Rates of children diagnosed with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have risen 4 percent each year for the last 10 years. Recent analysis has some doctors wondering if maturity, not ADHD, may explain the increasing numbers of rascally rug rats.

Studies come from North Carolina State University, where researchers noticed that children born just before the kindergarten enrollment cutoff date, who are among the youngest in their class, were more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD than their older classmates. The researchers determined this wasn’t a likely coincidence.

"We believe that younger children may be mistakenly diagnosed as having ADHD, when in fact they are simply less mature," lead researcher Dr. Melinda Morrill explained in a university news release cited by MSNBC.

Children diagnosed with ADHD may be more talkative, forgetful, or fidgety, and may have more difficulty playing quietly and taking turns. Frequent daydreaming and disruptive behavior also characterize ADHD.

“We are not downplaying the existence or significance of ADHD in children,” Morrill says. “This indicates that there are children who are diagnosed, or not, because of something other than underlying biological or medical reasons.”

Misdiagnosed ADHD can mask other issues, including learning disorders, hyperthyroidism, Asperger’s syndrome, or other forms autism. According to Mayo Clinic, as many as one in three children diagnosed with ADHD may also have one of these other conditions. The fear is that these conditions may be overlooked and that children may be put on ADHD medication unnecessarily.

Paying close attention to all of your child’s symptoms and making a careful assessment of his or her behavior with your doctor can help avoid misdiagnosis. See the full story from MSNBC.

Magnets may be a treatment option for people with depression who don't respond to antidepressants. In a small study by the Medical University of South Carolina, 14 percent of individuals who underwent magnetic therapy reported no symptoms of depression.

Dr. Mark George and colleagues from the Medical University of South Carolina recruited 190 adults to participate in the study. Participants had been depressed anywhere from 3 months to 5 years, and all had been unresponsive to treatment with antidepressants.

Half of the participants received a simulated placebo treatment, while the other half were treated using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), a form of magnetic therapy in which electric pulses are used to stimulate the brain. TMS is currently being used treat depression, as well as chronic pain, migraines and Parkinson’s disease.

After three weeks, 13 of the 92 patients (14 percent) who underwent TMS treatment reported no depressive symptoms, compared to 5 percent of people in the simulation.

"This study should help settle the debate about whether rTMS works for depression," said George, who led the research team. "We can now follow up clues suggesting ways to improve its effectiveness, and hopefully further develop a potential new class of stimulation treatments for other brain disorders."

Remission more than doubled in another similar study in which all participants underwent TMS. Although these results may seem meager, this could spell relief for many of the 17.5 million Americans who suffer from depression. Further studies will provide more concrete information on the long-term effects of TMS.

“We have settled a fundamental question about (TMS) therapy, which is: ‘Does it work?’” George told Health Day. “The answer,” he said, “ is ‘yes’.”

Learn more about the results of this study from the National Institute of Health, or visit the Archives of General Psychiatry to view the study’s abstract.

Get the most bang for your buck this spring—use your tax return to treat yourself to a movie or a nice vacation. Several new studies say life-experience purchases are more rewarding than material ones.

“We found that participants were less satisfied with their material purchases because they were more likely to ruminate about other options they might have chosen,” authors of the study wrote.

In one test, participants were asked to recall one material purchase and one experiential purchase of equal value. They rated their purchases on level of importance, past and present satisfaction and regret. Each time, experiential purchases were ranked more important and more satisfactory.

Researchers think this may be because it is more difficult to evaluate material choices foregone than experiences missed. They say there is likely to be a hint of remorse in any decision, but it is much more distinguished when buying things that can easily be replaced.

“Mentally exchanging an experience involves deleting a part of the self, something that people are understandably reluctant to do,” authors of the study explained. “(They) tend to be experienced, remembered, and evaluated more in their own terms, and less in terms of how they compare to alternative experiences.”

As for that tax return, consider carefully before committing to a new ottoman. A happier you is a healthier you, and a weekend getaway might be the ticket (no pun intended). If you can’t quite budget a vacation in Venice or a tour of Tahiti, a movie or dinner out will do.

The study can be found in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

When it comes to finding the perfect person, forget asking the standard ‘What’s your dream date?’ questions. Now it may be practical to ask which terminal illness he or she has. Prescription4Love.com, a new dating site has been doing just that.

Ricky Durham created the site in 2004 in honor of his brother, Keith. The site is geared to match people with special health needs to others with similar conditions. Whether this search is for friendship or something more is entirely up to the user.

Ricky’s brother Keith had Crohn’s Disease, a form of irritable bowel disorder. It could make meeting people for the first time awkward. That’s when Ricky came up with the idea for Prescription 4 Love.

“Deciding when to tell someone you have a colostomy bag is incredibly difficult,” Durham explains. “I thought if Keith had a chance to meet someone with a similar condition, there would be no need to have to disclose anything.”

Prescription 4 Love is set up like most other online dating sites. Users can create their own profiles, browse through the forums, and chat with each other in an open environment without a hidden medical history. Durham’s recently added instant messaging, blogging and virtual gifts to the mix.

