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June 13, 2025
The Spanish National Health Survey tracks health care outcomes through representative samples of the Spanish population.
A Spanish research team used survey data to explore the relationship between ADHD symptoms and dental and gum health in a representative sample of 3,402 Spanish children aged 6 to 14.
While previous studies have found associations between ADHD and poor dental health, they have not fully accounted for such important determinants of poor oral health as socioeconomic status, dental hygiene, or diet.
The team therefore adjusted for sociodemographic factors, lifestyle variables, and oral hygiene behaviors. More specifically, they adjusted for sex, age, social class, parental education, exposure to tobacco smoke, consumption of sweets, consumption of sugary drinks, use of asthma or allergy medication, adequate oral hygiene behavior of children, adherence to regular dental visits, parental adequate oral hygiene behavior, and parental adherence to regular dental visits.
With those adjustments, children with ADHD symptoms had over twice the incidence of dental caries (cavities) as their counterparts without ADHD symptoms.
Tooth extractions and dental restorations also occurred with over 40% greater frequency in children with ADHD symptoms.
Gum bleeding, a sign of gum disease, was more than 60% more common among children with ADHD symptoms than among their non-ADHD peers.
Importantly, excluding children with daily sugar consumption, which left 1,693 children in the sample, made no difference in the outcome for cavities.
Excluding children with poor oral hygiene habits, which left 1,657 children in the sample, those with ADHD had 2.5-fold more caries than their non-ADHD counterparts.
Excluding children of low social class, which left 1,827 children in the sample, those with ADHD had 2.6-fold more caries than their non-ADHD counterparts.
Turning to a different method to address potential confounding factors, the team used nearest-neighbor propensity score matching to create virtual controls. This compared 461 children with ADHD to 461 carefully matched children without ADHD.
This time, children with ADHD symptoms had just under twice the incidence of cavities as their counterparts without ADHD symptoms, but 60% more tooth extractions and about 75% more dental restorations. The difference in gum bleeding became nonsignificant.
Noting that “The increased risk of caries was maintained when the analyses were restricted to middle/high social class families and children with low sugar intake, good oral hygiene behaviors and regular dental visits,” the team concluded, “Children with ADHD symptoms in Spain had worse oral health indicators than those without ADHD symptoms. Our results suggest that the association of ADHD symptoms with caries was independent of socioeconomic level, cariogenic diet, frequency of toothbrushing, and dental visits.”
Lucía Fernández-Arce, José Manuel Martínez-Pérez, Miguel García-Villarino, María Del Mar Fernández-Álvarez, Rubén Martín-Payo, and Alberto Lana, “Symptoms of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Oral Health Problems among Children in Spain,” Caries Research (2025), 59(1):35-45, https://doi.org/10.1159/000541013.
In recent years, there has been growing interest in understanding the connection between our gut microbiota (the community of microorganisms in our digestive system) and various neurodevelopmental disorders like autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). A new study by Shunya Kurokawa and colleagues dives deeper into this area, comparing dietary diversity and gut microbial diversity among children with ASD, ADHD, their normally-developing siblings, and unrelated volunteer controls. Let's unpack what they found and what it means.
The Study Setup
The researchers recruited children aged 6-12 years diagnosed with ASD and/or ADHD, along with their non-ASD/ADHD siblings and the unrelated non-ASD/ADHD volunteers. The diagnoses were confirmed using standardized assessments like the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule-2 (ADOS-2). The study looked at gut microbial diversity using advanced DNA extraction and sequencing techniques, comparing alpha-diversity indices (which reflect the variety and evenness of microbial species within each gut sample) across different groups. They also assessed dietary diversity through standardized questionnaires.
Key Findings
The study included 98 subjects, comprising children with ASD, ADHD, both ASD and ADHD, their non-ASD/ADHD siblings, and the unrelated controls. Here's what they discovered:
Gut Microbial Diversity: The researchers found significant differences in alpha-diversity indices (like Chao 1 and Shannon index) among the groups. Notably, children with ASD had lower gut microbial diversity compared to unrelated neurotypical controls. This suggests disorder-specific differences in gut microbiota, particularly in children with ASD.
Dietary Diversity: Surprisingly, dietary diversity (assessed using the Shannon index) did not differ significantly among the groups. This finding implies that while gut microbial diversity showed disorder-specific patterns, diet diversity itself might not be the primary factor driving these differences.
What Does This Mean?
