To reduce ADHD epidemic, promote (concussion-free) sports and physical activity programs?

Exer­cise Is ADHD Med­ica­tion (The Atlantic): “This morn­ing the med­ical jour­nal Pedi­atrics pub­lished research that found kids who took part in a reg­u­lar phys­i­cal activ­i­ty pro­gram showed impor­tant enhance­ment of cog­ni­tive per­for­mance and brain func­tion. The findings…“demonstrate a causal effect of a phys­i­cal pro­gram on exec­u­tive con­trol, and pro­vide sup­port for phys­i­cal activ­i­ty for improv­ing child­hood cog­ni­tion and brain health.”… 

“If phys­i­cal activ­i­ty is estab­lished as an effec­tive inter­ven­tion for ADHD,” they con­tin­ued, “it will also be impor­tant to address pos­si­ble com­ple­men­tary effects of phys­i­cal activ­i­ty and exist­ing treat­ment strate­gies …” Which is a kind of phe­nom­e­nal degree of reser­va­tion com­pared to the haste with which mil­lions of kids have been intro­duced to amphet­a­mines and oth­er stim­u­lants to address said ADHD. The num­ber of pre­scrip­tions increased from 34.8 to 48.4 mil­lion between 2007 and 2011 alone.” 

Learn more:

• Phys­i­cal exer­cise as ADHD treat­ment: Nec­es­sary but not sufficient