ADHD Drug to Treat Overweight Teens?
Wednesday March 21, 2007
As highlighted in a recent news story, Dr. Fuad Ziai, an endocrinologist from Illinois, has given about 800 adolescent patients prescriptions for the ADHD drug Adderal in an attempt to help them lose weight.
While Dr. Ziai claims a 90% success rate, critics challenge that his use of this drug, a type of amphetamine, as a weight loss aid is counter productive and dangerous.
Doctors commonly prescribe medicines for reasons other than their intended use, which is called using a drug "off label."
Comments
A 90% success rate is hard to believe, especially when we rarely see kids with ADHD on Adderall have anywhere that much of a problem with weight loss or poor weight gain.
Anecdotally, I have some overweight children with ADHD on Adderall and they did not lose weight. In fact, it seems to be the kids who are already thin who have the most problems with Adderall and weight loss.
I have no problem with thinking about using something off label, but it should have some research behind it and should be somewhere near the standard of care. If Dr. Ziai has that many overweight teens doing well on Adderall, he should do a research study or publish the data he has.
I agree. Recent evidence does report a 36% incidence of appetite decrease among those treated with mixed amphetamine salts, but this does not correlate well with actual weight loss. Rather, studies indicate that the incidence of weight loss among those treated with these drugs is typically less than 10% compared to control. I am at a loss as to how to correlate Dr. Ziai’s claimed success with what the literature has to say on the subject.
Beyond this, the idea of a “weight loss pill” is fundamentally contrary to the concepts of personal responsibility and accountability for long term well being. Children need to learn the value of good lifestyle choices and should not be encouraged to seek out a quick fix.
Data on Treatment with Adderall XR