54: Is It Really ADHD? – The Most Overlooked Root Causes of Kids’ Focus Struggles with Dr. Aaron Hartman

You know what medications are currently FDA approved to treat ADD adhd? One's Clonidine, you know, as a patch, which is interesting because Klenidine is an old school blood pressure medication, actually blocks adrenaline, noradrenaline on your periphery, doesn't get into the central nervous system and when the result is it lowers your blood pressure. Well, for some reason this actually treats ADD in kids. Adhd. ADD is not what you think. It might not actually be a disease and the treatments we're using actually may not be working. This basically is a summary of a recent New York Times article that was published, had five major points about ADD adhd. And I want to talk about that briefly because it's a big deal because lots of our kids currently are getting medications for something that actually might not be a diagnosis. So what's the point of this? Review the information, review the literature, using my clinical experience to help you all better formulate things you should be doing hopefully to help with your kids. This is a part of our mini podcast series we do at the end of every week we talk about a topic people have brought up to me, try and help you have deeper insights into these topics. If this is helpful, like subscribe share below. Also if you have questions about it, please post them on social media below where we can answer them and get this to you. So I want to review this and this is really important because this information coming out as of I think April 15th when I'm doing this, 2025 was when this article in the New York Times was published. And as we walk through it, you'll find out that this new information is actually not new information, it's stuff that's actually been known for a while. The first thing is that ADHD actually is not a disease, it's a condition. So what I mean by that, what is this article, what does it mean by that? It means that you know, you can lots of different things can cause ADD and adhd. Lack of sleep in kids, sleep apnea, certain medications can actually cause symptoms of add. Adhd. Mental health conditions, anxiety and depression in kids can look like this. So one of the points of the New York Times summary article is that our understanding of ADDHD is that it's currently actually could be a lot of different things and this is something we've known. I'll notice in my training back 1996, 1998, that when you see a kid with this diagnosis, quote unquote of ADD adhd, the very first thing you're supposed to do is rule out visual issues if you have visual tracking problems, it can look like ADD ADHD in a kid, rule out depression, anxiety, rule out other things like learning difficulties, processing things. If a kid has dyslexia, a kid has a processing issue, then all of a sudden it can look like they're intent of they have focusing issues when it's actually something else going on. This is not new. It's something we've known for a long time. But what's happened in our current society and culture of the focus on diagnosing things. We've basically taken something that's a compilation, a syndrome, given it a diagnosis, an ICD10 code, a DSM5 criteria, and the result is medicating lots of kids. But the point was of this New York Times article is that the symptoms of ADD ADHD vary. They come and go based on circumstances, situations, and different treatments are used for them. So it's not actually a quote unquote disease, like you have pneumonia, take an antibiotic, you have heart failure, you do this. It's a compilation of things. Again, that's all deformation. But I think we should remind ourselves that it's actually a syndrome, which means it's a compilation of symptoms that suggests something else is going on or we've just medically in our society decided to ignore the something else and just treat the symptoms. So the question becomes, have the treatments been working? That's the next top five things to reconsider. Another part of the article, this is a compilation of them, looking at research and studies and putting it in one place is that medication effects are temporary. Well, that's kind of the way the medications are supposed to work, because the medications we typically work kids horrible anger can actually give kids anxiety, but also insomnia and if they don't stop working. So the medication effects for the treatment are temporary. This might seem kind of, you know, anecdotal or silly, but the point is when you treat a disease, you want the treatment to last. If you're treating symptoms or a syndrome, then the question is, what are you really truly treating? Because if the treatment is temporary, then we're not really getting to the root cause. And I think that's just the point is that even the way our current healthcare system treats kids with adhd, we kind of recognize that we're not really treating the root cause, we're treating, you know, other kind of things. Now, one thing to note down this pathway, medications. You know what medications are currently FDA approved to treat ADD adhd? One's Clonidine, you know, as a patch which is interesting because Kleinine is an old school blood pressure medication, actually blocks adrenaline. Noradrenaline on your periphery doesn't get into the central nervous system, and when the result is it lowers your blood pressure. Well, for some reason this actually treats ADD in kids. Well, it's interesting because I also use it with patients with POTS or dysautonomia. Some of patients who actually have night terrors. You'll use Prazosin, which is another type of Alpha 1 Agonist, to actually treat night terrors. So what's probably happening with these kids is they actually have an underlying dysautonomia or imbalance in the nervous system that's being treated by clonidine. That's interesting. So let's get to the root. They all cause that and figure that out. Asking a bit much there. Another medication FDA approved to treat ADD ADHD is Vierin. What is Vierian? It's a prescription DHA or Omega 3. So maybe. Wait a second, are we treating. Do these kids have an omega 3 deficiency that we're treating with this prescription drug? And that goes down to a whole other. I remember when I was on a mission trip in Guatemala and we were actually working on a school and getting a school for kids. Da, da, da. These are kids that basically didn't have access to education and they weren't doing really well. They're doing horrible in school. Well, come to find out the kids were coming to school, didn't have food, where they had like some coffee, that's all they had eaten, usually that they wouldn't eat like, well, once a day. And all of a sudden part of this school education program with this mission project was the kids need to get some food, start the day with some food. The idea that what you eat and put in your body can affect mental function, cognition, attention, ability to learn is not a new concept. But there's drugs for it, which is kind of interesting.