Durham’s site began with a focus on just 11 chronic illnesses, but has expanded to include more than 30. Prescription4Love welcomes anyone from amputees to recovering alcoholics, people with diabetes or heart disease, people who have or have had cancer to little people. Durham has even added STDs to the list. In fact, HIV and herpes are among his most popular groups.

“One lady in particular called me who had cancer said that whenever she told the person she was dating she had cancer they stopped dating her within a matter of days,” he says. Now she can find acceptance in a community where everyone can relate in one way or another.

As of now more than 8,000 people have used the site, and although Keith passed away before the site was fully developed, he is still very much the driving force behind Ricky’s work.

“Keith is the inspiration behind everything that I do for Prescription4Love,” he says. “I have had phone calls and emails from different people thanking me for stating such a web site…the response has been great.”

There may be a link between the brain's dopamine levels and social status. In a small test, people with more dopamine receptors were more likely to have a higher social status and more social support.

Fourteen men and women were asked to describe their social roles and support levels. Each was injected with a small amount of radiotracer, used to show how different tissues function in PET scans. Researchers, meanwhile, monitored dopamine activity in the brain.

"Low levels of dopamine receptors were associated with low social status and that high levels of dopamine receptors were associated with higher social status,” study leader Dr. Diana Martinez of the New York Psychiatric Institute said in a press release. “The same type of association was seen with the volunteer's reports of social support they experience from their friends, family or significant other."

Although human testing is still in its early stages, a similar correlation between dopamine receptors and social status has been identified in primates. This link may have something to do with the perks of being higher up on the social ladder.

“In monkeys, dominant and subordinate social rank are determined by physical and social triumph and defeat,” authors explain. Dopamine is partly responsible for motivation and reward. It is also thought to be a precursor to the release of adrenaline.

“In humans, social hierarchy is a more subtle phenomenon that can be approximated by measuring social status and social support,” they write.

While high social status was correlated with a higher number of dopamine receptors, healthy participants with social phobias had fewer receptors. This information could explain why some people are more anxious or socially detached than others. It could also pave the way toward a greater understanding of conditions such as social anxiety disorder.

While this study is merely suggestive, results support the idea that social status and encouragement from peers and loved ones may be related to dopamine receptors. Further research could provide insight to the complexity of dopamine’s role in social structure.

Read more on the study in February’s issue of Biological Psychiatry.

Worries over job security and the stigma attached to mental illness may be keeping workers from seeking professional help for mental and emotional disorders.

An online survey conducted by the American Psychiatric Association reported three out of five workers expressed concern that mental health counseling would threaten professional status. More than 2,000 adults participated in the study; 1,129 were employed full- or part-time.

Although 40 percent of respondents said their employers were supportive of employee health treatment, others said their employers were less supportive of health services, more so for those concerning mental health.

Participants affected by drug addiction, alcoholism and depression were most concerned. People with diabetes and heart disease were shortly behind.

According to a report in Research Works, a publication of the Partnership for Workplace Mental Health (PWMH), there is a high prevalence of these conditions in the workplace.

“The majority (about two thirds) of people with symptoms of clinical criteria for having mental and substance use disorders do not receive any treatment at all for these conditions,” wrote report author Mark Attridge, PhD. In addition to job security and professional status, confidentiality was another concern for employees.

Researchers say that employee access to quality mental health and addiction services is needed. They suggest that the workplace promote promotion and intervention, and that employers make sure employees know how to access their benefits. They also encourage employers to be supportive and to reassure workers of confidentiality.

Dr. Alan Axelson, PWMH council chairman, stresses the importance of encouraging employees to take care of their mental and physical health, and explains that it can benefit employers as well.

“Research supports the fact that when people receive needed care, they are healthier and more productive,” he said in a press release, “Employers realize the return on their healthcare investment.”

Humility is an admirable quality, but it may also be something to be proud of. According to a study by the University of Texas at Austin, people who are unrealistically self-assured have lower frontal lobe activity than their more modest counterparts.

The two-part study asked university students to rate themselves against peers on positive and negative qualities that were meant to indicate desirability. Traits such as maturity, modesty, discipline, wit, and being well-spoken were considered positive, while traits such as rigidity, aggressiveness, messiness, and being materialistic, narrow-minded or boastful were undesirable.

For the first test, 20 students evaluated themselves on these characteristics during two timed sessions that required participants to make decisions quickly. Fifty-six students participating in the second test were asked to take the same test, but they were given an unlimited amount of time for evaluation.

“The extent to which participants viewed themselves as ‘above average’ was negatively correlated with orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and, to a lesser extent, dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) activation,” authors of the study wrote. “The majority of people judge their personality to be more desirable than their peers' personalities.”

The OFC and dACC are both involved in evaluation and planning. According to the authors, these regions of the brain are involved in deep thought and may be partly responsible for keeping the ego in check. They may also, in part, be responsible for recalling self-serving examples of specific traits. Judging broader traits, they say, would require less effort.

"In healthy people, the more you activate a portion of your frontal lobes, the more accurate your view of yourself is,” said lead author Jennifer Beer in a press release. Beer is an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. “The more you view yourself as desirable or better than your peers, the less you use those lobes."

