Comment by adamweld | Hacker News Reader

Comment by adamweld | Hacker News Reader

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>There's a lot of research showing the positive effects of medication (and in ADHD's case, the futility of non-medication-based treatments), but there's still a major fight for acknowledging the validity of this form of treatment.

Is this really relevant considering the extremely rapid rise in prescription and use of ADHD medication?

In my anecdotal experience with friends who take these pills, they very quickly create a reliance on the substance and have significant side effects in the long term. I honestly believe they can be quite harmful to a person's mind.

Now, for ADHD there unfortunately aren't good non-medication treatments. But depression is a completely different matter - making lifestyle changes as simple as going for a hike every weekend can easily be as effective or more effective than any medication.

They can be harmful, but diagnosed ADHD/ADD is almost guaranteed to be harmful, maybe especially in todays society. More than doubled risk of depression is only one of the risks of the above diagnoses, and while many of the risks could be said to be more of a societal issue - at least in the beginning - they tend to cause actual health problems over time. Overprescription can always be an issue for any medication, but that's not really an issue with the medication itself is it ?

Maybe if the medication is 90% as fun as cocaine for large portion of the population. I've known precious few people with legitimately diagnosed ADHD, but I've known tons of people who use the medication as a stimulate for studying or just for fun at parties. No one is doing this with Effexor, at least no one bright. From what I understand it's doesn't effect the people with true ADHD the way it does the casual user. This isn't their fault, and I wouldn't take their crutch away. I fault big pharma and the tons of sketchy doctors out there.

I am a physician with training in neuroscience. There is no scientific consensus that stimulants help the problems you are talking about. There is some preliminary evidence that stimulants may make some problems worse (graduation rates).

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