If I were to accept the premise of Channel 4’s documentary The Great ADHD Myth?, then I have spent years labouring under a false belief. The diagnosis I received for my so-called ADHD is apparently an arbitrary concept, invented by popular consensus and promoted by publications like Âéśš´ŤĂ˝.

National Health Service doctor Max Pemberton presented this idea in a documentary that aired in the UK last night, and in the less than 24 hours that have passed since, many articles and columnists have commented on why it’s so offensive. While I have my own thoughts on that – and trust me, I’m offended – the most urgent issue to address is the show’s suggestion that ADHD may not be a .

One claim is that ADHD is a new condition, dreamed up to force square pegs into the round holes of modern life. This is simply not true. An early documented medical description of what we now call ADHD when from the Royal College of Physicians described people who had problems paying attention for long enough to complete tasks, saying they had “the fidgets”.

Since then, the condition has been medically described and renamed (who can forget “abnormal defect of moral control in children” in the early 1900s?) many times. While Pemberton is right to note that rates of diagnosis have soared in recent years, diagnoses in the UK are still below estimates of population prevalence from around the world. Studies that screen large groups of people for symptoms consistently put rates of ADHD in the general population .

But the results of an found that just 1 per cent of the population is diagnosed overall in England. Even among boys and young men, the group most likely to be diagnosed, the recorded rates are 2.9 per cent and 3.6 per cent, respectively. If anything, ADHD is underdiagnosed on these shores.

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Then there is the claim that ADHD is a social construct, not a neurodevelopmental condition. This is something Pemberton ponders after talking to neuroscientist at King’s College London. Rubia says that while there is evidence of differences between the brains of people with ADHD and neurotypical people at the group level, it isn’t possible to diagnose ADHD from a brain scan.

She is right, of course. You can’t diagnose ADHD from brain scans. The same can be said for most, if not all, psychiatric and neurodevelopmental conditions. Most of these, like ADHD, are diagnosed by assessing symptoms and the effect they have on a person’s everyday ability to function. “My interview was hours long and they cherry-picked the bits that suited their push for presenting ADHD as a myth,” Rubia told Âéśš´ŤĂ˝. “Biased programmes like this one that push their view of ADHD as a mythical entity are irresponsible and will have detrimental effects.”

Pemberton proceeds to seek out a diagnosis for ADHD via an online assessment, despite thinking he probably doesn’t have it. In reality, ADHD is diagnosed via a lengthy process that includes multiple questionnaires and an interview. To get a diagnosis, ADHD traits have to be causing significant problems in two or more settings, such as at work or with managing bills. If it doesn’t affect your life, mental health or relationships, you don’t qualify for the second D of ADHD: disorder. 

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The person carrying out his diagnosis isn’t identified. All we hear is that Pemberton apparently has ADHD and is handed a prescription for drugs that are described as “basically cocaine”.

At this point, the scaremongering about drugging our brains, particularly those of children, really begins. Yes, there is an argument that we need more for ADHD. We don’t have this yet, partly because, despite claims of the addictiveness of these medications, in the long term.

What we do have is evidence that treatments, whether drug-based or not, improve , and that , substance abuse, criminality and suicide.

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These unusual images were created by visual artist Daniel Regan by submerging Polaroid photographs in his ADHD medication, to represent his experiences with the condition through art

All of which will hopefully be of some comfort to the parents of Mason, a young boy in the documentary who is taken off his medication in favour of yoga, nature walks and zero screen time. It seems to help a bit, but his schoolwork and behaviour decline, so his parents reluctantly put him back on the meds.

The documentary makes that seem like a failure. But the real failure is the way the programme-makers chose shock tactics over scientifically accurate reporting, letting Mason, and the rest of us, down.

Channel 4 declined to comment and Pemberton didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Need a listening ear? UK Samaritans: 116123 (); US Suicide & Crisis Lifeline: 988 (). Visit for services in other countries.

The ketogenic diet, best known as a fat-busting fad, holds promise for treating anorexia nervosa. Following the diet – which contains high amounts of fat, moderate amounts of protein and very few carbohydrates – caused nearly 75 per cent of people with the eating disorder to drop below the threshold for diagnosis in a small study. This is thought to be due to the diet restoring malfunctioning energy release in brain cells, which has been linked to anorexia, thereby lowering anxiety and reducing the compulsion to restrict food.

