Study: Consistent use of ADHD meds may stunt growth

[Bern]

The Multimodal Treatment Study of ADHD (MTA Study) is the largest ADHD treatment study ever conducted ...

...

Three broad conclusions can be drawn from this study.

First, there was substantial persistence of ADHD symptoms into adulthood. Although not mean youth with ADHD continue to struggle with ADHD as adults, this is not a condition that most children simply outgrow. Rather, it is likely to be a chronic condition that must be managed effectively over time. Keeping effective treatment in place over many years, while extremely challenging, may often be necessary.

Second, although the benefits of medication treatment on ADHD symptoms dissipate, the impact on adult stature persists. Consistent medication treatment through adolescence was not linked to reduced symptoms in young adulthood; unfortunately, however, it was associated with reduced adult height . The impact on height was not trivial, with average differences between Consistent and Negligible medication treatment groups of roughly 2 inches. One implication of this finding is that reducing medication dose, which can be done when medication is combined with behavior therapy, could be an effective way to mitigate adverse height outcomes.
...

More: https://sharpbrains.com/blog/2018/03...e-study-finds/

Reference: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28295312


The study did not track or compare EEG Neurofeedback as a treatment modality. I'd be really interested to see the persistence data on patients who went that route.

[NorthCarolinaLiberty]

Inb4 ZippyJuan skips the entire study and jumps to the conclusion just to post the study limitations. LOL

[Ender]

A lot of kids I work with are diagnosed with ADHD. As soon as they are actually doing something that they have interest in, we never see a sign of it.

Reminds me of Wayne's World:

"When I was a junior I thought I had mono but then I discovered I was just really bored."

[Bern]

Best I can tell, that study focused patients who were prescribed Ritalin, FWIW.

[Bern]

...
The study did not track or compare EEG Neurofeedback as a treatment modality. I'd be really interested to see the persistence data on patients who went that route.

Another study... 500 patients... results in line with what I suspected...

A study just published in the February issue of the medical journal European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry shows Neurofeedback to have long-term positive effects in children with ADHD.

Neurofeedback is a non-invasive therapy, which is used to train brain activity, visualizing EEG waves on a computer screen via electrodes. This has been shown to help reduce symptoms of ADHD in children, particularly inattention and hyperactivity. However, scientists have debated whether the reported effects are long-lasting and a viable alternative to prescribing children with medications.

In this latest study, researchers compiled data of more than 500 children with ADHD comparing the results of Neurofeedback, with medications and "non-active" (no treatment) conditions. To critically interpret the data, researchers with different views on Neurofeedback were selected to contribute to the study.

They found that Neurofeedback had sustainable effects in the longer term, with positive and significant effects observed after six months of treatment. Moreover, the findings show that the effects of Neurofeedback show a tendency to improve over time, with no ongoing therapy sessions needed after the initial program compared to the group, which was still taking medication at six-month follow-up.
...

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-rele...300601435.html

[Bern]

This is the article about the EEG neurofeedback study: https://link.springer.com/content/pd...018-1121-4.pdf

[Intoxiklown]

This is actually something doctors (are supposed to be at least) explain to patients/parents as a possible side effect as appetite suppression can be a common side effect, hence lower nutrition intake during formative years.

[oyarde]

Oh , I am quite certain additional side effects of the drugs have a worse outcome than that .

[specsaregood]

Oh , I am quite certain additional side effects of the drugs have a worse outcome than that .

I dunno, there is a new documentary on Netflix about ADHD meds. I was expecting it to be anti, but damn if the whole darn thing didn't come across as a giant advertisement for Adderall. Halfway through I was thinking, "dayum, maybe I should try to get a prescription"

[donnay]

Flashback:

Man Credited with “Discovering” ADHD Makes a Startling Deathbed Confession
https://realfarmacy.com/the-man-who-...ed-confession/

[Firestarter]

More: https://sharpbrains.com/blog/2018/03...e-study-finds/

Please think about what this means...

Are ADHD symptoms in young adulthood related to patterns of medication use through adolescence? The clear answer to this question was NO. Regardless of whether participants were Consistent, Inconsistent, or Negligible users of ADHD medication through adolescence, their self- and parent-reported ADHD symptoms were quite similar. There was thus no indication that consistent medication treatment over a number of years had any persistent impact.

