’ll read the actual study when I can, and get back with some more details, but in the meantime, you can check out news about it online if you are interested.

Updates Coming Soon

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I know this site has been a bit neglected as of late, but don’t worry, big things are coming. I mean BIG things.

Look for an updated ADD Organizer

A new ADD Planner (online, paper and offline)

And more…

Plus, more ADHD news, ADD tips and tricks, and all the good stuff we share with each other.

Robin Williams ADD and Mental Health

Written by ADDer 1 Comment

I obviously did not know Robin Williams, and as far as I know he never publicly announced that he had been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, ADHD. However, I don’t think anyone who saw his crazy, topic to topic, anything can and will pop into his head, style would be surprised. As we’ve mentioned before, ADD and depression are comorbid indicators, meaning one often goes along with the other.

I have no intention of trying to build something off of Robin Williams’ tragic death, nor will I use it as an excuse to promote anything. However, I would like to take this opportunity to remind readers of several things.

First of all, mental illness is a real medical, biological thing. That is, it is not a defect of character. You don’t have a mental illness, like ADD, because of something you did, because of something you didn’t do, or because you just aren’t trying hard enough. Even someone in wonderful circumstances, with everything life can offer at their fingertips can be depressed, have ADHD, or any other mental issues. Just because science can’t put its finger on exactly what is wrong yet, doesn’t mean it won’t eventually. Current theories of depression revolve around the body not properly producing, or overly efficiently eliminating brain chemical such as serotonin. You can’t make your brain change how it deals with chemical reactions just by getting a better attitude, and you can’t make your brain less ADD by just focusing harder.

Second, there are always going to be people who can, or won’t, accept that ADHD is real, that depression is real, or that mental illness is real. That is irrelevant. Science doesn’t care if you believe in it or not, it just is. These people apply their own personal histories as the arbiter of facts for the entire human race. That’s not only crazy, it’s incredibly self-centered. Just because you haven’t experienced it, doesn’t mean it isn’t real. If it seems that ADD and depression, and other mental illnesses are more common these days it is only because medical science has learned so much in the past 30, 40, and 50 years. The human brain is hard to study because the experiments must be delicate and involve complex instruments. Even then, we are guessing that we are measuring the right things. The next 50 years will bring even more discoveries about the human brain. None of them will be less relevant just because nobody knew about them in 1955.

Third, and this is the most important. There is no need to be miserable in life. No matter what is going on with you, there are people who can help. Free counseling is available in many venues. You doctor can, and should, be a good starting off place, but if they aren’t willing to take your help to the next level, find someone who can. Talk with a friend, a stranger, a loved one, anyone. Just saying out loud that you are worried, sad, or scared can be a huge relief. You don’t have to take prescription medications, or change anything about yourself if you don’t want to, but just pretending there is nothing going on because of fear, loneliness, or doubt, is not the solution. If you are thinking of hurting yourself, please call the National Suicide Hotline first at 1-800-273-8255.

Enjoy your day. There are many out there who cannot. If you are one of them, make today the day that you seek out answers.