The study highlights intriguing connections between gut microbiota and neurodevelopmental disorders like ASD and ADHD. The lower gut microbial diversity observed in children with ASD points towards potential links between gut health and the pathophysiology of ASD. Understanding these connections is crucial for developing targeted therapeutic interventions.
Implications and Future Directions
This research underscores the importance of considering gut microbiota in the context of neurodevelopmental disorders. Moving forward, future studies should account for factors like co-occurrence of ASD and ADHD, as well as carefully control for dietary influences. This will help unravel the complex interplay between gut microbiota, diet, and neurodevelopmental disorders, paving the way for innovative treatments and interventions.
In summary, studies like this shed light on the intricate relationship between our gut health, diet, and brain function. By unraveling these connections, researchers are opening new avenues for understanding and potentially treating conditions like ASD and ADHD.
In December 2016, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warned “that repeated or lengthy use of general anesthetic and sedation drugs during surgeries or procedures in children younger than 3 years or in pregnant women during their third trimester may affect the development of children’s brains.” The FDA adds, “Health care professionals should balance the benefits of appropriate anesthesia against the potential risks, especially for procedures lasting longer than 3 hours or if multiple procedures are required in children under 3 years,” and “Studies in pregnant and young animals have shown that using these drugs for more than 3 hours caused widespread loss of brain nerve cells.”
That raises a concern that such exposure could lead to increased risk of psychiatric disorders, including ADHD.
Noting “There are inconsistent reports regarding the association between general anesthesia and adverse neurodevelopmental and behavioral disorders in children,” a South Korean study team conducted a nationwide population study to explore possible associations through the country’s single-payer health insurance database that covers roughly 97% of all residents.
The team looked at the cohort of all children born in Korea between 2008 and 2009, and followed them until December 31, 2017. They identified 93,717 children in this cohort who during surgery received general anesthesia with endotracheal intubation (a tube inserted down the trachea), and matched them with an equal number of children who were not exposed to general anesthesia.
The team matched the unexposed group with the exposed group by age, sex, birth weight, residential area at birth, and economic status.
They then assessed both groups for subsequent diagnoses of ADHD.
In general, children exposed to general anesthesia were found to have a 40% greater risk of subsequently being diagnosed with ADHD than their unexposed peers.
This effect was found to be dose dependent by several measures:
All three measures were highly significant.
The authors concluded, “exposure to general anesthesia with ETI [endotracheal intubation] in children is associated with an increased risk of ADHD … We must recognize the possible neurodevelopmental risk resulting from general anesthesia exposure, inform patients and parents regarding this risk, and emphasize the importance of close monitoring of mental health. However, the risk from anesthesia exposure is not superior to the importance of medical procedures. Specific research is needed for the development of safer anesthetic drugs and doses.”
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The U.S. government released a sweeping document titled The MAHA Report: Making Our Children Healthy Again, developed by the President’s “Make America Healthy Again” Commission. Chaired by public figures and physicians with ties to the current administration, the report presents a broad diagnosis of what it calls a national health crisis among children. It cites rising rates of obesity, diabetes, allergies, mental illness, neurodevelopmental disorders, and chronic disease as signs of a generation at risk.
The report's overarching goal is to shift U.S. health policy away from reactive, pharmaceutical-based care and toward prevention, resilience, and long-term well-being. It emphasizes reforming the food system, reducing environmental chemical exposure, addressing lifestyle factors like physical inactivity and screen overuse, and rethinking what it calls the “overmedicalization” of American children.
While some of the report’s arguments are steeped in political rhetoric and controversial claims—particularly around vaccines and mental health diagnoses—others are rooted in well-established public health science. This blog aims to highlight where the MAHA Report gets the science right, especially as it relates to childhood health and ADHD.
Although the MAHA Report contains several debatable assertions, it also outlines six key public health priorities that are well-supported by decades of research. If implemented thoughtfully, these recommendations might make a meaningful difference in the health of American children:
Reduce Ultra-Processed Food (UPF) Consumption
UPFs now make up nearly 70% of children’s daily calories. These foods are high in added sugars, refined starches, unhealthy fats, and chemical additives, but low in nutrients. Studies—including a 2019 NIH-controlled feeding study—show that UPFs promote weight gain, overeating, and metabolic dysfunction. What can help: Tax incentives for fresh food retailers, improved school meals, front-of-pack labeling, and food industry regulation.
