Tag: ADD

Study: Childhood ADHD tied to obesity decades later

I can vouch for this study, I have ADHD and I am under a Doctor’s care for it and Yes, I do take medication for it. I also did have weight gain, when I started into my early teens.

The Story:

Boys who are diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in elementary school are more likely to grow up to be obese adults than those who don’t have the condition, a new study suggests.

Researchers surveyed two groups of 41-year-old men and found those with a history of ADHD were 19 pounds heavier than their non-ADHD counterparts, on average.

The findings are consistent with past studies that looked only at children or only at adults and linked ADHD to extra pounds, researchers said.

“There’s definitely been enough research now where it does appear there is some connection between these two disorders,” said Sherry Pagoto, who has studied ADHD and obesity at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester.

via Childhood ADHD tied to obesity decades later | Fox News.

I always did suspect that this was the case for my weight gain, although, I figured it was due to my family relation as my parents are both overweight and I figured I was just taking after my parents. It is interesting how ADHD might have played into all of that.  I also should mention that my ADHD is a bit better than it used to be, when I was around 19, I had a very short temper, and I did not have the patience to do anything that involved any sort concentration. Nowadays, I am able to keep my cool and finish a project that I start without any sort of problems. My temperament is a bit better as well, I have a long fuse, but I still am known to lose my cool at times.

Here as of late however, I had noticed that the littlest thing was setting me off and when it did, I felt like a pressure cook that was about to blow its top!  I recently found out why, I have high blood pressure and most likely diabetes. So, I am going to the doctor here on Wednesday and am going to let them tell me what I already know; that I am diabetic and have high blood pressure and need to start taking pills to treat it. Diet helps too, I already know that; but I much rather let modern medicine do its job. I will not do any of that alternative medicine stuff; I have seen people do that, and I happen to know that stuff is a one-way ticket to the graveyard.

There is a lesson to be learned here

I will get to that in a second, but first the story:

His mother, Nancy, collected them. She showed them off to her landscaper.

“Guns were her hobby,” said Dan Holmes, the landscaper of Nancy Lanza’s sprawling yard here on the edge of town. “She told me she liked the single-mindedness of shooting.”

Holmes said she even spoke of taking her son to the firing range to practice his aim.

As details of her son’s troubled life trickled out Saturday, the day after he gunned down 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School and his mother at their home, the portrait emerging is one of a detached killer who knew his way around a trigger and of a family that feared outsiders in the home.

Holmes said Nancy Lanza, who was divorced and had reportedly worked in finance, never invited him inside. She would pay him in the yard. The landscaper never laid eyes on Adam Lanza, a skinny, withdrawn, socially awkward 20-year-old who excelled in academics but apparently not in forming deep friendships.

“I would ring the bell on the front door, and she would come out the side and meet me,” he said. “It was a little weird. It’s stranger now thinking back on what happened.”

When she wanted to show Holmes an antique rifle, she proudly brought the gun — in its case — outside. How many guns Nancy had is not clear, though authorities say several were registered to her, including the ones used in the massacre.

Her former sister-in law, Marsha Lanza, told the Chicago Sun-Times outside her home in Crystal Lake, Ill., that Nancy Lanza wanted guns for protection. “She prepared for the worst,” Marsha Lanza told the newspaper. “I didn’t know that they [the guns] would be used on her.”

via Newtown school shooter’s mother collected guns, was loath to let people inside home – The Washington Post.

The lesson is this; if you have a mentally ill relative, do not have guns where that said person can get to them. Obviously this guy had issues and obviously he had access to the guns; and that was a problem. One thing I will say, someone posted a interesting piece about her son, and she was unsure if he had ADD or not.

Well, I can tell you from personal experience; that is not ADD or ADHD. I have ADHD and I take medication for it and I have never done anything like what she wrote at all. If I did, my Mother would have given me over to the state a long time ago. Honestly, it sounded like he had some sort of serious temper related illness, not mention being a bit rebellious. I am not expert in that area, but I can tell you that I never did any of that sort of nonsense.

ADHD is simply a learning disorder that affect different people different ways. With me, it is  Math. I can do English rather well, diagramming sentences rather well — well, I used to, when I was a kid anyhow! — but, math? I sucked at it. I could plus and minus with the best of them. But when it came time for the times tables and division, I just could not grasp that at all. Because of this, I had to quit school when I turned 18. I just could not go any further.

The ADHD runs in my family, I get it from my Father’s side of the family. Like I said, it affects different people different ways. My Dad, his brother and my cousin all cannot read very well at all. This is how the ADHD affected them. My cousin, who does have ADHD, but does not take medication for it, is just opposite of me. He does not read very well, but Math? He is excellent at it. He also, unlike me, talks a mile a minute. Yackity-yack-yack-yack. I love him to death, but man can he talk your ear off. He also tends to be a bit bossy. I do the same thing. I think that’s the ADHD, or just a personality trait of the family.

Again, it is a tragic thing that these kids and adults died in Newtown, CT. But the only person to blame in this situation, is the shooters Mom. She should have never had that kind of firepower in the house with a son in this sort of shape. It was negligence on her person and no one else’s. Also too, to all the liberals who are going to read this. The guns were legally purchased by the shooters Mother. She is the one to blame here, not the guns themselves. No amount of law could have stopped this from happening at all.  It is simple-minded to think otherwise.

Others: The Moderate Voice,The Atlantic Online, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, Addicting Info, The Other McCain, Mashable!, Towleroad News #gay,Feministe and Booman Tribune (Via Memeorandum – Twice!)