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There's other medications you can use. Second line drugs like SSRIs, amoxetine, which is a prescription, not a prescription actually FDA approved for ADD ADHD is a mixed epinephrine norepinephrine medication approved for ADD ADHD. So are we treating underlying anxiety or depression? These medications also have lower cortisol a little bit and are anti inflammatory. So again, you know, interesting. What is the cause of ADD adhd? And then the medications, the standard ones that most kids respond to, which are your stimulants, Adderall, et cetera, which only worked for maybe half the day, they have a lot of side effects. But the point is just the FDA approved medications tells us right there something else is under the hood. And this article kind of addresses that. But then all these side effects from medications, you know, when you use, use the stimulants you can have, you can actually suppress the growth of kids, they can become stunted or you suppress their appetite. Strangely enough, Vyvanse, one of the medications for treating adhd, is also approved to treat binge eating disorder. There's something else under the hood. Don't want to go into that because that's another conversation. The point is that the medications have side effects and other things going on. There's also some interesting data that using long term stimulants can increase your risk for cardiovascular disease. There's some older literature looking for people using really high doses for longer periods of time. A question of Parkinson's or neurological issues. And we give this stuff out like candy as if it has no side effects. Again, this is a April 2025 New York Times summary article talking about these things. And the last part they want to talk about is the diagnosis and treatment are becoming under scrutiny. Again, I kind of, that's not really a new concept, but it's becoming new. Like maybe ADD ADHD is something else. Well, just thinking about treatment options, thinking about all the things you have to rule out. You know there's an interesting book, the Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt, I believe it's spelled H A I G H D T and it talks about anxiety, it talks about learning, it talks about kids, brain Development and actually talks a lot about social media, screens, technology. That's something we're actually dealing with. Our son right now in his school for kids with special needs. They actually put screens in front of all the kids. And you kind of wonder why the kids get crazy and squirrely when they get home, when they take their stimulant. It's interesting some of the behavior of kids with screens that you experience. All the parents at home, take your three or four year old, give them a screen or iPad, play video games, whatever, for three or four hours, take it away. What behaviors do you notice? You'll see a lot of withdrawal behaviors, emotional regulation problems, outbursts of anger, crying, emotional discontent. And if you give them screens in the afternoon, you also see sleep disturbances. My son, this is anecdotal. If he gets screens a bunch, you take it away. He actually gets kind of depressed. That's kind of interesting. You know, what else might be going on with this diagnosis we call add, adhd. Are medications the best way to address it? Could this be partially environmental? Could this be partially food? I've already kind of briefly talked about, the answer is yes. And the point of the New York Times article, which is something we've been talking about in the functional medicine world for decades, is particularly with mental health issues, particularly in kids, look for the other things under the hood. Jumping right to medications may and many times not be the best treatment. And one thing that was interesting about the article that it brought out, but again, for clinicians working with these kids, it's common knowledge is that the medications primarily control behavior. So we're treating kids with stimulants just to control behavior. Won't go into that right now, but that's another, you know, can of worms right there. So hopefully this information was helpful. This is some new work. It's not new research, it's just new information coming to public consciousness. And I feel like over the next year or two, a lot of this is going to be happening. As we rethink about our food systems, that we rethink about medications, as we rethink about environmental toxins and chemicals, things that are commonly thought of routinely in the functional medicine world now are actually coming to public knowledge. So that could be helpful. But hopefully this becomes a discussion about what's best for our kids. Not what's best for, you know, simplicity, what's best behavior, but what's best for our kids to become good citizens, good persons, good humans, people. You want to actually be proud to be your kids when they're growing up. You know that I think that's we've lost sight of that with just controlling behavior. What are your thoughts about this? Please post them below if this information is helpful, like Share subscribe if you have a question or something you've read you'd like you'd like me to do one of these little 10 minute deep dives and drop it below and we'll put into the kitty and get to it if time permits. Take care and we'll talk to everybody soon.