Promote Physical Activity and Limiting Sedentary Time
Most American children don’t get the recommended 60 minutes of physical activity per day. This contributes to obesity, cardiovascular risk, and even mental health issues. Physical activity is known to improve attention, mood, sleep, and self-regulation. What can help: Mandatory daily PE, school recess policies, walkable community infrastructure, and screen-time education.
Addressing Sleep Deprivation
Teens today sleep less than they did a decade ago, in part due to screen use and early school start times. Sleep loss is linked to depression, suicide risk, poor academic performance, and metabolic problems. What can help: Later school start times, family education about sleep hygiene, and limits on evening screen exposure.
Improving Maternal and Early Childhood Nutrition
The report indirectly supports actions that are backed by strong evidence: encouraging breastfeeding, supporting maternal whole-food diets, and improving infant nutrition. These are known to reduce chronic disease risk later in life.
ADHD is one of the most discussed neurodevelopmental disorders in the MAHA Report, but many of its claims about ADHD are misleading, oversimplified, or inconsistent with decades of scientific evidence, much of which is described in the International Consensus Statement on ADHD, and other references given below.
This is true. Diagnosis rates have risen over the past two decades, due in part to better recognition, broadened diagnostic criteria, and changes in healthcare access. Diagnosis rates in some parts of the country are too high, but we don’t know why. That should be addressed and investigated. MAHA attributes increasing diagnoses to ‘overmedicalization’. That is a hypothesis worth testing but not a conclusion we can draw from available data.
These have been associated with ADHD but have not been documented as causes. ADHD is highly heritable, with genetic factors accounting for 70–80% of the risk. Unlike genetic studies, environmental risk studies are compromised by confounding variables. There are good reasons to address these issues but doing so is unlikely to reduce diagnostic rates of ADHD.
❌ Inaccurate: ADHD medications don’t work long-term.
The report criticizes stimulant use but fails to note that ADHD medications are among the most effective psychiatric treatments, especially when consistently used. They cite the MTA study’s long term outcome study of kids assigned to medication vs. placebo as showing medications don’t work in the long term. But that comparison is flawed because during the follow-up period, many kids on medication stopped taking them and many on placebo started taking medications. Many studies document that medications for ADHD protect against many real-world outcomes such as accidental injuries, substance abuse and even premature death.
Despite the issues discussed above, the MAHA Report can indirectly help children and adults with ADHD by pushing for systemic changes that reduce ultra-processed food consumption, increase physical activity, and motivate better sleep practices.
In other words, you don’t need to reject the diagnosis of ADHD to support broader changes in how we feed, educate, and care for children. A more supportive, less toxic environment benefits everyone—including those with ADHD.
A recent Wall Street Journal article raised alarms by concluding that many children who start medication for ADHD will later end up on several psychiatric drugs. It’s an emotional topic that will make many parents, teachers, and even doctors worry: “Are we putting kids on a conveyor belt of medications?”
The article seeks to shine a light on the use of more than one psychiatric medication for children with ADHD. My biggest worry about the article is that it presents itself as a scientific study because they analyzed a database. It is not a scientific study. It is a journalistic investigation that does not meet the standards of a scientific report..
The WJS brings attention to several issues that parents and prescribers should think about. It documents that some kids with ADHD are on more than one psychiatric medication, and some are receiving drugs like antipsychotics, which have serious side effects. Is that appropriate? Access to good therapy, careful evaluation, and follow-up care can be lacking, especially for low-income families. Can that be improved? On that level, the article is doing something valuable: it’s shining a spotlight on potential problems.
It is, of course, fine for a journalist to raise questions, but it is not OK for them to pretend that they’ve done a scientific investigation that proves anything. Journalism pretending to be science is both bad science and bad journalism.
Journalism vs. Science: Why Peer Review Matters
Journalists can get big datasets, hire data journalists, and present numbers that look scientific. But consider the differences between Journalism and Science. These types of articles are usually checked by editors and fact-checkers. Their main goals are:
Is this fact basically correct?
Are we being fair?
Are we avoiding legal problems?
But editors are not qualified to evaluate scientific data analysis methods. Scientific reports are evaluated by experts who are not part of the project. They ask tough questions like:
Exactly how did you define ADHD?
How did you handle missing data?
Did you address confounding?
Did you confuse correlation with causation?
If the authors of the study cannot address these and other technical issues, the paper is rejected.
The WSJ article has the veneer of science but lacks its methodology.