[Bern]

Firestarter - what did it mean to you? The author is talking about the participants with respect to their ADHD symptoms. The sentence after the one you quoted clarifies - ADHD meds (or more specifically Ritalin) do not "cure" ADHD. The patients continue exhibiting symptoms no matter how well they maintained a (Ritalin) medication schedule.

[Firestarter]

The patients continue exhibiting symptoms no matter how well they maintained a (Ritalin) medication schedule.

This is another study without “placebo”, which on the one hand shows that the behaviour of children "regardless" if they do or do not take their amphetamine (Risperdal) is "reported" similarly.
The same study shows that when the doctors know that the child is poisoned with amphetamine; they report that their behaviour has improved more (than “treatment” without amphetamine).

With ADHD, we’re talking about a non-existent disease and blatantly falsified medical trials.


More information in the following thread: http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...lation-control

The story of ADHD is that some children (coincidently mostly boys of the lower classes) suffer from a chemical imbalance in their brain (that usually miraculously stops in adulthood), causing concentration problems and makes them hyperactive. They do not diagnose ADHD by measuring this chemical imbalance of the brain, but by studying behaviour. How ridiculous the story really is, becomes apparent when the lack of attention can also lead to exact opposite – really quiet behaviour - ADD (mostly girls of the lower classes). So psychiatrists can choose at will which (poor) kids are sentenced to AD(H)D.
You might know the tale that only children with ADHD improve on Ritalin (but others get hyperactive). According to L. Alan Sroufe, professor emeritus at the University of Minnesota’s Institute of Child Development, Methylphenidate (Ritalin) was given to radar operators in World War II to help them focus on boring, repetitive tasks (is this an accurate description for school?): http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/29/op...term.html?_r=0

If children refuse a little too hard to get brainwashed, they “need” psychiatric treatment. In the USA schools are stimulated to sentence kids to AD(H)D by a child find bonus, and additional money for each schoolchild with AD(H)D: http://www.rense.com/general4/addd.htm
In Massachusetts 60% of the orphans and in Texas between 31% and 42% of the foster children are on psychiatric drugs: http://www.texastribune.org/2013/01/...ed-high-doses/

Ritalin is similar to amphetamine, a highly addictive hallucinative drug. Because kids get hooked, they could even say that Ritalin is beneficial (so they get their drugs). Quitting Ritalin leads to withdrawal effects, which is used as an argument for Ritalin (look what happens without Ritalin!). Nadine Lambert concludes Ritalin leads to drugs abuse: http://www.berkeley.edu/news/berkele...2/ritalin.html

It is well known that using amphetamines leads to extreme and aggressive (hyperactive) behaviour; because of Ritalin more people will suffer from attention disorders and hyperactivity. A list of (side) effects of Ritalin – aggression, psychosis, depression, bad results at school, stomach ache, headache, seizures, coma and insomnia: http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/ac/...ethsummary.pdf

The MTA study compared different kind of treatments, including a large group that got no drugs, for 579 children diagnosed with ADHD according to DSM and ran for years. In the first 14 months the hyperactive behaviour of the children with ADHD notably “improved”, but from 3 years on the group on Ritalin was just as hyperactive as the group without (drugs). After 8 years: 70% of the group didn’t show hyperactive symptoms (independent of treatment), so why did they give them drugs in the first place? After 6 years the group that got no drugs showed less: 1) depressions or anxiety disorders (4.3% compared to more than 16.4%) and 2) psychotic or manic disorders (0.9% compared to more than 2.0%). Another conclusion is that the group with ADHD was less successful than a control group. See Molina et al The MTA at 8 Years: … ADHD in a Multisite Study (2009): http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...hms-271449.pdf

Over the years some retired psychologists put their reputation on the line by revealing that ADHD is a prime example of a fictitious disease, for example: Leon Eisenberg (who played a part in inventing ADHD) and Jerome Kagan (of Harvard University). Here an interview with Kagan: http://www.spiegel.de/international/...-a-847500.html

[Bern]

Actually, it's a continuation of the same MTA study that you referenced in the second to last paragraph of your quoted post.

[Firestarter]

At the following link the graphs and tables from the report can be viewed: https://www.semanticscholar.org/pape...965504295be034

See the second and third graph with the lower height as the result of Ritalin…

[AZJoe]

[specsaregood]

I entered my kid in a rock climbing class with similar thoughts in mind.