Advancing the management of adult ADHD and cooccurring cardiometabolic disease through register-based studies of prognosis, treatment and high-risk groups

What is important?

Evidence points to substantial comorbidity between adult ADHD and cardiometabolic disease, i.e., obesity, type-2 Diabetes (T2DM), and cardiovascular disease (CVD).

Guidelines for care of cardiometabolic disease stress the importance of co-occurring psychiatric disorders, yet ADHD is rarely mentioned.

This is problematic as ADHD is a common psychiatric disorder (2–5%) and behaviours and cognitive challenges associated with ADHD may lead to poor outcomes due to poor adherence and risky behaviours.

Also, stimulant medications used to treat ADHD may increase risk for adverse outcomes for those with underlying CVD or in interaction with other pharmacological treatments.What is to be done?

First, determine how ADHD associates with outcomes (i.e., cardiometabolic risk profiles, adherence to treatments for cardiometabolic disease, and severe post-surgery/diagnosis outcomes) after bariatric surgery, T2DM and CVD diagnosis.

Second, explore real-world effectiveness and safety of ADHD medication in relation to cardiometabolic outcomes/treatments.

Third, develop prediction tool that allow identification of patients with ADHD at high-risk for poor cardiometabolic outcomes and treatment adherence.How the research will be carried out?

An interdisciplinary team of experts will apply state-of-the art statistical approaches and beyond on data from a comprehensive linkage of national registers, including three unique quality registers of bariatric surgery, T2DM and CVD.