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Welcome to Hacking Your ADHD.

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I'm your host William Curb, and
I have ADHD on this podcast.

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I dig in the tools, tactics,
and best practices to help

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you work with your ADHD Brain.

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Today I'm joined by Sky Waterson
for our research recap series.

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In this series, we look at a single
research paper, dive into what the

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paper says, how it was conducted, and
try and find any practical takeaways.

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In this episode, we're going to be
discussing a paper called Evaluation

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of Maternal Inflammation as a Marker
of Future Offspring, ADHD symptoms,

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A prospective investigation.

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And so this is a study that is
investigating like these biological

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origins of ADHD and you know, more
specifically whether a mother's

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immune system during pregnancy might
be able to predict ADHD symptoms in

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those children once they're born.

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So yeah, it's pretty
dense paper, I thought.

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There was a lot here, let's get into it.

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Yeah.

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And I will say it's great.

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This is why I love doing this
Will, because I so much appreciate

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that you are willing to go
into this denser paper with me.

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and I wanna say upfront, when
we're going through this paper.

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We are not experts in the medical
field, and this particular

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paper is also very preliminary.

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So at the end it specifically
references that the purpose of

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this paper is to decide what
needs to be studied more in depth.

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So they looked at 68 children
from 62 women who were pregnant,

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in an outpatient clinic.

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And basically they
wanted to understand if.

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The biomarkers for inflammation
in the second trimester were

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connected to symptoms of ADHD, not
ADHD diagnosis in later in life.

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and they were looking at
that from teachers and also

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from the parents themselves.

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So there was a, it, it
took quite a long time.

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This paper, it was, it was
more of a longitudinal study.

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Yeah, absolutely.

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And I was really impressed with yeah,
they were like looking at stuff.

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With mother during pregnancy and
then following up with those children

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who are born and like looking at
those symptoms and being like,

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yeah, what are we seeing here?

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What,

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'cause yeah, you have to look at both
that before and after effects and seeing

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what does, and that is, that's a long term

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Mm-hmm.

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A hundred percent.

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A hundred percent.

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And what they were.

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Doing when they were doing those initial
measures is they were measuring things

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like maternal distress, other things
like this, which can affect inflammation.

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And they did try and
control for some of those.

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and then they were also looking at, the.

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You know, blood samples and they
were testing them to understand

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what the inflammation looked like.

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They said they couldn't draw the
blood samples at the same time

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of the day for all participants.

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And we do know that inflammation
can change due due to so many

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factors, including time of day.

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So I wanted to zoom out here a little
bit, will, and actually just say for

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those of, for those people who are
listening and they're like, okay, cool.

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I've heard of inflammation.

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But, but what is it?

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What are we actually looking for?

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Yeah.

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So yeah.

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'cause as a pop culture reference,
there's all sorts of things

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about inflammation that are less
than scientifically accurate.

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and so I guess like specifically for
this study, they were really, they

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were doing like these, Blood sample
collections and, looking at the, cytokine

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levels and being like, Hey, like what,

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what are those levels?

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But I guess your question is
like, what is inflammation?

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And that is a hard, straight up
definition without, when you don't

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go into oh, this, these levels.

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But it is the, your, basically
like your immune system being

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reactive to what's going on.

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Yeah.

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Yeah, exactly, exactly.

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And they did measure what
they called cytokinin levels.

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They had, different ways
of thinking about this.

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And this, was essentially.

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Looking at, the small protein, sorry,
I'm gonna read this because I did

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read, I did my own search into it.

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The small proteins used by, systems
to communicate, essentially those

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are the cytokine levels and that
is what they were, they were trying

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to measure as part of predicting,
both whether they had inflammation.

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And also whether that inflammation
was related to later ADHD symptoms.

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and yeah, like I said, there
wasn't a diagnosis, so they

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did find a relationship,
which was interesting because.

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You know, it was, it does indicate that
there is potentially ssociation and

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I will say for me, this is one of the
first times, 'cause when you said we

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should research this, I was interested
in this because I've heard about.

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The fact that there could be a
relationship that isn't genetic.

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But I have to say, I have been a little
bit biased against this idea that

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there is something, you know, that can
be a associated with ADHD that isn't

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genetic because it feels like that's
always used in a, how do I put this?

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Like a not good faith way.

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Yeah, yeah.

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Often it's.

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Blaming the parents for
how a kid turned out.

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It's oh yeah, you didn't
feed them enough broccoli.

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And now they have ADHD kind of things.

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it's just this is,

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yeah, not, it is just bad faith.

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It's these things where they're just
trying to sell you a supplement or

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something to cure your ADHD often.

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Exactly.

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And you know, as I was saying to Will,
like, I just recently had my third

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baby, and I, you know, the conversation
about being calm, being healthy, like

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that's always a part of the conversation
of, you know, giving birth and, and

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trying to, you know, remember that.

