Why ADHD Symptoms Might Not Be Just Genetics

You keep being told ADHD is genetic, but part of you suspects something in your environment is making it worse.

In this next episode of the Research Recap Series Skye and Will (Hacking Your ADHD) discuss research on environmental exposure and ADHD-related behaviors.

Together they explore what the science suggests about how certain chemicals may influence attention, impulsivity, and neurodevelopment. The focus stays on association, not certainty, and what that means in practice.

The conversation also breaks down how to think about risk without spiraling. What matters. What is still unclear. And how to approach this without adding more pressure.

What We Cover

• Why research is shifting toward ADHD symptoms, not just diagnosis
• The possible role of environmental exposure alongside genetics
• What endocrine disruptors do and why they matter for brain development
• How to interpret early-stage research without overreacting
• The gap between scientific findings and everyday decision making

Want more of Will’s work?

Visit HackingYourADHD.com or subscribe to his YouTube channel.

 P.S. Losing work because the admin layer around your business can't keep up with you? Invisible Systems is a 90-day done-for-you sprint where I (Skye) extract the processes from your head, build the operating layer, and find the right person to run it. Six spots left at the founding price, book a call at invisiblesystem.co

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Having some kind of cosmetics, so makeup, fragrances, etc., is associated with certain endocrine disruptors and other things that can be negative to your baby. It's crossing the barrier, the placental barrier.

SPEAKER_00 0:11

In this episode, we're going to be discussing a paper called Use of Cosmetics in Pregnancy and Neurotoxicity. Can it increase the risks of congenital enteric neuropathies? It's a lot. In this, the authors explore the hypothesis of neurotoxins such as microplastics, parabens, benzophthalates, and metals that can cross the placental barrier and disrupt development of fetal nervous system. And this may not seem very ADHD-centric when you like hear that. We're talking about a lot of things here, but there's some really interesting things we can glean here, and there's definitely some connections. So, of course, with the uh little bit of a disclaimer, of course, that we're not doctors and that we are not complete experts in this field. So uh we'll be trying to do our best.

SPEAKER_02 0:49

No, no, we're definitely not complete experts. But I will say I am a woman with ADHD who recently had a baby and used cosmetics. So I feel like in this way, it at least was very interesting to read. So this conversation is about the idea, and this is a review. This is not an academic sort of experimental article, but it's a review of research around the idea that having some kind of cosmetics, so makeup, fragrances, etc., is associated with certain endocrine disruptors and other things that can, you know, be negative to your baby. It's crossing the barrier, the placental barrier, basically. And so what that means, you know, is that yeah, it neurotoxicity can damage the blood-brain barrier, affecting the barrier structure or disrupting its regulatory functions. This is a concern. And this is a concern that they've mentioned that it's not necessarily seen or known to be a concern all the time by people. And I will say I have heard of it in general, but I haven't heard of it specifically related to pregnancy. So it was really interesting. They said that it's not limited to pregnancy, but it's just a a particular time that's really important, both during pregnancy but also during any breastfeeding as well. So take us through why are we talking about this in terms of ADHD?

SPEAKER_00 2:13

Well, in terms of ADHD, really the paper gave the phthalates as the primary culprit that we see uh ADHD symptoms arising from things. From the their review, they you know found that there is definitely a link between phthalates and ADHD, you know, higher concentrations of DBP, that is dibutyl phthalates. So they find that in school-aged children, and it's correlated with this increased inattention and impulsivity. So we are seeing these the higher levels of these chemicals in kids that are displaying ADHD symptoms. So that's kind of what we are why this paper was relevant here for us.

SPEAKER_02 2:50

Yeah, 100%. And you know, again, it's just important to note they are saying ADHD behavioral profile, not ADHD diagnosis. And I feel like I keep having to point that out because when you're not in an academic setting, the focus is always on the ADHD official diagnosis. But it feels like, especially in the last couple of years, that has been far less of a part of the conversation when you're not talking about medication. People are starting to talk about subclinical ADHD and ADHD symptoms far more in research. Have you felt the same way, Will?

SPEAKER_00 3:24

Yeah, I mean, there's definitely I've seen a lot more talk about just the like, yeah, that end piece of what are what symptoms are we seeing. And sometimes that is a valid thing that we're looking at. But and sometimes it is something that we really want to be cognizant of that a symptom is on its own is not indicative of ADHD, especially in like the school setting. One of the important criteria for a diagnosis is that we're seeing this at both home and at school. And if we're looking at just a pure school setting, we don't, we're we're not getting a full picture.

SPEAKER_02 3:54

Yeah, yeah. So we're talking symptoms and we're talking association. Again, this is very, this is very initial research of a thing that we could research, but it's still important to bring to your attention because for a lot of people, this is something, at least for me, that's the first time that we're hearing about it. If we go into, okay, what are phthalates?

SPEAKER_00 4:14

Let's see, we have them listed as they're found in eyeshadows or fragrances, nail polishes, moisturizers, hair products, but also in like a lot of plastic products to make them softer and stuff.

