Joe Rogan's view of ADHD revealed in interview with Fox News star

Joe Rogan is once again voicing his doubts over ADHD and the use of medication to treat the condition.

While interviewing Fox News presenter Kat Timpf, who has been taking ADHD drugs for three decades, Rogan said he wasn't sure what ADHD was or if it should qualify as a disease. 

The host has repeatedly raised questions about the condition on his popular podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience — which has more than 14million followers.

He said: 'I don't know what this is. Because every time someone talks about ADHD and people want to insist that it's an actual pathology, that it's an actual issue, I'm always like, boy, I don't know, because I think it's a superpower.' 

Ms Tampf, 35, said she was diagnosed with ADHD at five and soon after was put on amphetamines, only stopping them because she is now pregnant and concerned about how the drugs could impact her unborn child.  

During the episode, viewed more than 650,000 times on YouTube, Rogan told Timpf that she seemed 'like a wonderful person' off the drugs, before adding, 'I don't think you need it.'

Later in the podcast, the host warned Timpf that there was no such thing as a 'biological free lunch,' positing that ADHD drugs cause could trigger complications in later life.

Ms Timpf said: 'I feel like I am getting to meet myself, but also not really myself because of the pregnancy.

'I am curious to stay off it a little longer after the pregnancy just to see. I am going to go back to some extent.'

She said she was put on them at a young age after she was disruptive in class, and said when she had previously quit the drugs she felt like she was 'wading through mud.'

ADHD, or attention-deficit/hyperactive-disorder, is defined as a behavioral disorder where patients are persistently inattentive, hyperactive or impulsive.

Since the 1980s, powerful amphetamines like Adderall have been used to treat it — which work by prompting a surge in neurotransmitters in the brain to boost focus and concentration.

ADHD diagnoses have risen in the US, with 7million three- to 17-year-olds now estimated to have the condition — about a million more than before the Covid pandemic. Overall, 8.7million Americans are estimated to have ADHD.

Prescriptions for Adderall have surged 16 percent since the Covid pandemic — with 41million written in 2021, the latest date available, compared to 35.3million in 2019.

The US is an outlier on ADHD treatment compared to European countries, with 11 percent of American kids under 17 years old diagnosed with the condition compared to one percent of their French and British counterparts.

Globally, the US accounts for up to 69 percent of the estimated $9.6billion ADHD industry.

Once prescribed medication, patients are asked to take amphetamines two or three times per day, often for the rest of their life.

This is despite concerns over side effects from taking the medications for extended periods of time, with the American Addiction Centers saying previously: 'Though Adderall use can help a person attain impressive mental or physical achievements, prolonged use or short-term, high-dose use can result in a deterioration of cognition or physicality due to its many side effects.'

Studies warn long-term use of amphetamines like Adderall can lead to mood problems like anxiety, depression or even psychosis. 

The comments are just Mr Rogan's latest barb over ADHD, after he invited Canadian physician Dr Gabor Mate onto his podcast two years ago who declared that ADHD was 'neither an illness, nor heritable'.

Dr Mate told Mr Rogan two years ago: 'A lot of so called experts say [ADHD] is the most heritable illness there is, and I say it is neither an illness nor is it heritable.

'Poor impulse control, and sometimes the hyperactivity — difficulties sitting still and tendency to fidget, and all that, this is not a disease, this is not heritable.'

He suggested that normally when someone is stressed their fight or flight response is activated. But in cases where someone cannot do this, the brain may instead simply tune out and not concentrate — in what has been termed ADHD.

Rogan also challenged journalist Timothy Denevi over ADHD while he was writing an article for Salon.

Mr Denevi, who has written an entire book on the condition, revealed he was asked by Rogan: 'I mean, you don't have an issue that you need to take it for?'

It is likely Mr Rogan's views reflect the controversy over the condition in academic circles, with a number of experts insisting ADHD is not a condition that should be treated with drugs.

Instead, they argue it is a difference in state of mind — and that this causes someone to function less well in a standard learning or work environment. 

Sufferers have also previously described being off their medications as feeling like they are 'wading through mud' or making it very difficult for themselves to focus.

Speaking on his podcast, Rogan said: 'I think everybody would like to be a little bit more productive, especially if you are a creative type, a writer. 

'But there is no biological free lunch, and there is probably going to be some sort of long-term damage to a life-time of stimulating your system.'

He added: 'I know a lot of people who did a lot of coke in the 1970s and they are all f***** up. A lot of them died with neurological conditions.

'I just wonder the difference between doing coke five nights a week for a few hours versus a pill that you're taking every f****** day that jacks your system up. Who knows if you are going to blow a fuse over that time.'

Cocaine is illegal in the US for most purposes, and is listed as a Schedule II substance — on the same level as fentanyl, morphine and opium.

Amphetamines are also considered to be Schedule II substances by the FDA, meaning they have a high potential for abuse — but they can be obtained via a prescription for ADHD.

Amphetamines work by prompting the release of the neurotransmitters dopamine and norepinephrine, boosting focus, attention, energy levels — and also increasing mood and feelings of Euphoria.

In recent years, some amphetamines — such as Adderall — have been harnessed by students as study drugs, to help cram information ahead of an exam or to rapidly write an essay.