Digital_Zone: Is Tylenol to Blame For ADHD? New Study Suggests It May

Numerous studies over the last few years have implicated the absolute most trusted drug in pregnancy, Tylenol (acetaminophen), with increasing the incidence of childhood diseases such as asthma and allergies. There is even on study linking cryptorchidism (undescended testes) to acetaminophen with the idea so it acted as a sex hormone binding protein displacer.

Now a new study out of the Journal of American Medical Association Pediatrics adds more fuel to the fire that the once thought "safe to take acetaminophen during pregnancy" mantra may possibly not be the case.

In this study the investigators evaluated over 60,000 children born between 1996-2002, recording the acetaminophen use of the mothers during pregnancy and 6 months following delivery while also following the children for any diagnosis of ADHD or other behavioral disorders. What they found is astonishing, enough to truly have the primary author Dr. Olsen to say "acetaminophen should no longer be considered a safe drug for used in pregnancy."

Mothers who took acetaminophen during pregnancy had an increased threat of having a young child identified as having ADHD nearly 2 times more than those mothers who did not. It had been also an amount dependent association meaning those mothers with the greatest level of acetaminophen usage had the greatest increase in risk. First trimester use was also associated more strongly than with second or third trimester acetaminophen use.

These answers are profound in that we have found still another drug, thought to be safe and trusted, adding to the Tylenol ADHD Lawsuit.

So what's the text? Well there are always a few scientists who theorize that acetaminophen displaces certain hormones from their target receptors. Others, myself included, believe it is a lot more simplistic.

Acetaminophen requires your body to add a particular molecule to it, called glutathione, before it can be adequately excreted/eliminated from the body. Every time acetaminophen is ingested your body lowers its glutathione reserves. Well there are numerous studies that implicate glutathione as a vital antioxidant found low in children on the Autistic Spectrum, ADHD, Schizophrenia, Depression, Bi-Polar, Dyslexia, Asthma, Allergies - need I carry on? In reality it's among the markers I routinely use when evaluating children with learning and behavioral disorders. Normalizing glutathione levels may be the step I often hear from parents as the one thing that finally "corrected" their child's issues. I do this through detoxification of toxins that consume the standard glutathione reserves, improving nutrition, supplementation with NAC, vitamin C, pycnogenol or glutathione itself and reducing inflammation to mention just a few.

I even go as far as recommending to mothers, before having yet another child, to own their glutathione levels checked and if low to put on off on pregnancy until we are able to improve the levels to a standard range. This is based off a study done by Dr. Jill James by which she showed a 4 fold increase in the chance of getting a young child diagnosed Autistic if the Mother had documented low quantities of glutathione before getting pregnant.

To me this data is a game changer, another tool of information that we can disseminate to enough mothers hoping to cut back the incidence of ADHD and many other disorders affecting our youngsters at an alarming rate. After all prevention is significantly easier than treatment.