Study of stimulant therapy raises concerns

The first long-term effort to track stimulant therapy in a large population of children has generated disturbing results. In particular, the North Carolina-based study finds that most 9-to-16-year-olds receiving Ritalin or other stimulants don’t exhibit attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), the only condition for which such drugs are approved.

More encouraging, about 3 of 4 kids who were diagnosed with ADHD on the basis of parents’ behavioral reports received stimulants, says a team led by psychiatric epidemiologist Adrian Angold of Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C.