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The Ritalin Debate: Three Ritalin Studies
The Ritalin debate has continued for
decades. Does Ritalin cause damage to growing bodies and growing
brains? Does Ritalin increase or decrease the likelihood of drug
use in adolescent and adult years? The answer to these, and many
other questions concerning Ritalin, depends completely on who you
are talking to and what study was recently conducted.
In all fairness, Ritalin has received the
blunt end of the criticism. It has been around the longest and,
until only a few years ago, was the most used drug for the
treatment of Attention Deficit Disorder. Most study information conducted on
the effects of drug medication focus on Ritalin but when looking
at Ritalin studies, other pharmaceutical drugs should be looked at
in the same light.
Three study results published this past week
(Dec. 2003) cast an unfavorable pallor on Ritalin and ADHD
medications. These three study information results came from reputable sources - the University of Texas
Southwestern Medical Center, the Harvard Medical School and the
Finch University of Health Sciences/The Chicago Medical School.
Also of note was a study released in August
2003 comparing the effectiveness of Ritalin and nutritional
treatment in 20 children with ADHD. This study found that the
group of 10 children treated with nutritional supplements fared as
well on rating scales as the 10 children treated with Ritalin.
The dietary supplements used in this study
were a mix of vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients, amino acids,
essential fatty acids and phospholipids. Not so surprising, the
Attend formula is
also a blend of these same elements.
A reprint of this study is found after the
ABC News article. Both of these articles are important in
looking at ADHD treatment. Your doctor may tell you there is no
harm in using ADHD drugs. Your doctor may tell you that
nutritional supplementation does not work. Your doctor my tell you
that ADHD medications are the only way. Do not believe everything
you hear...
Below is an article encapsulating the three
recent ADHD medication studies. You can also read this article at;
http://www.abcnews.go.com/wire/US/reuters20031208_12.html
Attention Deficit Drugs May Have
Long-Term Effects
Dec. 8 - WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Drugs given
to children to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder
could have long-term effects on their growing brains, studies on
rats suggest. Several studies published on Monday show
that rats given a popular ADHD drug were less likely to want to
use cocaine later in life, but also often acted clinically
depressed and behaved differently from rats give dummy injections. While rats are different from humans, the
studies suggest that doctors should watch children for long-term
effects, too.
In the United States between 3 percent and 5
percent of children are diagnosed with attention deficit disorder,
marked by reduced ability to concentrate, difficulty in organizing
and impulsive behavior. Patients are commonly prescribed stimulants
but the practice is sometimes controversial.
William Carlezon of McLean Hospital and
Harvard Medical School in Boston and colleagues raised two groups
of rats. One was given Ritalin, known generically as
methylphenidate, during the rat equivalent of pre-adolescence,
while the other was given a salt water injection. When they matured, the rats were tested for
"learned helplessness" -- how quickly they gave up on behavioral
tasks under stress.
"Rats exposed to Ritalin as juveniles showed
large increases in learned-helplessness behavior during adulthood,
suggesting a tendency toward depression," Carlezon said in a
statement.
But rats, which generally like cocaine, were
less likely to eat it if they had been give Ritalin. Carlezon said he did not believe the effects
were specific to Ritalin, made by Swiss drug giant Novartis. It
could instead be a general effect of stimulant drugs, many of
which act by increasing the activity of a key message-carrying
chemical called dopamine. Higher dopamine levels could affect the way
brain cells cement their connections during development, Carlezon
wrote in the Dec. 15 issue of the journal Biological Psychiatry.
A team at the University of Texas
Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas found that adult rats were
less responsive to rewarding stimuli and reacted more to stress if
they had been given methylphenidate as youngsters. A third study done by a team at Finch
University of Health Sciences/The Chicago Medical School found
changes in how dopamine neurons responded to methylphenidate.
"These three studies remind us how limited
our knowledge is of the neurochemical and functional
characteristics of the human brain during childhood and
adolescence and on the effects of psychotropic drugs on brain
development," Dr. Thomas Insel, Director of the National Institute
of Mental Health, wrote in a commentary.
Outcome-based comparison of Ritalin
versus food-supplement treated children with AD/HD.
Harding KL, Judah RD, Gant C.
Harvard Medical School Fellow, McLean
Hospital, Belmont, Massachusetts, internship in child/adolescent
psychology, post-doctoral program, neuropsychology.
Twenty children with attention deficit
hyperactivity disorder were treated with either Ritalin (10
children) or dietary supplements (10 children), and outcomes were
compared using the Intermediate Visual and Auditory/Continuous
Performance Test (IVA/CPT) and the WINKS two-way analysis of
variance with repeated measures and with Tukey multiple
comparisons. Subjects in both groups showed significant gains (p
less than 0.01) on the IVA/CPT's Full Scale Response Control
Quotient and Full Scale Attention Control Quotient (p less than
0.001). Improvements in the four sub-quotients of the IVA/CPT were
also found to be significant and essentially identical in both
groups: Auditory Response Control Quotient (p less than 0.001),
Visual Response Control Quotient (p less than 0.05), Auditory
Attention Quotient (p less than 0.001), and Visual Attention
Quotient (p less than 0.001). Numerous studies suggest that there
are at least eight biochemical risk factors for ADHD. Food and
additive allergies, heavy metal toxicity and other environmental
toxins, low-protein/high-carbohydrate diets, mineral imbalances,
essential fatty acid and phospholipid deficiencies, amino acid
deficiencies, thyroid disorders, and B-vitamin deficiencies are
the most widely recognized causes of ADHD. The dietary supplements
used were a mix of vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients, amino
acids, essential fatty acids, phospholipids, and probiotics that
attempted to address the AD/HD biochemical risk factors. These
findings support the effectiveness of food supplement treatment in
improving attention and self-control in children with AD/HD and
suggest food supplement treatment of AD/HD may be of equal
efficacy to Ritalin treatment.
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