Recent comments in /f/askscience

Beginning_Cat_4972 t1_j6can14 wrote

Just to add on here- You're probably not going to get IRB approval for raising kids on any vitamin deficit. You could do this with pregnant rats and then perform behavior tests on them during development. Or you might be able to enroll pregnant women in a study where vitamin levels/diets are tracked but not altered in anyway. Then follow up with the children at different time points.

To answer the original question- I'd probably say that the main issue is that it's hard to get a study funded without having reliable data to back up your hypothesis. I skimmed a few papers and there's not a lot of rational behind the idea that vitamin deficiencies play a role in ADHD pathogenesis. No one is presenting a good reason for thinking vitamin deficiencies are important in ADHD. On top of that it looks like there isn't any compelling data that can be cited.

Another issue you'd run into is that ADHD has such strong genetic links, and none of the genes implicated in ADHD are related to vitamin metabolism. They're all related to neurotransmitter/neuromodulatory molecule signaling and handling and neuronal proliferation. So, it doesn't make a lot of sense to argue a vitamin deficiency involvement when all the observations point elsewhere.

So, sometimes when you read that it's hard to get to the bottom of an issue, with no clear explanation of why, it might just mean it's not a great hypothesis.

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muskytortoise t1_j6c4520 wrote

Why wouldn't it? You just described standard jewelry making tools. The soldering part is a bit iffy in that you're not actually joining the two but merely holding them in place but the method is essentially the same to create a seam keeping gems in place. They're not even a little related to what OP was looking for, but that's exactly how gems are kept in place.

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