Patients Taking Invokana Have an Increased Risk of Leg and Foot Amputations The FDA reports that the type 2 diabetes medicine Invokana (canagliflozin) causes an increased risk of leg and foot amputations. Two large clinical trials showed that leg and foot amputations occurred about twice as often in patients treated…
While certainly no one factor determines future drug abuse, many parents worry that using Ritalin or other ADHD drugs might lead to later drug abuse. An article carried in the online journal, Neuropsychopharmacology (catchy title), reported on a study attempting to answer this question. The authors of the study were…
Think the only way to deal with a child who has ADHD is with a stimulant? Think again. More parenting skills and other resources can help your child out more than you might think. What causes hyperactivity and ADHD (attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder)? A combination of temperament, environment and parenting. The…
The number of children diagnosed with ADHD has skyrocketed over the last 30 years. But do more kids have ADHD, or are other factors in play? The number of children diagnosed with ADHD has skyrocketed since the early 2000s, and with it, so have prescriptions for powerful stimulant medications —…
Attention deficit/hyperactivity drug (ADHD) medication use for women in their late 20s and early 30s jumped 700% between 2013 and 2015, which has raised concerns because there is little information about the drug’s safety before and during pregnancy. Overall, the number of women ages 15-44 who filled a prescription for an…
Ritalin Gone Wrong(New York Times, January 28, 2012) is an OpEd piece in which Dr. Sroufe contends that attention-deficit drugs only increase concentration short term. He discusses the history of medical theory on ADHD from the 1960s to today. He notes that the very real possibility that ADHD is affected by experiences…
A commonly prescribed class of drugs used to treat ADHD (attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder) may slightly increase the risk of developing psychosis in teens and young adults. The stimulant medications in question, amphetamines, go by the brand names Adderall (mixed amphetamine salts) and Vyvanse (lisdexamfetamine). Researchers examined health insurance claims on…
Forget heroin, forget cocaine. Prescription drugs kill more of us than those 2 combined. Prescription drugs can kill when misused by patients in error or by addiction. Approximately 15,000 people died in 2008 (the most recent year for which data is available) from overdoses using narcotic drugs like Oxycontin, Percocet,…
For some kids with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), stimulant medications used to control symptoms may keep them from getting the sleep they need, a research review from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln confirms. About 3.5 million children who are diagnosed with ADHD are commonly-prescribed stimulant medications like Ritalin and Adderall. The analysis…
Behavioral interventions are better than stimulant medication in helping children with ADHD (attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder) with completing homework. Researchers enrolled 75 children with ADHD who took part in an 8-week summer school session. The children ranged in age from 5 to 12 years old. The students were given either a…
