ADHD Drugs Have No Long Term Benefits
A long-term monitoring program involving 600 kids across the United States since the beginning of the 1990s will be shown in a TV program from BBC called 'Panorama' - with some of its results revealed.
Researchers found drugs such as Ritalin and Concerta do work well for short term, but no do offer improvement in a children's behaviour after three years.
The studies co-author from the University of Buffalo Professor William Pelhamsays, says he believes the beneficial impact of medication is exaggerated.
It had been thought that kids would have better outcomes if they were medicated for longer - however, it is not the case, there were no beneficial effects at all.
"I think that we exaggerated the beneficial impact of medication in the first study," Pelham told BBC. "We had thought that children medicated longer would have better outcomes. That didn't happen to be the case. In the short run (medication) will help the child behave better, in the long run it won't. And that information should be made very clear to parents."
The Multimodal Treatment Study of Children with ADHD study also found that these drugs may also stunt a child's growth, the BBC reported.
"The children (taking the medication) weren't growing as much as other kids both in terms of their height and in terms of their weight," the studies co-author from the University of Buffalo Professor WilliamPelham told BBC.
Pelham believes that behavioral therapy and Omega-3 should be the first steps in helping a child with ADHD.
Quoted from http://www.ecanadanow.com/news/health/adhd-drugs-have-no-long-term-benefits-20071112.html:
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