Mimicking starvation by restricting carbohydrates in a condition characterised by extreme dieting, and with of all mental health conditions, sounds risky. But at the University of California, San Diego, argues that when properly supervised, it could remove the compulsive drive to self-starve. “People tell me clinically, it’s like an addiction, [saying] ‘I crave this’,” he says. “Perhaps if you create that state that they crave while giving them enough food, it can be beneficial.”

Frank and his team asked 22 women with anorexia, whose body mass index (BMI) had risen enough to sit in the healthy to slightly underweight range, to follow a ketogenic diet for 14 weeks, supervised by a dietician, psychiatrist and a peer support counsellor who had experienced anorexia. Their weight, mood and anorexia symptoms were monitored weekly, using questionnaires to track any changes in body image, depression, food-related anxiety and fear of weight gain.

The 18 women who stuck to the diet for the full 14 weeks showed a significant improvement in anorexia symptoms and scores of depression, which commonly occurs alongside anorexia. Thirteen of them (72 per cent) even improved enough to drop below the threshold for clinical diagnosis for both anorexia and depression. “The level of recovery was far better than what we see in other anorexia treatments,” says Frank.

The aim of the study was not to see if the keto diet made the participants gain weight, however, they all stayed in a healthy to slightly underweight BMI range, and didn’t relapse.

Ketogenic diets are named for the way they prompt a metabolic shift that evolved to help us survive times of famine. As plant-eaters, our metabolism runs mostly on carbohydrates, which are broken down into glucose to be burned in the energy-releasing mitochondria in cells.

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When carbs are unavailable, the body adapts to burn fat, releasing it from storage and converting it in the liver to molecules called ketone bodies. These can be burned in the mitochondria in place of glucose.

The diets were invented in the 1920s, not for weight loss, but as a treatment for epilepsy. It was known that fasting for several days could reduce or stop seizures, but as a treatment, it was unsustainable. The ketogenic diet provided a solution: restricting carbs enough to mimic starvation, while providing enough dietary fat so those on it didn’t lose weight.

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In children with anorexia nervosa or other restrictive eating disorders, changes in the brain’s outer layer don’t seem to be due to lack of nutrition alone – and some mirror those seen in other neurological conditions

Research since suggests that epilepsy and many mental health conditions, including anorexia, are associated with problems related to releasing energy from glucose in the brain, and ketone bodies can relieve these problems by providing an alternative fuel.

at the University of California, Los Angeles, who researches and treats eating disorders, sounds a note of caution for anyone considering trying a keto diet for anorexia. “It is important to distinguish between close monitoring from an eating disorder psychiatrist, dietitian and treatment team, and attempting to do this independently.” Until we have more data from large, randomised controlled trials, it is too early to change the way we treat anorexia, he says, which typically involves therapy and nutritional support.

If the emotional rollercoaster of global politics feels overwhelming, the findings of a new study might help to explain why. Emotions evoked by political issues seem to be felt differently in the body than when the same emotions are experienced in everyday life. Understanding how and why this happens may offer clues to how we can stay calm while remaining informed and engaged citizens.

“Feeling more is probably a good thing for democracy,” says at Royal Holloway, University of London. “Feeling better is about first figuring out what you feel, and then the challenge is learning how to respond rather than react.”

Tsakiris and his colleagues asked nearly 1000 people to mark on a body-outline diagram where, and how intensely, they felt emotions including anger, disgust and hope. Then, they were asked to do the same, but while reading words associated with emotionally laden political issues, such as terrorism and crime.

Their responses were used to create a digital heat map, which covered where in the body each emotion was felt, how intensely, and whether the sensation was linked to feeling spurred into action or demotivated and detached.

Previous research suggests that many , and the patterns of activation or demotivation . Depression, for instance, almost universally shows widespread deactivation across the body, reflecting a lack of energy and motivation, while anger is felt as a high energy, activating sensation in the chest, head and arms.

The new study largely reflected these past findings, except when some emotions were evoked by politics. “People usually feel that their whole body is deactivated when they’re depressed, but politically linked depression is more mobilising”, says Tsakiris, with more intense sensations experienced throughout the torso and limbs.