Correlation vs. Causation: A Classic Trap
The article’s storyline goes something like this: A kid starts ADHD medication. She has additional problems or side effects caused by the ADHD medications. Because of that, the prescriber adds more drugs. That leads to the patient being put on several drugs. Although it is true that some ADHD youth are on multiple drugs, the WSJ is wrong to conclude that the medications for ADHD cause this to occur. That simply confuses correlation with causation, which only the most naïve scientist would do.
In science, this problem is called confounding. It means other factors (like how severe or complex a child’s condition is) explain the results, not just the thing we’re focused on (medication for ADHD).
The WSJ analyzed a database of prescriptions. They did not survey the prescribers who made the prescriptions of the patients who received them. So they cannot conclude that ADHD medication caused the later prescriptions, or that the later medications were unnecessary or inappropriate.
Other explanations are very likely. It has been well documented that youth with ADHD are at high risk for developing other disorders such as anxiety, depression, and substance use. The kids in the WSJ database might have developed these disorders and needed several medications. A peer-reviewed article in a scientific journal would be expected to adjust for other diagnoses. If that is not possible, as it is in the case of the WSJ’s database, a journal would not allow the author to make strong conclusions about cause-and-effect.
Powerful Stories Don’t Always Mean Typical Stories
The article includes emotional accounts of children who seemed harmed by being put on multiple psychiatric drugs. Strong, emotional stories can make rare events feel common. They also frighten parents and patients, which might lead some to decline appropriate care.
These stories matter. They remind us that each data point is a real person. But these stories are the weakest form of data. They can raise important questions and lead scientists to design definitive studies, but we cannot use them to draw conclusions about the experiences of other patients. These stories serve as a warning about the importance of finding a qualified provider, not as against the use of multiple medications. That decision should be made by the parent or adult patient based on an informed discussion with the prescriber.
Many children and adults with ADHD benefit from multiple medications. The WSJ does not tell those stories, which creates an unbalanced and misleading presentation.
Newspapers frequently publish stories that send the message: “Beware! Doctors are practicing medicine in a way that will harm you and your family.” They then use case studies to prove their point. The title of the article is, itself, emotional clickbait designed to get more readers and advertising revenue. Don’t be confused by such journalistic trickery.
What Should We Conclude?
Here’s a balanced way to read the article. It is true that some patients are prescribed more than one medication for mental health problems. But the article does not tell us whether this prescribing practice is or is not warranted for most patients. I agree that the use of antipsychotic medications needs careful justification and close monitoring. I also agree that patients on multiple medications should be monitored closely to see if some of the medications can be eliminated. Many prescribers do exactly that, but the WSJ did not tell their stories.
It is not appropriate to conclude that ADHD medications typically cause combined pharmacotherapy or to suggest that combined pharmacotherapy is usually bad. The data presented by the WSJ does not adequately address these concerns. It does not prove that medications for ADHD cause dangerous medication cascades.
We have to remember that even when a journalist analyzes data, that is not the same as a peer-reviewed scientific study. Journalism pretending to be science is both bad science and bad journalism.
Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD)—a pattern of chronic irritability, anger, arguing, or defiance—is one of the most challenging behavioral conditions families and clinicians face.
A new study involving 2,400 children ages 3–17 offers one of the clearest pictures yet. Using parent-reported data from the Pediatric Behavior Scale, researchers compared how often ODD appears in Autism spectrum disorder (ASD), ADHD-Combined presentation (ADHD-C), ADHD-Inattentive presentation (ADHD-I), and those with both ASD and ADHD.
Results:
Children with ADHD-Combined presentation show both hyperactivity/impulsivity and inattention. They had the highest ODD rates of any single diagnosis: 53% of kids with ADHD-Combined met criteria for ODD.
But when autism was added to ADHD-Combined, the prevalence jumped to 62%. This group also had the highest overall ODD scores, suggesting more severe or more impairing symptoms.
This synergy matters: while autism alone increases ODD risk, the presence of ADHD-Combined is what pushes prevalence into the majority range. Other groups showed lower, but still significant, rates of ODD:
These findings echo what clinicians often see: children with inattentive ADHD, while struggling significantly with attention and learning, tend to show fewer behavioral conflict patterns than those with hyperactive/impulsive symptoms.
