A friend of mine sent me this web address regarding the horrible long term effects of adderall, (she always does this crap) but I don't understand it. I'd like to reply to her and sound a little informed. Can some of you science wiz's please help me? I don't know if the link will take you directly there, or if you have to type it in the address bar.

http://www.ablechild.org/board/default.asp?topic=topic1&msg=7532

I have been on Adderall since '99, (not consecutively, a few breaks a 6 months here and there when i did not have insurance). There are A LOT of people who blame adderall for "ruining their lives" or this and that instead of looking at the real reason that their son or daughter got "addicted" to it. Its bull****, and the parents and "victims" are looking for a scape-goat, plain and simple. No one wants to admit that THEY had a problem, before Adderall ever entered their lives. I will tell you this, Adderall HELPS way more people then it supposedly "hurts". IT is the same thing as Vicondan, people get "hooked" on it and then blame the drug. Well that is a load of B.S. in my book.

Keep in mind that Adderall has been around for YEARS (of course not under that name, but a very very similar drug called something like Orbetrol - they used to use it as a diet pill). If anyone is to "blame" it is the doctors who are so quick to perscibe it. My cousin got all fat after she had a baby, and she knew I was on Adderall. All of the sudden when she was fat and unhappy she developed "ADD" then went to her doc and LIED to get it. Why, you ask. Well she was simply lazy, and thought that Adderall would help her lose all that fat she gained while pregnent. It is the people like her (and her stupid DOCTOR that give Adderall a bad rap).

In my opinion, Adderall is a great theraputic drug, and if used by someone with
ADD or Narcolepsy is a godsend!!! All these other losers who just want it for weight loss or to stay up for those darn midtrems just suck, and so do their doctors for being so easy to manipulate.

That is my take, I apoligize for all the horrible spelling as well as gramatical errors in this post.
:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :faint: :confused: :confused: :confused: :eyebrow: :faint: :faint: :confused: :faint: :confused: :faint: :( :( :( :( :( :( :(

Well, the lack of a title, an author, or even volume for this article made it a bear to find (each month has about 100 articles), but I found it.

So, here's what's wrong with using this article to argue against using Adderall:

First and foremost, the comment from the poster that the study subjects used Adderall is a lie. This article is not about Adderall or any other prescribed medication. It's about Methamphedamine -- a street drug.
Adderall is a combination of dextroamphetamine saccharate, amphetamine aspartate monohydrate, dextroamphetamine sulfate, and amphetamine sulfate, as well as some inactive ingredients. While they are all amphetamines, the exact chemical composition as well as the delivery system (you're not smoking your pills, are you ;)) are directly involved in the types of risks discussed in this article.

To get a little more technical, there are several other problems with using this article in that way:

1) It uses drug addicts in its sample, which does not allow for generalization to other populations. It most certainly cannot generalize to ADDers.

2) The use of drug addicts instead of doing an experiment (which would be unethical if humans were involved) makes it impossible to know anything about the true effects of methamphetamine. Now, I'm not arguing for taking meth, but this article does not say that meth causes brain abnormalities. If it did, it's highly unlikely the Journal of Neuroscience would publish it.
--- How do we know that grey matter deficits in the cingulate, limbic, and paralimbic cortices don't cause people to seek out stimulant drugs? That would explain the "association" just as well as the explanation that the drug caused the deficit.
--- Drug users are more likely to have less income, have less access to quality health care, maintain a poorer diet, and smoke than non-drug-users. The study admitted that most of the drug users, but only 2 of the control group smoked. Matching in the study was (admitted by the authors) inadequate for much in the way of generalization.

3) The self-reported average dose was approximately 3 gm per week. That's approximately 425mg per DAY!

Hope that helps. Good luck!

barbyma,
WOW! Thank you so much, I really appreciate you taking the time to reply. I have battled the medication issue for quite some time. I don't know much about the chemistry part of the drug, and I try to stay informed since my son and I both take adderall. Some of my friends and family don't agree with taking meds and make it hard for me. The ones that don't want me taking meds because they truly are ignorant to ADHD, and have read all the horrer stories on ritalindeath.com, I try to explain as much as I can and let them know I would NEVER do anything to hurt my son or myself since he needs me too. Again, thanks!

ANNA

Well there's nothing even really wrong with methamphetamine either, it's just the latest scapegoat drug. The dopamine-induced oxidative stress that leads to dendrite damage (which reverses itself over time... and can theoretically happen with any DA-increasing drug) in methamphetamine abusers only happens with very high quantities... thought to be > 1g (1000mg)... in comparison the starting theraputic dose of methamphetamine for ADHD and narcolepsy is 5mg. There's also evidence ADHD drugs lead to apoptosis of dopamine transporters, but that's actually a good thing for people with ADHD, and that reverses itself over time too.

The main risk of any ADHD drug in terms of your life is catecholamine cardiotoxicity from the increased epinephrine/norepinephrine (adrenaline/noradrenaline) levels, which makes your heart release other stuff like Angiotensin II that increases oxidative stress, and if it gets beyond the abilities of your body's antioxidant systems it starts doing damage to the muscle tissue and mitochondria. This is what happened in the main story on ritalindeath.com.

I don't fully understand what makes some people at special risk for this whereas most people are fine, but it is very rare. Vegetables, fruits, etc have been shown to increase the body's antioxidant abilities so perhaps diet plays a role. (on a sidenote, females are better off here because of higher estrogen levels)

The drugs are not perfectly safe, but they are reasonably so, especially compared to other prescription drugs. Hell, my mother takes Celebrex for pain, that's more likely to kill you than any ADHD drug.

Thank you for all the information. It makes me feel better when I get information from well informed people. As you can see from any of my previous posts, I always panic when people throw information at me re: a med. that both my son and I take.

Thank you for all the information. It makes me feel better when I get information from well informed people. As you can see from any of my previous posts, I always panic when people throw information at me re: a med. that both my son and I take.
No problem. I'll do everything I can to help counter the unwarranted negativity!

Any time you feel cornered, I'd just say, "That doesn't seem right to me, but I need to think about why..." Then, come here & get some feeback. Lots of us have access to the original articles like this one that people try to use to support their arguments.