Remove Tonsils, Get Rid of Adhd?

Children who have their tonsils removed are more likely to improve behaviorally and less likely to display ADHD symptoms, recent University of Michigan Health System research shows.

Researchers say their findings show a growing amount of evidence indicating that children with inattention, hyperactivity, or sleepiness during the day may benefit from a tonsillectomy.

In this study, 22 children were diagnosed with ADHD at the start. 50 percent of the children no longer displayed ADHD symptoms one year later after the tonsillectomy.
Researchers link disrupted sleep and breathing problems to ADHD symptoms. Interruptions in sleep cause the brain to wake up, often without the person realizing it. These interruptions are believed to affect the child's behavior throughout the day.

Tonsillectomies were once as common as ADHD is now. In past decades over a million children received tonsillectomies. Tonsillectomies are now performed on a few hundred thousand children each year. Maybe not so coincidental, this research points out, is that ADHD rates continues to climb.

Based on these findings, researchers urge parents of children with behavioral problems to look first for possible sleep problems before placing an ADHD label on the child and resorting to amphetamine drugs.

Children who snore or have other nighttime breathing problems should be thoroughly evaluated for sleep problems. If sleep problems are evident, parents should consider a tonsillectomy.