A Risk Factor for Severe Mental Health Conditions is ADHD

According to a study published in the open-access journal BMJ Mental Health, hyperactivity disorder, commonly known as ADHD, is a separate risk factor for a number of common and significant mental health issues.

According to the findings, it is linked to significant depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, anorexia nervosa, and suicide attempts. The researchers advise health practitioners to be vigilant in an effort to prevent these diseases from developing in the future.

ADHD is a neurodevelopmental illness that affects children and adolescents and, in up to two-thirds of instances, continues into adulthood. Its prevalence is thought to be 2.5% in adults and 5% in children/teens globally.

In observational studies, ADHD has been related to mood and anxiety problems, although it is unclear whether this causal relationship exists with other mental illnesses.

Mendelian randomization, a strategy that employs genetic variants as proxies for a certain risk factor—in this case, ADHD—to get genetic evidence in favor of a given outcome—in this study, seven common mental health issues—was employed by the researchers to attempt and find out.

These included post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), schizophrenia, significant clinical depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorders, anorexia nervosa, and at least one attempt at suicide.

The method was initially employed by the researchers to identify any potential connections between ADHD and the seven illnesses. They next utilized it to determine whether diseases connected to ADHD might be to blame for the effects found in the initial investigation. In order to determine the direct and indirect impacts of ADHD, they finally combined the data from both analyses.

The analysis’s findings revealed no proof of a connection between ADHD and bipolar disorder, anxiety, or schizophrenia.

However, there was evidence for a causal relationship between a higher risk of anorexia nervosa (28%), as well as evidence that significant clinical depression both caused (9% heightened risk) and was caused by (76% heightened risk) ADHD.

Additionally, a direct causal connection with both suicide attempt (30% heightened risk) and PTSD (18% heightened risk) emerged after controlling for the impact of major depression.

While Mendelian randomization is less susceptible than observational studies to the influence of unmeasured factors and reverse causality—where ADHD could be a result of the other diseases evaluated rather than the other way around—it is not without its drawbacks, warn the researchers.

They point out that it might be challenging to identify the appropriate causal impact because, for instance, a single gene may be linked to a variety of features. The results might not be applicable to people of other ethnicities because only those with European ancestry were included.

The researchers come to the conclusion that clinicians should be more proactive when treating patients with ADHD as a result of their findings.

“This study opens new insights into the paths between psychiatric disorders. Thus, in clinical practice, patients with ADHD should be monitored for the psychiatric disorders included in this study and preventive measures should be initiated if necessary,” they write.