It is important to note that ODD is considered to have two main components. Across all diagnostic groups, ODD consistently broke down into these two components: either Irritable/Angry (emotion-based) or Oppositional/Defiant (behavior-based). But the balance between these components differed depending on diagnosis. Notably, Autism + ADHD-Combined showed higher levels of the irritable/angry component than ADHD-Combined alone. The oppositional/defiant component did not differ much between groups. This suggests that autism elevates the emotional side of ODD more than the behavioral side, which is important for clinicians to note before tailoring interventions.
The study notes that autism, ADHD, and ODD often cluster together, with 55–90% comorbidity in some combinations.
As the authors explain, “The high co-occurrence of ADHD-Combined in autism (80% in our study) largely explains the high prevalence of ODD in autism.”
Clinical Implications: Why This Study Matters
The researchers point to a straightforward recommendation: clinicians shouldn’t evaluate these conditions in isolation. A child referred for autism concerns might also be struggling with ADHD. A child referred for ADHD might have undiagnosed ODD. And ignoring one disorder can undermine treatment for the others.
Evidence-based interventions (behavioral therapy, parent training, school supports, and/or medication) can reduce symptoms across all three diagnoses while improving long-term outcomes, including overall quality of life.
Background:
Sleep is more than simple rest. When discussing sleep, we tend to focus on the quantity rather than the quality, how many hours of sleep we get versus the quality or depth of sleep. Duration is an important part of the picture, but understanding the stages of sleep and how certain mental health disorders affect those stages is a crucial part of the discussion.
Sleep is an active mental process where the brain goes through distinct phases of complex electrical rhythms. These phases can be broken down into non-rapid eye movement (NREM) and rapid eye movement (REM). The non-rapid eye movement phase consists of three stages of the four stages of sleep, referred to as N1, N2(light sleep), and N3(deep sleep). N4 is the REM phase, during which time vivid dreaming typically occurs.
Two of the most important measurable brain rhythms occur during non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep. These electrical rhythms are referred to as slow waves and sleep spindles. Slow waves reflect deep, restorative sleep, while spindles are brief bursts of brain activity that support memory and learning.
The Study:
A new research review has compiled data on how these sleep oscillations differ across psychiatric conditions. The findings suggest that subtle changes in nightly brain rhythms may hold important clues about a range of disorders, from ADHD to schizophrenia.
The Results:
People with ADHD showed increased slow-spindle activity, meaning those brief bursts of NREM activity were more frequent or stronger than in people without ADHD. Why this happens isn’t fully understood, but it may reflect differences in how the ADHD brain organizes information during sleep. Evidence for slow-wave abnormalities was mixed, suggesting that deep sleep disruption is not a consistent hallmark of ADHD.
Among individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), results were less consistent. However, some studies pointed to lower “spindle chirp” (the subtle shift in spindle frequency over time) and reduced slow-wave amplitude. Lower amplitude suggests that the brain’s deep-sleep signals may be weaker or less synchronized. Researchers are still working to understand how these patterns relate to sensory processing, learning differences, or daytime behavior.
People with depression tended to show reduced slow-wave activity and fewer or weaker sleep spindles, but this pattern appeared most strongly in patients taking antidepressant medications. Since antidepressants can influence sleep architecture, researchers are careful not to overinterpret the changes. Nevertheless, these changes raise interesting questions about how both depression and its treatments shape the sleeping brain.
In post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), the trend moved in the opposite direction. Patients showed higher spindle frequency and activity, and these changes were linked to symptom severity which suggests that the brain may be “overactive” during sleep in ways that relate to hyperarousal or intrusive memories. This strengthens the idea that sleep physiology plays a role in how traumatic memories are processed.
The clearest and most reliable findings emerged in psychotic disorders, including schizophrenia. Across multiple studies, individuals showed: Lower spindle density (fewer spindles overall), reduced spindle amplitude and duration, correlations with symptom severity, and cognitive deficits.
Lower slow-wave activity also appeared, especially in the early phases of illness. These results echo earlier research suggesting that sleep spindles, which are generated by thalamocortical circuits, might offer a window into the neural disruptions that underlie psychosis.
The Take-Away:
The review concludes with a key message: While sleep disturbances are clearly present across psychiatric conditions, the field needs larger, better-standardized, and more longitudinal studies. With more consistent methods and longer follow-ups, researchers may be able to determine whether these oscillations can serve as reliable biomarkers or future treatment targets.
For now, the take-home message is that the effects of these mental health disorders on sleep are real and measurable.
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