Being a child is all about having fun and learning; only for some this might be strange if they happen to have a particular set of conditions. Childhood afflictions are often a tragedy, especially when they have effects late into adulthood. According to a new study from the Mayo Clinic, researchers found a link between childhood ADHD and female obesity.
The study linking ADHD and obesity
Performed by Dr. Seema Kumar from the Mayo Clinic, the study links developing ADHD as a child with an increased risk of developing obesity as an adult, but only for female children with the disorder.
The fact that the study is observational makes a cause-effect relationship very hard to determine, but the link is obviously there. Something else may be responsible for both, a remnant of the ADHD may influence the girl’s eating habits in the future, or there could be an entirely different factor linking the two.
Only girls seemed to suffer from the association, regardless if they undergo ADHD stimulant therapy or not. This might have something to do with the different way the disorder behaves in girls, but the doctors can’t yet be certain.
For the study, the team of researchers led by Dr. Kumar looked at 336 boys and girls diagnosed with ADHD, as well as at 665 same age boys and girls not diagnosed with the disorder. They were followed from 1976 to 2010, while being treated by the Mayo Clinic.
Sadly, the results spoke for themselves, as girls diagnosed with the disorder turned out to be more than twice as likely to become obese in their adulthoods as girls without the disease. No links were found for boys with ADHD.
ADHD in females
The attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder tends to act quite differently in girls. Instead of being more hyperactive, like boys tend to be when suffering from the affliction, girls tend to be more easily distracted and to have issues with depression.
We have known for this for quite some time, as even in 2012 a study showed the difference between symptoms for the two sexes, and in 2015 a very disconcerting study showed the differences in diagnosis rates.
However, most doctors keep ignoring all of the differences, and still not properly diagnosing girls with ADHD. This is a very bad thing, since girls should be counseled regarding their ADHD symptoms because they tend to have horrendously negative outcomes compared to boys with the same disorder.
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