Do stimulants cause weight gain?

It is possible that longer-term stimulant use leads to obesity later on, he told Reuters Health in an email. “But this assumes that, for example, patients with 10 years of (stimulant) treatment have the same severity of illness as those with one to two months of treatment,” Faraone said.

reuters.com - ADHD medications tied to teenage weight gain - Reuters

What is the best way to drink water for weight loss?

As for when you should drink water to maximize weight loss, prior to meals may help decrease your appetite and prevent overeating. And, because...

Last updated Oct 15, 2021

When will tirzepatide be FDA approved for obesity?

Tirzepatide was approved as Mounjaro® (tirzepatide) by the FDA on May 13, 2022. Mounjaro is a glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide (GIP)...

Last updated Mar 1, 2019

Promotion

As of 2011, 11 percent of U.S. kids ages four to 17 had been diagnosed with ADHD, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About half of those kids were taking stimulant medications like Adderall or Ritalin. Previous studies suggested ADHD could be a risk factor for childhood and adult obesity (see Reuters Health story of March 5, 2014 here: reut.rs/1iW11pd). But this is the first to tie their medication use to later weight gain, Dr. Brian S. Schwartz told Reuters Health. Schwartz worked on the new study at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore. He said the results change researchers’ understanding of how ADHD relates to obesity. In his study, kids who had taken stimulant medications at a younger age tended to have a “rebound” in weight gain as teens, even after they stopped taking the medication. But researchers said it’s not clear why the drugs might cause this delayed jump in weight. The authors tracked the electronic health records of more than 150,000 children ages three to 18, noting those diagnosed with ADHD, if and when they were treated with stimulant medications and their body mass index (BMI) over time. BMI measures weight in relation to height. Kids tended to start taking stimulant medications before age 10. Half of the kids took the drugs for less than six months. But the difference was small, so parents shouldn’t think stimulants are helping keep kids’ weight down when they are young, Schwartz said. The earlier kids started on stimulants, the earlier and higher their BMIs appeared to rebound upward in adolescence. “Stimulant-treated ADHD kids had slower BMI growth in early childhood and faster BMI growth in later childhood. These effects were much larger than the ADHD alone effects,” Schwartz said. These findings “point a much stronger finger of concern at stimulant use in accounting for the obesity than they do at ADHD itself,” Schwartz said. “We believe the treatment is the problem, not the diagnosis itself.”

How much is a 12 weigh?

The averages for 12-year-olds are 89 pounds, for males, and 92 pounds, for females. However, beyond biological sex, many other factors influence...

Last updated May 30, 2018

What's the best breakfast for energy?

Adding the following foods or a combination of these items to your breakfast can give you the energy boost you need to power through your day....

Last updated Jul 12, 2020

Promotion

Stimulants may keep weight down at first, he said, because they usually suppress appetite. In fact, the drugs used to treat obesity in recent years have been similar to ADHD drugs, or exactly the same, he said. Schwartz and his coauthors speculate that stimulant medications may retard growth at first, until the body develops resistance to growth inhibition and eventually “rebounds.” But Stephen V. Faraone, who studies ADHD at SUNY Upstate Medical University in Syracuse and was not involved with the study, believes it is too soon to say stimulants cause the rebound. It is possible that longer-term stimulant use leads to obesity later on, he told Reuters Health in an email. “But this assumes that, for example, patients with 10 years of (stimulant) treatment have the same severity of illness as those with one to two months of treatment,” Faraone said. “Clearly, that is not the case.” That would mean the ADHD itself, not the medication, leads to weight gain. The data are still stronger for that theory, he said. “The observation of ‘rebound’ is important, even though we cannot be sure how to explain it,” Faraone said. More and more stimulants have been prescribed in recent years, strongly influenced by pharmaceutical companies, Schwartz said. “These findings should really give us pause about such apparent overuse,” he said. “Our findings suggest parents may want to be aware that a possible side effect of such treatment is rapid weight gain after the stimulants are stopped,” Schwartz said.