New Study Shows Ritalin Stunts Kids' Growth
July 21st, 2007 by Glenn Sacks, MA for Fathers & Families
According to the Washington Post, 10% percent of 10-year-old American boys are on Ritalin or similar drugs. From my experience as a teacher I can tell you that there are some kids for whom the drugs are useful--I've seen it firsthand. On the other hand, for most boys it is useless and counterproductive. The problem is not our boys--the problem is that our schools refuse to adapt and accommodate boys' educational needs and learning styles.
In my co-authored column Resolving the Boy Crisis in Schools (Chicago Sun-Times, 5/7/06), I explained:
"Many healthy, energetic, intelligent boys are branded as behavior problems as soon as they begin school, and are punished and put on Ritalin or other drugs so they will sit still. Little thought is given to two obvious questions: how could a six or seven year-old be 'bad'? And how could so many boys need drugs to function in school? Because schools and classrooms do not fit their educational needs, many boys disengage from school long before they ever reach the prep school level.
"Many modern educational practices are counterproductive for boys. Success in school is tightly correlated with the ability to sit still, be quiet and complete paperwork and assignments which are sometimes of questionable value. A 'get tough' mentality—under which teachers give excessive homework lest they appear uncommitted or weak—has become a substitute for educators actually having a sound reason for assigning all the work they assign."
To learn more, click here.
We now have one more reason to take action on the boy crisis in education--a major new study shows that kids who take Ritalin for three years are on average shorter and lighter than kids who don't.
Study: Ritalin Stunts Growth
Research Shows That After 3 Years On ADHD Medication, Kids Are Shorter And Lighter Than Peers
By Daniel DeNoon
CBS News, July 20, 2007
(WebMD) After three years on the ADHD drug Ritalin, kids are about an inch shorter and 4.4 pounds lighter than their peers, a major U.S. study shows.
The symptoms of childhood ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) usually get dramatically better soon after kids start taking stimulant drugs. But this benefit may come with a cost, says James Swanson, Ph.D., director of the Child Development Center at the University of California, Irvine.
"Yes, there is a growth-suppression effect with stimulant ADHD medications," Swanson tells WebMD. "It is going to occur at the age of treatment, and over three years it will accumulate."
Whether these kids eventually grow to normal size remains a question. Kids entered the study in 1999 at ages 7 to 9. The current report is a snapshot taken three years later. The 10-year results — when the kids are at their adult height — won't be in for two more years.
"The big question now is whether there is any effect on these kids' ultimate height," Swanson says. "We don't know if by the time they are 18 they will regain the height."
The finding appears to end decades of debate over whether stimulant medications affect children's growth. Less than 10 years ago, a National Institutes of Health panel concluded that the drugs carried no long-term growth risk. That opinion was so widely accepted that the study authors — who include most of the leading ADHD researchers in the U.S. — did not warn parents that the study medication might carry this risk.
At the time, researchers thought that any short-term stunting of growth would be made up by a hypothesized "growth spurt" that would occur with continued treatment. But Swanson and colleagues saw no evidence of such a growth spurt.
Another widely accepted theory was that ADHD itself stunted kids' growth. But in a surprise finding, the study found that ADHD kids who do not take stimulant drugs are much larger than kids without ADHD, and these untreated kids continued to grow much faster than kids taking stimulant drugs.
Swanson says that children who had been taking ADHD drugs before the study began were smaller than kids who had not yet started treatment. Those who first began treatment at the start of the study were normal in size, but grew more slowly than normal kids as the study went on.
After three years, the growth suppression seemed to reach its maximum effect. That's also when the effect of the ADHD drug used in the study — immediate-release Ritalin, three times a day, every day of the year — seemed to wear off.
"We compared the effect of medication relative to just pure behavioral treatment," Swanson says. "That effect was substantial at 14 months and reduced a bit at 24 months. But at 36 months the relative advantage of ADHD drugs over behavioral treatment is gone."
Swanson and colleagues note that the study did not test the sustained-release stimulant medications that are now the standard treatment for ADHD.
Omar Khwaja, M.D., Ph.D., a neurologist at Children's Hospital in Boston, last year analyzed studies of different ADHD drugs and found strong evidence that ADHD drugs do, indeed, stunt children's growth. In fact, Khwaja and colleagues calculated a growth effect that almost exactly matches the effect seen in the Swanson study.
But Khwaja agrees with Swanson that nobody yet knows what the long-term results of this side effect will be.
"Whether there will be rebound growth at end of puberty, the jury is still out," Khwaja tells WebMD.
"Parents have to be aware that stimulants are an enormous benefit to a lot of children with ADHD, but there is reason to be cautious with all medicines that affect the brain," he says. "Growth monitoring should be standard practice for kids taking these medications."
Swanson and colleagues report their findings in the August issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
Other findings from this large study show that both ADHD drugs and behavioral therapy work in children.
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July 21st, 2007 at 12:46 pm
Correct me if I'm mistaken, but (among other side-effects) Ritalin suppresses appetite, meaning that a child won't eat as much.
This could be a major factor of growth being stunted, right?
I'm no scientist. My comment is really more of a question than a declaration.
July 21st, 2007 at 8:27 pm
Sungjun, you could be right. My nephew was not eating as much when he was on Ritalin. You might be on to something.
July 21st, 2007 at 10:32 pm
all ritalin is, is a damn drug-babysitter, it for those who want the kids but don't what to care for them. we need to stop drugging our kids, you know if you go to a physiologist we all need to be on some type of drug, since their believe we are all mental ill some how and too some degree we must stop this type of abuse
July 22nd, 2007 at 9:30 am
Use to be these behaviours were considered "normal" for children.
http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/adhd/what.htm
Three types of ADHD have been established according to which symptoms are strongest in the individual. These types are described below:
1.