SPEAKER_02 4:23

Yeah, exactly. It's not, it's a family of chemicals used to soften plastic. So it lives around that zone of plastic. And if you are somebody who is taking in cosmetics in different ways, it can, yeah, it can affect thyroid hormone regulation, it can affect thyroid receptors, hormone disruption. So a lot of different things that it can affect in general. And I think this is where it becomes an interesting conversation because one of the things that I saw, I was talking about this in different contexts, and and one of the things that I saw written down, which I thought was hilarious, was they were like, well, you should probably avoid phthalates because it's a pretty easy thing to just not do it, and it's got a big outcome. So the feeling is like, okay, well, just be safe and just don't do it. I will say for for reference, I am pretty crunchy, if you know, you know. Um, and so I actually do. But that was a really, really complicated, expensive process that involved a lot of research and a lot of time. So when somebody says, oh, just avoid phthalates or other things because of this association, that is very difficult. That is not the easiest thing to do.

SPEAKER_00 5:37

Yeah, the cutting out stuff that is just everywhere in the world is hard. And even if you don't directly get a lot of this stuff, you'll still get some aspects of it in water supply.

SPEAKER_02 5:47

Or dust, apparently.

SPEAKER_00 5:48

Yeah, and this isn't to say that harm reduction isn't a great first straight where like, hey, I'm going to try and reduce this, but the goal shouldn't be to go to zero because that's not realistic.

SPEAKER_02 5:58

Yeah, and and that's that's where the whole thing becomes very complicated. I will just say, because we are talking about cosmetics to save anybody time, if you are somebody who wants to reduce your phthalates and other things, using cosmetics, I highly recommend Anika. Not sponsored, but uh that was what I found after years of of research is Anika has really good makeup products that don't have any of this stuff.

SPEAKER_00 6:23

An interesting thing, too, also in this paper, is they also talked quite a bit about microplastics, but not directly in regards to ADHD as well. Now, microplastics are something that I'm sure everyone that's listening to has heard about all these microplastics in our life because they again are everywhere. It was interesting that they didn't mention them in regards to ADHD because it is the you know, microplastics were mentioned as an endocrine disruptor, and endocrine disruption was also mentioned as something that was linked with ADHD symptoms. So I was like, that's interesting that you didn't make this connection there, but it's probably just because it wasn't the focus of the paper.

SPEAKER_02 6:54

Yeah, yeah. The paper's focus was on looking at all of the different things that could be associated. So ADHD wasn't the only one. There was also being overweight, there was autism, ASD, as well as neurocognitive development struggles, Parkinson-like diseases, motor skills, Alzheimer's. There was a lot of things that were associated with metals and microplastics and parabens and phthalates in this conversation. ADHD is just the one that we're focusing on. So it is it is a very interesting paper, and in terms of the outcome, you know, similar to another paper that we talked about recently, it's really about bringing awareness to the fact that this is something that should be paid attention to because of the concept that at the moment that is not necessarily something that people know, or if they know they might not know why, or particularly that this is most important during pregnancy.

SPEAKER_00 7:51

Yeah, and I think this is also something that is there is definitely individual responsibility at this point. It's also something we want to look into industry uh regulations at in the future level, like being like, hey, yeah, these chemicals and plastics and all this stuff, we need to find ways to not have that everywhere.

SPEAKER_02 8:06

Yeah, a hundred percent. And this was something else that they've mentioned was some of these things are banned in certain places, but not banned in other places. And you know, being, you know, removing neurotoxic compounds from formulations, particularly of cosmetics, given that cosmetics are sort of taken in by women a lot, and it is something that you know, women are the ones who are getting pregnant and and are, you know, having to deal with these situations as well. When you line up all the associations, because they are all associations, you're looking at something that that sort of says, Hey, we should probably not be putting this situation on women. And again, and I will say this for the last paper the answer is not to add one more thing to the plate of somebody who is having a baby and taking care of other people. As someone who recently did that, that would be very unhelpful.

SPEAKER_00 8:59

Absolutely. Yeah, it's this is something where we want to make their be everyone's life easier here. Again, that we are seeing ADHD symptoms here. There are a lot of other things going on with endocrine disruption, as we you were alluding to with this paper. Like, there is a lot that that you can see as a society need to be making changes. This is not a simply mom needs to be better.

SPEAKER_02 9:19

Yeah, yeah, mom's doing mom's doing her best.

SPEAKER_00 9:22

Yeah, with that said, like, yeah, there are things that you can do to help on an individual level to do these things. This paper was specifically looking at the maternal side of things, but you know, there's probably you know enough evidence to say that like even if you're not pregnant, that reducing these chemicals in your life would probably be good too.

SPEAKER_02 9:39

Yeah, yeah, 100%. And they did mention that around things like sunscreen, for example, and other things, and and you know, things that have metals in them. One of the things that we saw when looking at this research was people are particularly interested in measuring this in women who are pregnant because they have the biggest effect, so it's easier to study them, basically.

SPEAKER_00 9:59

Well, and especially when we're looking at phthalates and its effect on neurodevelopment.

SPEAKER_02 10:04

Interesting connection into this idea that maybe there is more to ADHD symptoms than just genetics. And I'm curious to keep delving into this because, you know, like I said on a different episode, it's not something that I have personally done a lot of diving into because I think I've been a bit resistant to the idea that this is more than just genetics. But like you said, it could also be about those epigenetic switches.

SPEAKER_00 10:30

Yeah, and just seeing magnitude of effect. Because, say you have, you know, you're diagnosed with ADHD, but you're also exposed to chemicals that give you more ADHD symptoms, you're gonna have more ADHD.

SPEAKER_01 10:41

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the ADHD Skills Lab. If you liked it, leave us a five star review. It helps other people learn more about us. And thank you so much to our wonderful team for making us sound good, look good. We couldn't do it without you.