Skyrocketing demand for ADHD meds is straining the U.S. health care system - CNBC

Stories about attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, have been having a resurgence in the social media zeitgeist the past several years, and it may be leading more people to seek out diagnosis for the condition.

The number of ADHD diagnoses in 2010 were almost five times what they were in 1999.

And between 2007 and 2016, the number of diagnoses of ADHD in adults more than doubled. .

"Certainly the effects of the pandemic have been clear in terms of increasing stress, but also the advent of telehealth has brought more access to more people and brought more people into treatment," said Dr.

"I don't think we have a clear answer, but certainly the number of prescriptions of ADHD medications have gone up in the last several years.".

"The other side of this double-edged sword, though, is sometimes if we're talking about mental health symptoms or diagnoses, we then run the risk of perhaps misconstruing again things that are on the spectrum of normal as being pathological," Yeung said.

"When people talk about symptoms online, sometimes those symptoms might actually not necessarily be representative of a certain illness or disorder, but it might be talked about in such a way that anyone watching that video might actually see it as such and think they have that diagnosis.".