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Association of symptoms of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder with symptoms of excessive exercising in an adult general population sample

BACKGROUND: An increasing number of studies suggest that physical activity can alleviate symptoms of ADHD in children. In adults there are currently insufficient data available on this subject. Interestingly, ADHD and forms of excessive exercising have both been shown to occur more frequently in adu...

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Autores principales: Berger, Nikolas AA, Müller, Astrid, Brähler, Elmar, Philipsen, Alexandra, de Zwaan, Martina
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4172949/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25214027
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12888-014-0250-7
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author Berger, Nikolas AA
Müller, Astrid
Brähler, Elmar
Philipsen, Alexandra
de Zwaan, Martina
author_facet Berger, Nikolas AA
Müller, Astrid
Brähler, Elmar
Philipsen, Alexandra
de Zwaan, Martina
author_sort Berger, Nikolas AA
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: An increasing number of studies suggest that physical activity can alleviate symptoms of ADHD in children. In adults there are currently insufficient data available on this subject. Interestingly, ADHD and forms of excessive exercising have both been shown to occur more frequently in adult athletes. The aim of the present study was to empirically investigate the association of ADHD and excessive exercising in the adult general population. METHODS: For diagnosis of adult and childhood ADHD a large representative sample of the German general population (n = 1,615) completed a retrospective assessment of childhood ADHD and a self-report assessment of adult ADHD. Excessive exercising as well as putative mediating variables such as eating related psychopathology, depression, and anxiety were assessed using standardized self-rating instruments. RESULTS: Individuals with childhood only ADHD had a significantly higher frequency of excessive exercising (9.0%) than individuals without ADHD (2.7%). Excessive exercising was significantly associated with childhood only ADHD compared to no ADHD with an odds ratio of 3.239 even after controlling for socio-demographic variables, BMI, eating related and general psychopathology. CONCLUSIONS: Our data show that excessive exercising is significantly overrepresented in individuals in which ADHD symptoms in childhood have not persisted into adulthood. We thus hypothesize that a subgroup of individuals might suppress ADHD symptoms by excessive sporting activities. Although in healthy adults physical activity has been associated with immediate and long term improvements in cognitive functioning, studies empirically investigating associations between the effects of physical activity and adult ADHD are rare. Further studies are warranted to explore the potential role of physical activity in the treatment of ADHD in adults.
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spelling pubmed-41729492014-09-25 Association of symptoms of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder with symptoms of excessive exercising in an adult general population sample Berger, Nikolas AA Müller, Astrid Brähler, Elmar Philipsen, Alexandra de Zwaan, Martina BMC Psychiatry Research Article BACKGROUND: An increasing number of studies suggest that physical activity can alleviate symptoms of ADHD in children. In adults there are currently insufficient data available on this subject. Interestingly, ADHD and forms of excessive exercising have both been shown to occur more frequently in adult athletes. The aim of the present study was to empirically investigate the association of ADHD and excessive exercising in the adult general population. METHODS: For diagnosis of adult and childhood ADHD a large representative sample of the German general population (n = 1,615) completed a retrospective assessment of childhood ADHD and a self-report assessment of adult ADHD. Excessive exercising as well as putative mediating variables such as eating related psychopathology, depression, and anxiety were assessed using standardized self-rating instruments. RESULTS: Individuals with childhood only ADHD had a significantly higher frequency of excessive exercising (9.0%) than individuals without ADHD (2.7%). Excessive exercising was significantly associated with childhood only ADHD compared to no ADHD with an odds ratio of 3.239 even after controlling for socio-demographic variables, BMI, eating related and general psychopathology. CONCLUSIONS: Our data show that excessive exercising is significantly overrepresented in individuals in which ADHD symptoms in childhood have not persisted into adulthood. We thus hypothesize that a subgroup of individuals might suppress ADHD symptoms by excessive sporting activities. Although in healthy adults physical activity has been associated with immediate and long term improvements in cognitive functioning, studies empirically investigating associations between the effects of physical activity and adult ADHD are rare. Further studies are warranted to explore the potential role of physical activity in the treatment of ADHD in adults. BioMed Central 2014-09-12 /pmc/articles/PMC4172949/ /pubmed/25214027 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12888-014-0250-7 Text en © Berger et al.; licensee Springer Ltd. 2014 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research Article
Berger, Nikolas AA
Müller, Astrid
Brähler, Elmar
Philipsen, Alexandra
de Zwaan, Martina
Association of symptoms of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder with symptoms of excessive exercising in an adult general population sample
title Association of symptoms of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder with symptoms of excessive exercising in an adult general population sample
title_full Association of symptoms of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder with symptoms of excessive exercising in an adult general population sample
title_fullStr Association of symptoms of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder with symptoms of excessive exercising in an adult general population sample
title_full_unstemmed Association of symptoms of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder with symptoms of excessive exercising in an adult general population sample
title_short Association of symptoms of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder with symptoms of excessive exercising in an adult general population sample
title_sort association of symptoms of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder with symptoms of excessive exercising in an adult general population sample
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4172949/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25214027
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12888-014-0250-7
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