ADHD risk is linked to many different genetic variants
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Why does it feel like this is fuzzy science?
We barely (if at all) have a reliable way of establishing who has ADHD. (If you're curious: https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/adhd/diagnosis.html )
This research seems to add a second layer without establishing a solid foundation first.
We barely (if at all) have a reliable way of establishing who has ADHD. (If you're curious: https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/adhd/diagnosis.html )
This research seems to add a second layer without establishing a solid foundation first.
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I'm pretty sure you forfeited all rights to your data when you sent in your sample. They hopefully removed any PII, but in today's day and age, it's silly to assume that.
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Boy, I'm not looking forward to all the clickbait articles drawing comical inaccurate conclusions from this work. The fact that the conclusion was basically this is a good first step is not enough "meat" for articles in other publications. So they will cook up their own :/
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things like this are exactly why i havent bought one of those kits yet.
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Hopefully this kind of study will help reduce incorrect diagnoses of ADHD, and the pill fever for so many children in school while getting the right kids the correct ADHD meds.
How long until you guys think this is going to mature to the point of nearly exact diagnoses with screening, and more personalized healthcare?
How long until you guys think this is going to mature to the point of nearly exact diagnoses with screening, and more personalized healthcare?
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I'm of two minds as to the similarities between schizophrenia and aww what a cute squirrel....
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I'm not apposed to a global database to be used for medical advancements, but there's no way to lock it down. At some point, all of this data may be consolidated and used... but the people are going to have to accept that there is no privacy in this day and age.
When that time comes, expect more spam and more people telling you what you really want in your life. =)
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Based on my read, the foundations are there, but they don't know exactly how the building is put together. After all, these markers are different from "normal" and similar to one another, even if they don't all appear to be the same. They occur in the same general places, though. That suggests a genetic link to the trait.
DIRECT EVIDENCE isn't there, though. It's like saying that light-skinned people sunburn easily. It's implied, but not always the case. And from what I'm reading, there are variations in the expression of ADHD as well, so the link isn't firm.
The bottom line is that there's something there that's worth exploring because there's a correlation between the genetic markers of ADHD folks that is different from those who don't have the disorder. I think that's not an unfounded conclusion. And from what I read, they really don't try to make a definitive causation case here. It's a new clue to explore.
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I didn't think this article applied to me so I stopped reading after the first paragraph.
Anyway, anyone else like bunnies?
Anyway, anyone else like bunnies?
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Biology is an inherently fuzzy science. You get used to it after a while...in fact, that's a lot of the fun.
Put several zillion atoms in a box, shake it for quite a long while, then open it...and out pops a kangaroo. Go figger.
EDIT: typo; trillion -> zillion
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Most all mental illnesses have extremely subjective diagnostic criteria and there's huge amounts of overlap. There's several reasons for this, but it's largely down to how the same biological condition can express in behavior many different ways and vice versa in that the same behavior might have different biological causes in different people.
Or, for even more fun, the same biological cause but the other symptoms unrelated to a purely biological cause push the diagnosis one way or the other.
Or, you can have multiple comorbid diagnosis.
It's why I was diagnosed as ADHD as a small child and then bipolar disorder when I got older and the depression showed more. (I showed bipolar behavior back to my toddler years and it was likely triggered that early due to steroids given as a premature infant.)
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Well at this point ADHD is a diagnosis based only on symptoms and assessment of those systems is both by the medical professional and others as it has to be over an extended period of time and in different settings so the diagnosis may be made based on second or third hand reports of behavior. They even have a disclaimer about
so in a way it is medically defined as the grab bag diagnosis for poor/abnormal behavior that isn't explained by other diagnosis.
As long as it is a diagnosis based on symptoms there can't ever be a simple blood/genetic/what ever test that gives you an accurate fool proof result.
https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/adhd/diagnosis.html
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I'm in agreement here. I believe for the most part, any science is good science. I took exception to the sentence, "20,000 people with ADHD, comparing them to a control group of 35,000 people without an ADHD diagnosis."
A control group implies a foundation, which is skewed beyond belief since an ADHD diagnosis is based on observation alone.
Again.. I love that there is research going into this, I just think they are doing science on contaminated evidence. Who knows, maybe this research will narrow it down enough to return back to the basics with a clearer picture of what the problem is (if any).
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As somebody who has actually bought and used one of the 23andme kits and carefully read through all the privacy documentation and options, the company is actually exceedingly clear about when, where, how and why they use your genetic data, and in most cases you're prompted when signing up as to exactly how much your data will be involved in large-scale studies like this.
They even give you the choice of retaining or destroying your saliva sample after they run the analysis on it, depending on if you want the potential option to re-running a newer version of the analysis chip against your sample if it becomes available in the future.23andme":3r9f3m4a said:
From what I've seen the company very clearly understands the privacy concerns surrounding genetic data, and makes every effort to fully inform its users of how their data will be used, to provide them meaningful choices about the data use, and to safeguard that information to the extent possible.
There is, of course, no guarantees they don't get compromised in some way or that they're blatantly lying, but if so they're doing a mighty convincing job of it. Providing general purpose genetic testing like this wouldn't be viable at anything close to their price point if they weren't getting extra use out of at least some of the data (for those who opt in), and meaningful scientific results have come out of the incredibly large datasets they've been able to assemble as a result of the service. Where previously a genetic study would have been ambitious to include a thousand participants, analyses like the one in the article can now be run against hundreds of thousands of samples to pull much smaller effects out of the data.
