Many experts have documented a hereditary
aspect to ADD. We saw one child whose chief problem was absentmindedness
in spite of intellectual brilliance. All he wanted to do was to
read about atoms and quarks and to contemplate the boundlessness
of the universe. His father was the same way: brilliant, but he
could barely remember to change his socks. His father's father
was a renowned educator who had had a number of car accidents
because he couldn't be bothered to keep his car on the road. They
were like carbon copies of each other.
Yet we see other children whose tantrums,
violence, and excessive restlessness seem to come out of nowhere.
They may have very mellow parents who have limited their children's
exposure to guns, sugar, and violent movies and who have raised
them in a very loving, safe environment-and they still behave
like wildcats.
A Matter of Predisposition
Even if they have two parents with
ADD and eat sugar all day, some children will develop ADD and
others will not. What can account for this disparity? Homeopaths
believe that the reason some children and adults suffer from ADD
and others do not lies in susceptibility. If you ask the parent
of a child with ADD when he first noticed problem behaviors or
tendencies in his child, he will likely say from infancy or toddlerhood.
Such a child may have been hyperalert and have tendencies to wake
frequently during the night, to be fussy and hard to satisfy,
to run as soon as he could walk, and to climb all over the furniture
as soon as he was mobile. This predisposition
to ADD-like behavior often occurs
at a very tender age. Homeopaths frequently observe that this
predisposition or susceptibility depends on the constitution of
the individual from birth and may even be affected by the state
of the parents prior to conception and during pregnancy.
How is this susceptibility passed
on? Genetically? Homeopaths recognize these common traits among
parents and children and hypothesize that there is some mechanism
which we do not yet understand for these impressions or threads
to be passed on generationally.Researchers at the University of
California, Irvine recently reported finding the first abnormal
gene associated with ADD. The gene controls dopamine receptors
in the brain. Children with a more severe form of ADD have an
abnormality of this gene, causing less sensitivity to dopamine,
a neurotransmitter. Ritalin is known to stimulate dopamine release,
perhaps accounting for the drug's efficacy.9
Most important to the homeopath are
the unique tendencies or predispositions of the individual child
or adult, regardless of what specifically may trigger the susceptibility.
The phenomenon of susceptibility varies from individual to individual
and cannot be stereotyped. But the individual can be carefully
listened to and deeply understood. And from this understanding,
a homeopathic medicine can be matched to the individual which
will shift that susceptibility and bring the person into balance.
No Single Cause of
ADD
Our conclusion, which is not particularly
surprising given that we are homeopaths, is that each child or
adult with ADD is individual. The cause of his ADD is no more
stereotypical than his symptoms. Other than saying that anyone
with ADD must have a predisposition to it, be it hereditary or
environmental, we believe it is fruitless to ascribe all of the
individual ADDs to one causative factor. Even if researchers conclude
that every person with ADD has a deficiency or excess of one specific
neurotransmitter, it is still an observation and not the underlying
cause of the problem.