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A report published today in the journal Pediatrics, however, estimates the incidence of psychotic symptoms at 1.48 per 100 person-years. (Person-years is defined as total years of treatment with a drug. For example, 100 people taking a drug one year is 100 person-years.) The statistic was based on data from 49 randomized, controlled trials of ADHD medications. In those same studies, no psychotic symptoms were reported in children who did not receive medication. Moreover, an analysis of spontaneous adverse-event reports to the FDA showed more than 800 reports of psychosis or mania. Psychotic symptoms were found with every ADHD drug...

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Drugs for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder can cause children to have hallucinations even when taken as directed, U.S. government researchers said on Monday. U.S. Food and Drug Administration researchers analyzed data from 49 clinical studies conducted by makers of the drugs and found they can cause psychosis and mania in some patients, including some with no obvious risk factors. In some cases, children hallucinated that worms, bugs or snakes were crawling on them. "Patients and physicians should be aware of the possibility that psychiatric symptoms consistent with psychosis or mania" might arise in the course of treatment,...

NEW YORK -- Baseball authorized nearly 8 percent of its players to use drugs for ADHD last season, which allowed them to take otherwise banned stimulants. A total of 106 exemptions for banned drugs were given to major leaguers claiming attention deficit hyperactivity disorder from the end of the 2007 season until the end of the 2008 season, according to a report released Friday by the sport's independent drug-testing administrator. That's up from 103 therapeutic use exemptions (TUEs) for ADHD in 2007, according to figures cited by baseball officials before a congressional committee last year

This was from a few months ago, there was a more recent article but I can't find it. It's funny, we now have 30 years of research supporting the artificial food dye-kid hyperactivity link, yet our FDA has done nothing. Once again, we have given all responsibility of something (our food) to politicians (FDA) who only have to pretend their doing something. Just as troubling is how secretive and unregulated the food ingredient and chemical businesses are. Here's out it works: They say its safe, and the politicians that they pay off agree. Note in the article below that American...

The Transcendental Meditation technique may be an effective and safe non-pharmaceutical aid for treating ADHD, according to a promising new study published this month in the peer-reviewed online journal Current Issues in Education.

In the winter of 2000, the Journal of the American Medical Association published the results of a study indicating that 200,000 two- to four-year-olds had been prescribed Ritalin for an “attention disorder” from 1991 to 1995. Judging by the response, the image of hundreds of thousands of mothers grinding up stimulants to put into the sippy cups of their preschoolers was apparently not a pretty one. Most national magazines and newspapers covered the story; some even expressed dismay or outrage at this exacerbation of what already seemed like a juggernaut of hyper-medicalizing childhood. The public reaction, however, was tame; the...

Academics Laud Drug Use by: Bethany Stotts, December 15, 2008 Six academics and Philip Campbell, the editor-in-chief of Nature Magazine, recently argued that society should move “towards the responsible use of cognitive-enhancing drugs by the healthy,” particularly drugs typically used in the treatment of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). “In this article, we propose actions that will help society accept the benefits of enhancement, given appropriate research and evolved regulation,” write the authors, who hail from prestigious universities such as • Stanford Law School, • Harvard Medical School, • the University of Cambridge, • the University of Manchester, • the...

Reduced ability to name smells by hyperactive children has revealed for the first time a link between an impaired smell processing and the disorder. The one-year-study of 88 children aged six to 16 - 44 with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) - was led by the University of Melbourne and Murdoch Children's Research Institute. It shows how the children with ADHD had reduced ability to identify odours. The study was published in September's Journal of Clinical Psychiatry. The study involved using scratch and sniff tests of common smells such as orange, chocolate and pizza. Felicity Karsz of University of Melbourne's...

Shock Jock Michael Savage is in hot water again this time for a stating his belief that 99% of Autism cases are fake. He has taken a beating from parents of autistic children and those who lobby for them. However, let us play devil's advocate for a moment... Are Savage's comments mean spirited or could there be some truth to it? Are children who are diagnosed with autism and Asperger's syndrome (Considered a high functioning form of Autism) being over diagnosed? Are the diagnostic criteria for Autism and Asperger's really too broad and too flawed that otherwise ordinary playful children...

The genetic legacy of nomadism may be an inability to settle ABOUT one in 20 children (those under 18) have a group of symptoms that has come to be known as attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). About 60% of them carry those symptoms into adulthood. For what is, at root, a genetic phenomenon, that is a lot—yet many studies have shown that ADHD is indeed genetic and not, as was once suspected, the result of poor parenting. It is associated with particular variants of receptor molecules for neurotransmitters in the brain. A neurotransmitter is a chemical that carries messages between nerve...

