Ritalin stunts growth of children; long-term risk to children’s health unknown — Something is wrong with this product for more reasons than this.
New research published in the August, 2007 issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry finds that Ritalin, the amphetamine drug used to treat a fictitious medical disorder labeled Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, stunts the growth of children. After three years on the psychotropic drug, children are one inch shorter and 4.4 pounds lighter than their peers, researchers have documented.
The psychiatric industry, of course, has been trying to play down the growth-stunting effects of Ritalin for at least a decade.
I was reading the headline in Google Reader and clicked right away, dying to know what picture would accompany the article. I was expecting something from “The Wizard Of Oz”. 😛
I was on Ritalin as a child for about 6 years (now 33 Years old).
I could not have imagined how poor my quality of life would have been without it.
I couldn’t concentrate, sit still, or even complete an algebra problem without it.
I’m now 6′ 3″ 220 lbs. No growth problems here.
I know it is needed for some children, but also agree that it may be too widely used as an excuse for other problems.
It serves a purpose.
I took Ritalin as a kid also, and while taking the drug, I grew to 6’2” by the age of 13. Know when I stopped growing (vertically, anyway)? When I stopped taking Ritalin, around age 13.
I don’t know who did the research, but it’s painfully obvious that this article, at least, is absurdly biased. It attacks psychiatric medicine in general so much, one wonders if the article wasn’t paid for (or written by) Scientologists.
And anyway, 1 inch, and 4 lbs, does not a midget make.
3 years and you dont grow 1″…It isnt a viable study.,..
4lbs lighter?? ?? ??? HOW can you measure that 1 person is lighter then OTHERS, unless it is MASSIVE…Anything LESs then 20 lbs is NON substantiated…
But, I DO think drugs are used TO OFTEN.
TEACH the child, or have the teacher LEARN a better way to teach the child.
My personal experience with Ritalin is based on the experiences of our son who began taking Ritalin nine years ago when he was four years old. Three psychologists and two pediatric psychiatrists concurred on the necessity of him using it before we initiated the medication for him.
He continued to take Ritalin for four years, until he was eight. At that time, we discovered that a naturally occuring amino acid, 5-HTP, had the same virtual results as Ritalin did for him so he stopped taking Ritalin and began to take the 5-HTP. The transition was absolutely seamless.
He began taking the 5-HTP ± 5 years ago and is now 13, 5 feet 10 inches tall with a solid, muscular athletic build.
Ritalin did an excellent job for him and enabled him to remain in public elementary school and to progress year to by year to
his present enrollment in high school.
Allen McDonald, El Galloviejo®
The author is very biased, a health food and anti-medicine advocate. I always find it convenient to throw out the opinions of extremist. It’s not worth the sifting to find valid arguments.
“natural” does not mean “healthy” at all, in fact everything is “natural” since it comes from nature somehow… IMHO it is some kind of philosophical or ideological construction. Most drugs in plants are in fact some kind of poison to prevent the plant to be eaten by insects, vertebrates or to fight infections, and that poisons sometimes are, by chance, useful to fight some kind of problem in humans. The trouble with consuming “natural” remedies is that the plant or whatever that generates it does probably also generate other substances that can cause unwanted effects, and also the quantity of the useful drug varies and the dosage is never accurate.
I have a bit of experience with non-medicated ADHD kids, in particular younger Boy Scouts. I’ve seen this a few times, where the parent is in denial that the kid really needs some therapy (medicinal or whatever).
The issue is that an unmedicated ADHD boy can ruin an entire weekend for a group of his peers. Those kids are simply out of control every waking hour, and even the best adults have their hands full trying to keep things normal. But, that requires full-time attention from one adult, which means the others aren’t getting as much supervision or attention. And, we’re not professional teachers, we’re just regular dads and moms…no special experience like a teacher would have.
The trick we’ve learned is to feed these boys some caffienated drinks. 4-5 ounces of Mountain Dew into an unmedicated ADHD kid can work wonders. Non-ADHD kids would get the usual caffiene/sugar buzz, but the ADHD kids react differently to the stimulant…and a couple doctors have told us the reason is that ADHD kids’ brains are wired different, which result in the opposite-than-expected reaction. (Ritalin is a stimulant)
I also have a cousin who’s mom refused to medicate. However, by pure luck they were able to figure out that the son was reacting to a particular red food dye. One weekend they removed that dye from their diets, and on Monday evening his teacher called to ask what medicine they put him on…the kid was suddenly “normal.” However, this sort of solution is rare, apparently.
If any of you have ADD/ADHD in your lives, check out http://www.chadd.org.
I love the ” I was a Riatlin baby and I came out alright” argument. Real scientific.
My nephew was on it and the doctors said one of the side effects was decreased height. So the revelation is nothing new to the medical community.
I believe that Mike Adams’ article is absolutely true: What’s happening today in psychiatric medicine is a crime against humanity and a form of chemical abuse towards children.
So what if they are on inch shorter. I find that hardly significant. And what about the fact that kids that take this drug might have an ‘a priori’ smaller build because of their stressful situation. They are not a random sample with which one can come to such conclusions.
So—which is better and for what? — long term scientific double blind study, or personal experience?
Just wondering.
