Source: J Natl Cancer Inst  |  Posted 9 years ago

Stimulant therapy in children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD) does not lead to increased risk of substance experimentation, use, dependence or abuse by adulthood, research in the United States confirms.

Investigators from the University of Massachusetts in Worcester and the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee who followed 147 hyperactive children for approximately 13 years found "no consistent or convincing evidence that stimulant treatment in childhood or during high school was associated with risk for adolescent or adult substance use, the frequency of such use in adulthood or the likelihood of having a substance dependence or abuse disorder." They also say duration of treatment was not associated with any of the risks.

Participants were interviewed as adolescents (age 15 years) and as adults about their use of various substances and duration of stimulant use.

Stimulant treatment in high school also did not influence drug use in adulthood, except for cocaine. That difference was no longer significant once investigators controlled for severity of AD/HD and conduct order in childhood, adolescence and adulthood.

Stimulant therapy in either childhood or high school was not associated with greater risk of being formally diagnosed with drug dependence or abuse by Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-IIIR criteria.

The researchers say their findings concur with those of 11 previous studies.