The study is the first to examine the brain’s role in self-bias in social judgment. Authors say it implies a relationship between poor insight and frontal lobe dysfunction. This information could be used to further study other relationships the frontal lobe might have with poor insight.

“For example, mood disorders and substance abuse may compromise function and/or volume in frontal lobe regions,” authors write. “Understanding these functional and structural changes in relation to self-judgment bias may be helpful for designing therapeutic interventions for various disorders.”

The study appears online in NeuroImage.

You might want to resist the urge to reach for a pint of ice cream when you’re feeling blue.  New information suggests that eating junk food may actually promote depression.

Nearly 3,500 Londoners between the ages of 35 and 55 were asked about their eating habits. Analysts were able to detect diet patterns and divide participants into two groups: processed food consumers and “whole food” consumers. Several years later each group was screened for depression. People who regularly ate processed foods had a slightly higher incidence of depression.

“Our results suggest a protective effect of an overall diet rich in fruits, vegetables and fish (Mediterranean-style diet) affords protection against the onset of depressive symptoms 5 years later,” study authors explain, “whereas a diet rich in processed meat, chocolates, sweet desserts, fried food, refined cereals and high-fat dairy products increases vulnerability.”

Most processed foods lack the nutrients needed to maintain a happy, healthy body. Not only does it contribute to weight gain, but it can also decrease mental alertness and inhibit normal brain function. This translates into a slew of mood and behavioral changes.

A steady diet of junk food has other risks to consider, too. Authors note that this sort of diet has also been associated with coronary heart disease and inflammation. As many as one in five Americans is affected by depression, and one in three have some form of heart disease. Limiting junk food consumption may be one way to reduce these risks.

This is the first to focus on the effects of how a person’s overall diet may be related to depression. Although further research is needed to fully understand this relationship, cutting back on unhealthy food can benefit the mind, body and spirit.

Read more in The British Journal of Psychiatry.

A new study challenges the success of antidepressants in treating depression. The study, which appears in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), suggests that placebos may be just as effective in cases of mild to moderate depression.

Information for the study was gathered from six different placebo-controlled studies taking place across a 29-year span. It included data from 718 adult outpatients being treated for minor or major depressive disorder.

“The magnitude of benefit of antidepressant medication compared with placebo increases with severity of depression symptoms,” authors of the study explain, “and may be minimal or nonexistent, on average, in patients with mild or moderate symptoms.”

According to the New York Times, the success rate of placebos in some studies such as this can be as high as 50 percent for individuals with mild to moderate depression. People who continue to use antidepressants do appear to have a lower relapse rate, though—just one-third to one-half that of those taking placebos.

The study has its limitations, however. First of all, its conclusions are based on studies including just two different antidepressants. Another drawback is that, for the purpose of discovering which drugs are most effective, many studies of antidepressant medications exclude people who get better using placebos.

Finally, results may be limited because of the difficulty of finding studies that include people with mild to moderate depression, rather than just those with severe depression. A study with a much larger pool of participants would provide greater insight into the effectiveness of placebos versus antidepressants.

The study is merely suggestive, and neither proves nor disproves the claim that antidepressants are no more effective than placebos. In no way does it mean that someone should stop taking medication prescribed for depression. Rather, it provides something for antidepressant users to consider and discuss with their doctors.

“For patients with very severe depression, the benefit of medications over placebo is substantial,” authors concluded.

Visit Healia's Depression Community.

People in sunny states have lots to smile about. In addition to all that sunshine, they also report having the greatest sense of well-being, according to research from the Center for Disease Control.

Information comes from the United States Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS). Beginning in 2005, the study included this question: In general, how satisfied are you with your life? Between then and 2008, researchers surveyed 1.3 million U.S. citizens who rated their satisfaction using a four-point scale.

“While the nature of the data set means that is not possible to record clinical data on people, the advantage is that its samples provide representative snapshots of the U.S.,” authors Andrew J. Oswald and Stephen Wu write. “Published research on life-satisfaction using this data set is thus only beginning.”

Statistics weren’t solely based on the amount of sunshine. Researchers also based rankings on factors such as crime statistics, environmental qualities (air and water quality, greenness, etc.), and quality of life.

Louisiana, Hawaii and Florida topped the list of happiest states. Outdoorsy states like Tennessee, Arizona, South Carolina, Mississippi, Montana, Alabama, and Maine were also in the top ten. Pennsylvania, Illinois, California and Michigan were among the bottom ten, and New York was ranked last.

“Many people think these states would be marvelous places to live in,” Oswald said in an interview with MSNBC. “The problem is that if too many individuals think that way, they move into those states, and the resulting congestion and house prices make it a non-fulfilling prophecy.”

Because much of the information was gathered before disasters such as Hurricane Katrina, it may not reflect current feelings of well-being.  Nevertheless, this research provides valuable, suggestive information.

“We wanted to study whether people’s feelings of satisfaction with their own lives are reliable, that is, whether they match up to reality—of sunshine hours, congestion, air quality, etc.—in their own state,” Oswald says. “And they do.”