ADHD Causes - What causes ADHD?

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is usually discovered during the first years of school especially when the child starts having problems paying attention in class, acting impulsively and having lower grades. In general ADHD is very common in children compared to adults. And boys are more likely to be affected by this mental disorder than girls.

The question is what causes this illness? But apparently no one knows the absolute answer; however, many scientific researchers have mentioned that there are several factors including genetics, brain chemicals imbalance, brain structure and more causes may contribute to the development of the illness.

So let’s take a look at what seems to trigger ADHD and its symptoms:

• Genetics (heredity): scientific researchers have linked the illness with some genes, nevertheless, the one that causes ADHD is not found yet. Studies have shown that this mental disorder tends to run in families and children may inherit ADHD from their parents, unfortunately the percentage of developing this illness jumps to 50 percent if one of you parents have ADHD.
• Brain chemical imbalance: several studies have found that the brain chemicals (neurotransmitters) such as dopamine and norepinephrine are out of balance in people with ADHD. This chemical imbalance might be the reason why the illness has occurred.
• Neurotransmitters help brain cells communicate with each other by the transmission of signals.
• Brain neurological activity: many scientific researches based on the brain scan technologies have revealed that some areas of the brain that control attention have lower levels of activity compared to normal children without ADHD. Other studies have shown many abnormalities in other areas of the brain.
• Nutrition deficiencies: during pregnancy women should be very careful about their nutrition because one of the factors that trigger ADHD is poor nutrition. Although, all pregnant women are advised to give up smoking, alcohol or any sort of substance abuse, some irresponsible future moms continue their bad habits causing negative effects on the baby’s brain which may contribute to the development of many physical and psychological disorders. 
• Toxins: toxic chemicals seem to be everywhere and become a part of our daily modern life. But unfortunately the exposure to theses toxins such as lead, PCBs and mercury in early childhood can affect badly the development of the child’s nervous system and lead to many psychological problems including ADHD. So the role of the parents is to protect their kids from those deadly toxins as much as possible.
• Traumatic birth: a traumatic birth in which the forceps are used to extract the baby can damage the tissues of the neck and head. Researchers have revealed that children born using caesarean section are more likely to suffer from ADHD. A natural birth affects positively the child and lead to a proper nervous system development.
• There is a misconception that eating too much sugar, watching Television for a long period or poor upbringing causes ADHD, although, it advisable to avoid and protect a child from those habits, they are not the cause of the illness.

How ADHD is diagnosed?

The diagnoses of an extremely hyperactive child is very easy, however, the diagnosis of a sweet, quiet girl who is silently daydreaming can be very complicated.

Before diagnosing a child with ADHD even with the presence of the symptoms, the doctor should evaluate the condition of the patient by doing several tests to make sure that there is no physical illness related to the symptoms. If the patient does not suffer from a physical disorder then he should be referred to a psychiatrist or a mental health professional trained to deal with children in order to properly diagnose and treat this mental illness.

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