Predominantly Inattentive Type: It is hard for the individual to organize or finish a task, to pay attention to details, or to follow instructions or conversations. The person is easily distracted or forgets details of daily routines.
2.
Predominantly Hyperactive-Impulsive Type: The person fidgets and talks a lot. It is hard to sit still for long (e.g., for a meal or while doing homework). Smaller children may run, jump or climb constantly. The individual feels restless and has trouble with impulsivity. Someone who is impulsive may interrupt others a lot, grab things from people, or speak at inappropriate times. It is hard for the person to wait their turn or listen to directions. A person with impulsiveness may have more accidents and injuries than others.
3.
Combined Type: Symptoms of the above two types are equally predominant in the person.
July 22nd, 2007 at 10:57 am
This was my post on the other blog about Ritalin:
"Most cases of ADHD are not even true ADHD to begin with. In most cases, these kids are just that, they are kids. High spirited, active kids, and the lazy adults around them just can't be bothered 'dealing with them'. I had a complete sh**-fit when I found out my nephew was put on drugs for ADHD. He does not have ADHD!!! I asked my sister one question: "If you put in a movie that he likes, other than pausing the movie for potty breaks, can he sit still and watch the whole movie?" Her answer, which was "yes", tells me that he does not have ADHD. A kid with true ADHD would not be able to sit still for 1/4 of the movie let alone the whole thing. She and I went 'round and 'round about it. He is now in more activities than I can count, though at different times of the year so his sched is not too much at any one time. He plays football, baseball, wrestles, and more. The ADHD diagosis was when he was just 6 years, he is now 9.5 years and is a wonderful kid!! My sister made the mistake of listening to the wrong people, people that she should have been able to trust."
July 23rd, 2007 at 5:03 am
There are some kids for whom Ritalin is therapeutic and thus worthwhile. For most kids it is at best useless and at worst dangerous. It does have some appetite suppressing effect, so it would not seem strange to have it stunting growth.
The fact is, that since they are ONLY boys, there is little concern.
July 23rd, 2007 at 8:11 pm
The war on drugs is failing!
Little did we know that the government and the people claiming to care about our children would become the biggest drug dealers on the block.
Highlights of Research on Increases in Drug Treatment for Childhood ADHD
*The number of preschool children being treated with medication for ADHD tripled between 1990 and 1995.
*The number of children ages 15 to 19 taking medication for ADHD has increased by 311 percent over 15 years.
*The use of medication to treat children between the ages of 5 and 14 also increased by approximately 170 percent.
*White, suburban elementary children are given medication to treat ADHD at more than twice the rate of African American students.
*Methylphenidate (commonly known as Ritalin) is manufactured at two and a half times the rate of a decade ago.
*The majority of children and adolescents who receive stimulants for ADHD do not fully meet the criteria for ADHD.
*Many children who do meet the criteria for ADHD are not being treated.
*About 80 percent of the 11 million prescriptions written for methylphenidate (Ritalin is the brand name) each year are written for children.
July 31st, 2007 at 8:08 am
Correlation isn't causation. Standard error in logic. Could be causal, could be parallel, could be coincidence.
95% of all murderers ate a potato within three days of committing the crime. Same thing.
August 5th, 2007 at 11:57 am
Ritalin is basically an amphetamine and as such can be addictive. Novartis promotes this as a "cure" for childhood conditions and promtes it in the schools through school psychologists and psychiatrist. The marketing program works this way: take a disability or an emotion and add disorder to it ;convince schools,parents and teachers that these "disorders" are very bad and will get worse if something is not done about them now. Solution: Ritalin.
The St Petersburg Times reports that Florida Schools have increased prescritions for Ritalin 250% in the last 3 years.
Novartis makes billons on this drug. A very successful marketing program, wouldnt you agree?
August 5th, 2007 at 11:05 pm
Actually, Ritalin has been shown in studies (I know, I've read several since my son was diagnosed ADHD & put on Ritalin) to not be addictive in pill form. Addiction usually requires an immediate "high"; Ritalin doesn't start affecting the brain for 30-60 minutes after it's taken. It IS addictive when injected, but rarely not in pill form.
It also only helps those kids who truly have ADD/ADHD
August 11th, 2007 at 11:55 am
There are lots of "studies" done on lots of drugs produced by the pharmaceutical industry yet not a day goes by that we dont read about a drug that was vetted and studied and approved by the FDA and sold to millions of people for years that has to be pulled from the market because it was found to be more deleterious than efficacious. This is the drug cycle and the pharamaceutical guys know it and they will make money with it and be ready with the next "wonder drug" when the current one runs its cycle.
March 9th, 2008 at 12:58 pm
JeanB, It's not because your brother can sit still during a whole movie that he obviously DOES NOT have Add/ADHD. Kids with that problem are often easily bored, when asked to perform tasks which they don't like, hense, they have a very hard time focusing, and sitting still, when doing repetitive tasks for example. Whereas any subject which an ADD kid enjoys, (eg. watching a movie) will be entertaining, fun, new, exciting, and as a result that kid will naturally stay calm and focused. Moreover, "add's" remember things they enjoy; are good at things they enjoy, and, on the contrary, tend to have more difficulties remembering "boring" stuff.
April 19th, 2008 at 7:33 pm
Ritalin just makes zombies out of kids. Ritalin is now one of the most deliberately abused prescription drugs around, precisely because of it being an amphetamine. I was one of those so called ADHD kids, and I am thankful to this day I was never put on that government sanctioned form of speed.
Taras
June 19th, 2008 at 9:29 pm
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