The symptoms of stimulant treatment for ADHD closely resemble those of bipolar disorder
Stimulant treatment causes patients to cycle through arousal and dysphoric states on a daily basis. These drug-induced symptoms overlap to a remarkable degree the symptoms said to be characteristic of juvenile bipolar disorder. In short, every child on a stimulant turns a bit bipolar, and the risk that a child diagnosed with ADHD will move on to a bipolar diagnosis after being treated with a stimulant has even been quantified. Joseph Biederman and his colleagues at Massachusetts General Hospital reported in 1996 that 15 of 140 children (11 percent) diagnosed with ADHD developed bipolar symptoms—which were not present at initial diagnosis—within four years. Also, juvenile bipolar disorder first arose in tandem with stimulant and antidepressant treatment in children.
This gives us our first mathematical equation for solving the juvenile bipolar epidemic: If a society prescribes stimulants to 3.5 million children and adolescents, as is the case in the United States today, it should expect that this practice will create 400,000 bipolar youth. As Time noted, most children with bipolar disorder are diagnosed with a different mental disorder first, with “ADHD the likeliest first call.”
References
- Whitaker, Robert. (2010). Anatomy of an Epidemic Chapter 11 The Epidemic Spreads to Children (Epub p. 323). New York , NY: Crown Publishing.
Metadata
Type:🔴 Tags: Psychiatry / Pharmacology / Biology / Neuroscience / Biochemistry / Neurochemistry Status:☀️