http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSTRE56E8A920090715 Kids who have survived cancer can tolerate Ritalin Wed Jul 15, 2009
7:21pm EDT
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Despite previous studies suggesting that
childhood cancer survivors with attention and learning problems have a
lot of side effects while taking methylphenidate (marketed as Ritalin
and other names), most such children do well on the drug, according to
a new study.
However, some groups of children should be closely monitored for side
effects while taking methylphenidate, a stimulant often prescribed for
children with attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), write
Dr. Heather M. Conklin from St. Jude Children's Research Hospital,
Memphis, Tennessee, and colleagues in their report in the journal
Pediatrics.
In their study, Conklin's team gave 103 childhood cancer survivors one
of two different doses of methylphenidate or placebo. All of the
children received all of the options at different phases in the trial.
During the phase of the trial in which they were receiving a moderate
dose of methylphenidate, patients experienced more severe symptoms
than they did during the low-dose and placebo phases.
Still, the researchers note, side effects were less severe, and less
frequent, than they were before the trial started, no matter what
phase of the trial the children were in at the time. The team suggests
that this was because some of the "side effects" of methylphenidate
usage are actually attention problems that improve with medication.
There were some groups that should be monitored more carefully,
however: Parents of girls reported more side effects than did parents
of boys across all dose levels, the investigators say, and lower IQ
was associated with more side effects during the low-dose
methylphenidate period relative to placebo.
The authors also found that brain tumor survivors were 3 times more
likely than other childhood cancer survivors to stop methylphenidate
treatment early because of side effects.
"Those groups at increased risk need to be closely monitored by
prescribing clinicians," the authors advise. "It may also be that
lower doses of methylphenidate medication are advisable in the higher
risk cancer survivors given previous findings that failed to reveal a
behavioral advantage for a moderate dose of methylphenidate over a low
dose of methylphenidate."
SOURCE Pediatrics, July 2009.
http://www.naturalnews.com/026588_drugs_adhd_ADHD_drugs.html
ADHD Drugs Proven Absolutely Useless for Children - Plus, They Stunt
Growth
Thursday, July 09, 2009 by: David Gutierrez, staff writer
Key concepts: Drugs, Adhd and ADHD drugs
(NaturalNews) Stimulant drugs such as Ritalin provide no long-term
benefit in the treatment of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder
(ADHD), according to the latest findings of the ongoing Multimodal
Treatment Study of Children with ADHD (MTA), published in the Journal
of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. [ ANYBODY
HAVE THIS? ]
According to previous analysis of MTA data, stimulant drugs do improve
the social functioning and reduce symptoms of inattention and
hyperactivity in children with ADHD for the first year of treatment.
In the current analysis, however, researchers followed 485 children
for eight years and found that children who remained on medication for
that entire time showed no improvement in symptoms over those who had
stopped taking the drugs.
"If you put a child on medication, he or she is far better right at
that time. The question for parents is: Is this going to make a
benefit for my child long term?" said researcher William Pelham, of
the University of Buffalo. "The answer is no. Behavioral treatments
are going to have much better benefit in the long term."
Another analysis of MTA data, published in the same journal, found
that use of ADHD drugs appeared to stunt children's growth. Children
who had never taken stimulant drugs were an average of six pounds
heavier and 0.75 inches taller than children of the same age who had
taken the drugs for three years. This height and weight difference was
permanent.
According to Pelham, behavioral treatments for ADHD can be harder to
find than drugs, and often insurers will not cover them. Nevertheless,
such treatments are available and have been proven to work without the
side effect risk of pharmaceuticals.
"It's wrong for a doctor to say to a parent, this treatment is harder
to find, so instead we're going to put your child on a drug that will
have no long-term benefit," he said.
Sources for this story include: health.usnews.com.