About 2.5 million children in the United States take stimulant drugs for attention and hyperactivity problems. But concerns about side effects have prompted many parents to look elsewhere: as many as two-thirds of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or A.D.H.D., have used some form of alternative treatment. The most common strategy involves diet changes, like giving up processed foods, sugars and food additives. About 20 percent of children with the disorder have been given some form of herbal therapy; others have tried supplements like vitamins and fish oil or have used biofeedback, massage and yoga. While some studies of...

Did hyperactivity evolve as a survival aid for nomads? 11:39 10 June 2008 NewScientist.com news service Ewen Callaway Impulsivity and a short attention span may be the bane of every parent with a hyperactive toddler, but those same traits seem to help Kenyan nomads keep weight on. A gene mutation tied to attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD) is also associated with increased weight among a chronically undernourished group of nomads called the Ariaal. Notably, the mutation offers no such benefit to a cousin population that gave up the nomadic lifestyle in the 1960s. The nomads' active and unpredictable life centred...

Associated Press Children should be screened for heart problems with an electrocardiogram before getting drugs like Ritalin to treat hyperactivity and attention-deficit disorder, the American Heart Association recommended Monday. Stimulant drugs can increase blood pressure and heart rate. For most children, that isn't a problem. But in those with heart conditions, it could make them more vulnerable to sudden cardiac arrest - an erratic heartbeat that causes the heart to stop pumping blood through the body - and other heart problems. About 2.5 million American children and 1.5 million adults take medication for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, according to...

CHILDREN who use Ritalin for a long period of time could be more at risk of delinquency and substance abuse, a study has found. Doctors are suggesting children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) should take a break from medication after three years of use. An American study - published in the Medical Observer _ has found that while drugs such as Ritalin can initially help sufferers, the benefit of prolonged use is in doubt. Some children stay on medication until they reach 18, but researchers believe it may not protect them from all the symptoms. Has your child been...

ADHD Breakthrough by: Amanda Busse, January 09, 2008 A new study suggests that Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in children may be a matter of maturity. According to the study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, ADHD in children is caused when portions of the brain mature at a slower pace than normal. For many, the condition eventually normalizes and nearly 80 percent of children grow out of the disorder, the researchers found. Researchers used a new image-analysis technique to measure the thickening and thinning of thousands of cortex sites in 223 children with ADHD and...

Drugs given to thousands of hyperactive children have no long-term benefits and could in fact be stunting their development, a major study has said. The study of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) found that, while powerful drugs such as Ritalin and Concerta resulted in short-term behavioural improvements, after three years those benefits had disappeared. Children who took the drugs for the full three years were also found to have stunted growth, according to the Multimodal Treatment Study of Children with ADHD (MTA). The MTA has followed 600 children in the United States with ADHD since the 1990s and has just...

In youth with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), the brain matures in a normal pattern but is delayed three years in some regions, on average, compared to youth without the disorder, an imaging study by researchers at the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) has revealed. The delay in ADHD was most prominent in regions at the front of the brain’s outer mantle (cortex), important for the ability to control thinking, attention and planning. Otherwise, both groups showed a similar back-to-front wave of brain maturation with different areas peaking in thickness at different times. “Finding...

Researchers have also employed this technology for use in special 'night lights' Scientists at John Carroll University, working in its Lighting Innovations Institute, have developed an affordable accessory that appears to reduce the symptoms of ADHD. Their discovery also has also been shown to improve sleep patterns among people who have difficulty falling asleep. The John Carroll researchers have created glasses designed to block blue light, therefore altering a person’s circadian rhythm, which leads to improvement in ADHD symptoms and sleep disorders. How the Glasses Work: Jumpstarting Melatonin Production The individual puts on the glasses a couple of hours ahead...

As cousins Travis and Chuckie Jones stroll off the South Broward High campus on school days, they're "gooned out." Wearing oversized T-shirts and low-riding jeans, they mimic the hard core look that gangsta rappers first popularized in the 1990s. The Jones boys' jean shorts, held up by belts, are hanging around their thighs and sag so low that you can't help but see the gym shorts they wear underneath. "I like saggin'," said Travis, a 15-year-old sophomore. For him, wearing baggy, ill-fitting jeans, is cool — and makes a strong statement. It's all about attitude. "It tells everybody to kiss...

Drugging Our Poor by: Bethany Stotts, October 22, 2007 Many public schools have begun incorporating mental health screening tests into their curriculum, and may soon be analyzing family circumstances as a factor influencing low school performance under the No Child Left Behind requirements (NCLB). The proposed We Care Act (H.R. 3762) would amend the NCLB Act to stipulate that “Each State plan shall include an assessment of the nonacademic factors influencing student achievement, a description of public and private organizations and agencies within the State that are working to impact... including but not limited to state departments....and nonprofit youth development...