Im Jahr 2023 hatten schätzungsweise 15,5 Millionen Erwachsene in den USA eine ADHS-Diagnose, etwa die Hälfte von ihnen erhielt ihre Diagnose im Erwachsenenalter. Ungefähr ein Drittel der Erwachsenen mit ADHS nehmen stimulierende Medikamente ein; 71,5 % hatten Schwierigkeiten, ihr Rezept einzulösen, weil das Medikament nicht verfügbar war.

I’ve linked to the primary source, the journal article, in the post above. In this comment, for those interested, here’s the abstract:

Summary

What is already known about this topic?

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a common childhood disorder that can continue into adulthood, but there is limited information about diagnosis and treatment in adults.

What is added by this report?

In 2023, an estimated 15.5 million U.S. adults had an ADHD diagnosis, approximately one half of whom received their diagnosis in adulthood. Approximately one third of adults with ADHD take stimulant medication; 71.5% had difficulty filling their prescription because the medication was unavailable. Approximately one half of adults with ADHD have ever used telehealth for ADHD services.

What are the implications for public health practice?

ADHD affects many adults. Information on diagnosis and treatment helps the development of clinical care guidelines and regulatory decision-making around medication shortages and telehealth for ADHD.

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A lot of them are faking the funk.

The increasing amount of ADHD diagnoses in adulthood especially is a really hot topic, lots of people are very sensitive over it and I think it’s really complex, and there’s not much in the way of data besides top level figures. My personal thoughts are that the increasing number of ADHD diagnoses probably reflects many different changes in people’s executive function:

* increased expectations of executive function in terms of what is expected as normal

* increased societal pressure and need to succeed which flags existing poor executive function

* …and also increases stress which is generally deteriorates executive function

* increased prevalence of dissociative conditions and tendencies from increased use of psychoactive drugs, whether it’s psychiatric ones like antidepressants or cannabis, as well as from trauma, stress and anxiety issues. Technically these should rule out an ADHD diagnosis but they more often than not they do not.

* increased media and social media messaging around the subject which increases the medicalisation of the above problems and which is increasing people going to get diagnosed

So, this brings us back to questioning how many people getting an ADHD diagnosis are actually getting it due to a “development disorder” like described in DSM-V. There are some people that have massive executive problem issues and all the attention issues at birth and will do so regardless of environment, and there are people growing up being raised by an iPad and all those horrible manipulative cartoons on YouTube, and there are adults where everything has collapsed due to reasons described above. I think all of these are getting diagnoses and there’s going to be no separating them.

Amphetamines and methylphenidate don’t care why you have executive function issues, they will provide benefit or not depending on personal response regardless of “cause”. They will potentially cause long term health issues regardless of any “underlying disorder” existing or not. I don’t see any judgemental aspect in this, right or wrong. Life is horrible if you can’t organise your mind. At the same time, I do also think something is going wrong in society and root causes are definitely not being addressed. I do worry about the harms of the increased and indiscriminate use of all psychiatric drugs in society in general, I’m not sure there’s anything special about these two categories besides being stimulants.

Isn’t the DEA throttling supply the way they started doing with opiates? Didn’t see that mentioned in the article, but that’s what we were told when having issues getting our son’s meds.