ADHD Drugs Safe for Adult Hearts - ABC News:
By TODD NEALE, MedPage Today Staff Writer
Dec. 12, 2011
The use of drugs for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) was not associated with an increased risk of serious cardiovascular events like heart attack and stroke in young and middle-age adults, researchers found.
In fact, the rate of heart attack, sudden cardiac death or stroke was significantly lower in current users of the drugs compared with nonusers, according to Laurel Habel of Kaiser Permanente Northern California in Oakland and colleagues.
But that finding, reported online in the Journal of the American Medical Association, was likely the result of a healthy-user bias stemming from an overrepresentation of white, college-educated individuals among current users, the authors noted.
Read this story on www.medpagetoday.com.
The findings are consistent with the researchers' parallel study in users of ADHD medications, ages 2 to 24, that was reported last month.
Over the past decade, the use of ADHD medications has increased more rapidly in adults than in children. In 2005, adults accounted for about one-third of issued prescriptions.
Some of the use could be for other conditions, however, as stimulants are approved for narcolepsy and may be used off-label for obesity and fatigue related to depression, stroke, or traumatic brain injury.
Because the medications increase heart rate and blood pressure, there have been concerns about possible adverse cardiovascular effects that have persisted despite epidemiological studies mostly refuting such an association.
By TODD NEALE, MedPage Today Staff Writer
Dec. 12, 2011
The use of drugs for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) was not associated with an increased risk of serious cardiovascular events like heart attack and stroke in young and middle-age adults, researchers found.
In fact, the rate of heart attack, sudden cardiac death or stroke was significantly lower in current users of the drugs compared with nonusers, according to Laurel Habel of Kaiser Permanente Northern California in Oakland and colleagues.
But that finding, reported online in the Journal of the American Medical Association, was likely the result of a healthy-user bias stemming from an overrepresentation of white, college-educated individuals among current users, the authors noted.
Read this story on www.medpagetoday.com.
The findings are consistent with the researchers' parallel study in users of ADHD medications, ages 2 to 24, that was reported last month.
Over the past decade, the use of ADHD medications has increased more rapidly in adults than in children. In 2005, adults accounted for about one-third of issued prescriptions.
Some of the use could be for other conditions, however, as stimulants are approved for narcolepsy and may be used off-label for obesity and fatigue related to depression, stroke, or traumatic brain injury.
Because the medications increase heart rate and blood pressure, there have been concerns about possible adverse cardiovascular effects that have persisted despite epidemiological studies mostly refuting such an association.