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Political disgust was also felt as a higher-energy sensation across the upper body, compared to non-political disgust which clusters around the gut. When compared with non-political emotions, “political disgust more closely resembles anger”, says Tsakiris.

Why this occurs isn’t clear, but Tsakiris speculates it might be because political issues feel too big to tackle on our own, so we might feel motivated to join a wider cause to effect change. “The sense of agency that we have in politics is quite different,” he says. “We cannot probably effect a change on our own. It will be a collective effort.”

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An adaptation of cognitive behavioural therapy that focuses on mindfulness and tolerating distress has shown promise for relieving chronic pain

By getting better acquainted with our emotions, we may be able to avoid getting trapped in a cycle of doom scrolling and despair, says at the Brighton and Sussex Medical School, UK. “We like to think of ourselves as rational beings, but that doesn’t consider how the body influences our decisions, behaviours and responses.”

Quadt and her colleagues have previously shown that training people to listen to their heartbeat and other bodily sensations associated with strong emotions . Getting more in tune with how we feel, “might indeed help to become less overwhelmed by negative emotions and perhaps then enable action, rather than avoidance”, she says.

A shipping container holding three mobile flotation tanks is en route to Maui, Hawaii, to tackle a mental health crisis caused by one of the deadliest wildfires in US history. While mostly found in high-end spas, flotation tanks have shown promise as a treatment for anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). If the roll-out is successful, fleets of the tanks could be sent to disaster zones all over the world.

In August 2023, a series of wildfires erupted on Maui, the worst of which killed 102 people and . In the years since, risks of depression and anxiety have been higher within wildfire burn zones, and there are fears of an unfolding epidemic of PTSD.

“Maui does not have an infrastructure to deal with a mental health crisis of this magnitude,” says , a clinical neuropsychologist who set up the non-profit . “People are self-medicating. There’s a lot of alcohol use; there’s a surge in suicide and PTSD.”

On 2 May, Feinstein announced at the in Los Angeles that the float units would be available for free sessions for first responders and survivors of the 2023 wildfires, while also being used to collect long-term data on flotation as a mental health treatment.

Flotation therapy, also known as Float-REST (reduced environmental stimulation therapy), involves lying in a shallow pool that contains enough dissolved Epsom salts to support the body without effort. The water in the pool and the air above it are kept at body temperature, and with ear plugs to reduce noise and the lights switched off, the brain is cut off from all external sources of sensory stimulation.

The tanks were invented in the 1950s by neuroscientists to answer the question of whether the brain would shut down without this stimulation. The answer was no – people remained conscious, but they did report a sense of deep relaxation.

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Feinstein has since spent more than a decade ’s mental and physical effects. This work has suggested that it significantly reduces anxiety in volunteers without any mental health conditions, and in people with anxiety disorder and other mental health conditions, such as depression and PTSD. It produces an effect that is roughly equivalent to taking benzodiazepines, a type of sedative, says Feinstein.

While the exact mechanisms are still unclear, flotation is thought to work by removing external sensory stimulation and reducing movement, allowing the body and brain to settle into a state of relaxation. Studies have shown that within minutes, and blood pressure falls, while and emotional processing towards a restorative, sleep-like state.

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Feinstein, who has lived in Maui since 2020, has worked with the UK-based company Floataway to design lower-cost modular float pods, which, unlike regular tanks, can be assembled anywhere in a matter of days. The will bring the tanks to the area and is set to start gathering data in the summer. If successful, the aim is to have a fleet of pop-up tanks that can be sent to disaster zones to potentially prevent PTSD.

at University College London, who has studied the bodily basis of PTSD, says that the focus on calming the body is a much-needed change in how we treat the condition. “A core feature of PTSD is hyperarousal, which is accompanied by increased reactivity of bodily responses,” she says. “Flotation is seemingly able to bring about a feeling of internal safety, which an important shift in the understanding and treatment of PTSD.  I’m really excited by this work.”

Need a listening ear? UK Samaritans: 116123 (samaritans.org); US Suicide & Crisis Lifeline: 988 (988lifeline.org). Visit bit.ly/SuicideHelplines for services in other countries.