Arguments about the possibility of ADHD/ADD being over-medicated or over-diagnosed aside (I have a step-daughter that was diagnosed with ADHD. We chose to focus on working through the behavior issues rather than medicating them.)… #6 (RTaylor) is right, “Newstarget” is an utterly craptastic source to refer to as “news”, and I’m a little surprised to see it shown here for any other reason but rabble-rousing…Okay, that’s not an unusual reason to quote stuff here, never mind. :p
He’s well known as a fevered altie, and makes some rather extraordinarily unscientific claims (and some downright stupid) on his other site. Here’s a quick review of his “Medical Woo” from a more credible source than myself.
Bias or not, this article brings up a very good point: people need to be careful of what drugs they take. If you want to a safe solution to your health problems, I suggest trying to talk to the online network of nutritionists and dietitians at http://nutrition.bitwine.com that website is probably one of the few places that allow you to contact certified professional instantly online. Pretty neat if you ask me.
“fictitious medical disorder labeled Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder”
That says something about the sews source.
From newstarget’s “Declaration of Journalistic Independence”.
“No writers or editors who contribute content to Truth Publishing are allowed to own shares of stock in any outside companies directly mentioned in our content. NewsTarget contributor Mike Adams does maintain ownership of EcoLEDs and Better Life Goods, and any products mentioned from those companies shall include a full disclosure statement openly mentioning Mike Adams’ ownership of those companies. Adams maintains no financial ties to any third-party companies or products mentioned on NewsTarget. ‘
That growth stunt is easy to fix: Get your pediatrician to prescribe daily Human growth hormone injections to your kid.
#19 – Heh
And painkillers for their achey joints, and barbiturates to relax them from their HGH-rage, and paxil if they get to depressed and/or stress about it all. And so on.
I have no problem with saying that certain things are over-diagnosed, and that some people are way to quick to jump to a pill to solve their issues…but the “Health Ranger” is still a bit of a nutjob considering how quick he is to completely dismiss all scientific medicine, regardless of whether or not he’s paid by the “radiotropic quantum enhanced snake oil” that he recommends.
My only comment on this is about the line: “Nutritional research has shown that the symptoms of ADHD can be completely reversed in 80 percent of children in just two weeks by eliminating processed foods and chemical food additives from their diets.”
Have you ever tried to eliminate processed foods and additives (one big additive is food color) from your diet? All it takes to set my daughter off is for one of her friends to give her a Red Hot. (She is particularly susceptable to the color red.) After this she is unable to control herself for 3 days after that.
how come no one wants to talk about the HIGH PERCENTAGE of ex Ritalin kids addicted to Meth? It deserves a study….all it’s own.
Ritalin is a necessity to enable kids to sit for hours listening to the nonsense that passes for public eduction today. Have any of you even TRIED to read an “approved” history text book for todays’ grammar school student?
I’d need heavy drugs to process the crap, as well.
23: Meetsy
I can’t vouch for reading history text books, but I can for Science. I spent the last year as a teacher’s aid for a 5th grade science class in a school that’s in academic emergency. Tough crowd as the teacher probably spends more time trying to just reign in the kids than actually teaching.
I drew on my personal experience with those I found to be the best teachers I’ve had…no matter the subject. They didn’t just “read from a book”, they made the subject come alive. They made it fun, regardless of topic rather than academically “going through the motions”.
In science, it was easy for me, I just added showy demos involving high voltage, solvents dissolving styrofoam, and other such stuff. That resulted in my making demo videos for online viewing as well. This kept their attention, my enthusiasm was contagious, and they retained a lot more of what I told them. The teacher said it had a great impact…unfortunately she didn’t have the training to do much more than JUST “read the book”…which makes it hard for her.
“The entire theory of ADHD can also be completely shot down by simply handing an ADHD child an X-Box or Wii gaming system,”
So much for theory, PET scans have shown that ADHDers have a lack of dopamine. Dopamine increases concentration while acting like a brake on excess glutatmate, which is the culprit as far as the hyperactivity goes.
Playing video games or watching TV increases dopamine levels, so it in effect is a treatment for ADHD.
As far as “natural” cures go, the key should be to use known methiods (diet, exercise, change in teaching techniques) to get glutamate down and dopamine up. Instead of that, we just throw the little buggers, mostly boys, on drugs for the sake of their teachers, mostly women.
#10:
Well done. Criticize us for referencing personal experience, then turn around and do the same. There are a lot of side effects to Ritalin that have been conclusively proven to occur in a very large percentage of people who take it, and are almost all worse than being 1 inch shorter than someone else. If your doctor brought that potential side effect up, before the emotional instability, blood rate and pressure, spasms, insomnia, etc… Then I suggest you look for another doctor; yours clearly doesn’t know what he’s doing.
As you all can see, Ritalin has different side effects for different people.
and pedro get a life
My name is Lance Burnet and i would like to show you my personal experience with Ritalin.
I am 56 years old. I have taken Ritalin for 30 years. I have been diagnosed with a mild form of narcolepsy. I use 4 (10 MG ) pills per day. The drug ahs worked wonders and eliminated the drowsiness and sleep attacks. My concern now is the length of time I have been on it. When taking a “drug holiday” it seems like my symptoms are worse.
I have experienced some of these side effects-
rebound effect when dosage wears off.
I hope this information will be useful to others,
Lance Burnet