New link between A.D.D. and weight - Think Healthy

People fall off the diet-and-exercise wagon for many well-known reasons, but psychiatrist Jules Altfas, M.D., has uncovered a connection between failing to lose weight and adult attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD (aka ADD). While treating obese patients at the Behavioral Medicine Center for Treatment and Research in Portland, Ore., Altfas noticed that people who made the least weight-loss progress often had symptoms of ADHD, which include inattention, hyperactivity and impulsive behavior.

Of 215 obese adults he studied, 27 percent had ADHD, compared to 5 percent of the general population. Among the most obese people, those with ADHD lost only about half as much weight as did equally obese people who didn't suffer from it. "Adults with ADHD know what to do, but don't seem to use that information when feelings and urges are strong," Altfas says. "Compulsive eating and binge eating are common." Drugs for attention problems can help people become more able to focus on necessary behaviors for losing weight.

COPYRIGHT 2003 Weider Publications
COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group