Your own personal choices will vary, of course, but for me the benefits of learning about my own genetics, potential risk factors and conditions, combined with contributing to actual valuable scientific research outweighed the potential privacy risks from a company that, from all appearances, seems to take this very seriously.
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They are nothing at all alike...
Schizophrenia involves a psychosis with delusions and often hallucination along with an inability to perform basic life functions, sometime to the point of catatonia. ADHD is the brain requiring constant stimulation to the point of having the inability to control one's action in order to gain that stimulation.
Their medications are also nothing alike with antipsychotics affecting dopamine, serotonin and norepinephrine with sedation as a common side effect. ADHD medication are stimulants related to amphetamines (one popular drug actually is amphetamine) which has a calming effect on the ADHD brain by chemically providing the stimulation (but will cause agitation in those who don't need it).
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It would be nice if there was some independent auditing done to verify that the data is safe. And not just for genetics. I'd like to know if my bank is following best practices as well.
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Maybe I misread, but I thought the article was saying that the genetic abnormalities similar to those in schizophrenia, not that the conditions were similar.
Also, amphetamines also affect dopamine, serotonin and norepinephrine... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amphetamine#Pharmacology
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Well, I've read that the auditory hallucinations that some people with schizophrenia endure may actually just be their own subvocalization and that they're not aware of it.
A lack of being able to pay attention could have something to do with this.
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Is there a difference between being able to focus and being able to pay attention?
I've driven for 3 decades and never been in an accident and don't have any tickets on my record.
But...
I also can't read a page in a book without having to go back and re-read it 3 times because my mind wanders off after a word kicks a random thought in my face.
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sigmasirrus
Ars Scholae Palatinae
Wait, how did they know who had or didn't have ADHD in the 23andMe dataset if it's anonymized?
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John Doe = Client 1877263
Jane Doe = Client 776256
Below is what's supposed to be sent to researchers:
Data for 1877263 = a,t,b,e,c,
Data for 776256 = b,e,f,t,c
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The link you cite lists 9 specific examples of inattention and 9 criteria for hyperactivity and impulsivity. It notes that a diagnosis of ADHD / ADD is only valid if four overarching conditions are *also* met.
I am not claiming that the way we diagnose ADHD is perfect or that we have perfected our understanding of the condition, but the linked article establishes clear criteria for determining these points.
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I do not know if scientists define focus and attention differently and so I won't speculate on that point. Conversationally, the two are broadly treated as synonyms.
With that said, the idea that people with ADD cannot focus, ever, is incorrect. What happens with ADD patients, in many cases, is that you'll see instances of hyperfocus in which a person is perfectly capable of paying active, engaged attention to a particular set of things, yet has enormous difficulty bringing that same capability to bear on other topics. This is sometimes baffling to parents, particularly if you have (for example), a non-hyperactive child who excels in literature and is capable of devouring books by the dozen from the library, but can't seem to pass a math test to save their life.
People with ADD also tend to score lower on IQ tests than they actually should, occasionally dramatically so. By "should," in this case, I mean it's possible to see scores that clearly *don't* reflect the individual's overall intelligence.
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I was with you until you said, "clear criteria". It's not, and it's why there are so many misdiagnosed people running around on meds they don't need.
I firmly believe that because the diagnosis is so broad, the majority of the folks on meds don't actually need to be on them. This goes way beyond Not Perfect and because of such a large margin of error exists, I'm making the claim that any research based on it is without a solid foundation.
The research helps, and for what it's worth, it may be the only direction we can go. My hope is that if something comes from this, we take a huge step back and evaluate what ADHD really was.
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Attention deficit disorder (with or without the "hyperactivity" part) is often characterized by inability to focus in some situations, along with hyper-focus in other situations.
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A psychiatrist acquaintance of mine described this as "they can stay focused on things that interest them". Based on that, and watching a few ADD people I know, it seems like the basic defect is in a brain function which maps "degree of interest" input onto "stay focused on this topic" output. That may not seem like much of a distinction, but the general idea that they cannot stay focused on anything for long does not fit their observed behavior.
Unfortunately when "doing your work" or "remembering the car keys" is in the wrong part of that curve for an individual it can have pretty serious repercussions in their everyday life.
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I find this amusing. An entire article on ADHD that doesn’t actually say what ADHD is or stands for.
Dear Cathleen, ADHD much?
Dear Cathleen, ADHD much?
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That is pretty much what it's like.
You learn very quickly that repetition is key to blending in.
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When I was in grade school somebody decided that our class should tutor the class with all the ADHD kids. It didn't work very well because a lot of them couldn't sit still for love or money and it only went on for a couple of weeks. One thing we noticed was that some of those kids had incredibly good hearing. They would jump up and run to the window babbling about fire trucks or police cars and sure enough, a minute or two later, one would come by. My hearing was perfectly normal (at the time) and I never heard those vehicles until at least 30-40s after they did. I imagine that such slight sounds constantly entering one's thoughts must be awfully distracting.
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Sounds, images, lighting...everything... EVERYTHING triggers a memory, a thought, an emotion.
I personally do not think there is anything wrong with someone who has ADHD/ADD or whatever folks want to change the name to this year. I think society is a round hole and folks with ADD are just square pegs. Give them a square hole and they end up being some of the most productive members in a society.
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Last Black Friday I broke down and got the kit 1/2 off. I gave them a pseudonym and a secure email.
I Provided them no background information and the the last name different from my heritage.
They've provided several updated health and heritage analysis.
Their allgorithm must have improved because the last update identified my mother's background at highest confidence (5 out of 5). My mom with was from a small country (e.g. Norway) they nailed it.all her relatives were from this country and they identified me as being 50%
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