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But it's, it's nine months.

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Like, the chances that I'm gonna be
relaxed and not inflamed for a whole nine

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months is, that's a, that's a big ask.

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Yeah, and I mean I think that's an
important thing to also consider

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when we're looking at this study.

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'cause they didn't have a lot
of tests during the pregnancy.

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It was, like one test
during the third trimester.

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So while that might be able to like.

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Be great with looking
at chronic inflammation.

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If you also are just having a very
stressful day getting to the hospital, you

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might be having that immune response too.

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Yeah, exactly.

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I mean, like for us, you know, there's,
you're doing a whole bunch of tests,

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there's a whole bunch of things going on.

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You have toddlers, like at this point I
have two other little kids that are, that

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are creating, you know, a little bit of, a
stress, compared to having my first baby.

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So yeah, there's all of these
different pieces that could.

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Affected.

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And, and I will say to their
credit, they did recognize that.

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And so for them this was, if we
jump back to, you know, what they

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were really looking for and why they
said that this is important because

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ADHD in their words was so costly
and, you know, difficult to alter.

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so being able to evaluate the merits of.

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Whether it would make sense to do
deeper research that requires more

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testing over time, which is obviously
very, you know, a lot of work

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for, for moms could be necessary.

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So, I'm, I'm really curious
about this, what this would mean.

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I mean, like.

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They've done this study, they've
found that there's an association.

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Somebody, somebody then goes ahead
and does a deeper study into this.

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What would it change if they did find
that there was some serious connection

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between inflammation and ADHD?

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it would change some of the
recommendations on, what we're asking

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mothers to do to reduce that forehand.

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Like we, there's like already
recommendations for things like folate

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and all these other, like prenatal
vitamins and stuff and, maybe adding.

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Stuff that can help with,
anti-inflammation could be

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something that they're like,
Hey, yeah, this will also help.

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the, because it's also, again,
these are, we're not looking

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at an ADHD diagnosis here.

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We're looking at these symptoms.

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And so it's being like, oh yeah, we're
just looking to reduce the chance

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that they're having these, symptoms
of being part of, their growing up.

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'cause we all know ADHD is hard.

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Mm-hmm.

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Yeah, and you do get a lot more
criticism and, and you know, it can

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be difficult to be in a classroom
if you struggle with ADHD symptoms.

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I mean, we could talk about whether
this means you should change the

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classroom or whatever, but you know,
besides the point of this conversation.

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Yeah.

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And one of the, interesting pieces that
I was thinking about while reading this

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too, and, based on what you were saying
earlier with like seeing this as a.

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Non-genetic thing, but it could still be
in this idea of, epigenetics where you

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have like the gene expression and certain
environmental factors making it so that

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these genes are turned on, quote unquote.

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And so it's being like, oh yeah,
maybe we can just, if we see this

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inflammation connection, maybe there
are other further line things too,

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that we can also change how these genes
are expressed when you're an adult.

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Yeah, a hundred percent.

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I mean, you know, they, they said
maternal inflammation predicted teacher

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report of child, ADHD symptoms at a
significant level, which is kind of.

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And, you know, it feels crazy because
it's, the two things are so far apart.

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The, the study was so, like,
you had so many holes in it in

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terms of, you know, the number of
people and all of those things.

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They could easily have found
a non-significant result.

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but yeah, I hope.

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If they do more of this research and
they find this is important, and this

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does affect epigenetic switches, that
they don't just make this another

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thing that moms have to deal with.

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Because as somebody who had a
baby last year, that would not be

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viable or helpful in any way.

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Yeah, because often at times there's just
yeah, moms need to do all these things,

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plus all these other things, and if
you're not, you're just being a bad mom.

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And it's that's telling moms that it's
very stressful and probably not helping.

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I,

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Yeah.

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You probably increased information
just by having that conversation.

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So yeah, definitely hoping that if they
do find this, it comes with a little bit

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more of a, yeah, a systems based solution.

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Awesome.

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Yeah.

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and I'm just seeing, do you
think there's, anything else

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we wanna jump into on this one?

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I think really just.

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The, this is kind of for us as part of the
conversations we've been having the first

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time we've looked at things that are a
little bit below the brain and looking at

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the body and this idea of inflammation.

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So definitely something I think would be
great to, to dig a little bit deeper on.

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because it is an area that gets
misrepresented to the point where.

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You don't even know what
to believe, like you said,

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epigenetics, et cetera, et cetera.

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but other than that, I think just
regardless of, you know, if you're

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struggling with ADHD, keep it in mind, but
don't, don't hold it too tightly because

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it's still a really emerging space.

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Yeah, and I, I do think there is going
to be stuff here that we see eventually,

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but what that is is hard to predict.