Monday, April 6, 2009

ADHD Drugs No Long-Term Benefits?

Just wanted to share an interesting article...

The 8 year follow-up data from the ADHD MTA Study (Multisite Multimodal Treatment Study of Children With Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder)are out and the results argue against the use of ADHD drugs longer than 2 years. Most families tended to stopped the drugs by two years anyway, but some vocal medication-proponents had suggested this was endangering children's health. In fact, besides medications having less symptomatic benefit with chronic use, the latest study also comments on observation that long-term medication may also impair growth (children who took medication for 36 months or longer were 6 lbs lighter and one inch shorter).

Read the rest of the article at:

http://eideneurolearningblog.blogspot.com/2009/04/adhd-drugs-no-long-term-benefits.html

2 comments:

tiffrutherf said...

Yeah my son's doctor had D.J. on Metadate for a couple of months and I read that it could stunt his growth and took him off of it. Then a neurologist put him on Depacolt (sp) because he felt that it would help his autism even though he showed no signs of seizures. I read about this drug and what it could do and it blew my mind..Needless to say I have not been back to that neurologist since.

Anonymous said...

Interesting article but after seeing Concerta change my son's life for the better I will stand behind that particular drug. He has been on it for 2 years now and you can definitely see a difference in him when he forgets to take it. He is almost 15 and he says he likes to take the medicine because it helps him focus in school and he does not get in trouble. He went from failing and almost being kicked out of school from impulsive behavior to advanced classes and straight A's. The bad side of it is that he is about a year behind in puberty which the dr said could be the medicine or the ADHD itself. I think each case should be taken based on that child. Thanks for posting that article.