Stimulants Likely Behind ADHD-Obesity Link
Treating attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) with stimulants changes growth trajectories in childhood and is likely to be behind the reported association between ADHD and obesity, a new study suggests.
The study showed that children with untreated ADHD or ADHD treated without stimulants had a faster increase in body mass index (BMI) than those without ADHD. Conversely, children with ADHD treated with stimulants demonstrated slower BMI growth early in childhood, but they rebounded later in adolescence with higher BMIs ― higher than in children without a history of ADHD or stimulant use.
“Given the rapid increases in both ADHD diagnosis and stimulant treatment over the past decades, our findings might suggest to clinicians that long-term impacts on childhood and adolescent BMI growth trajectories, and perhaps continuing into adulthood, may result from stimulant use in childhood,” Brian S. Schwartz, MD, from Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland, and the Geisinger Center for Health Research in Danville, Pennsylvania.
The study was published online March 17 in Pediatrics.
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