Study unlocks brain mystery of Ritalin
By Merritt McKinney
NEW YORK, Jan 19 (Reuters Health) - Doctors have been prescribing Ritalin for
years to treat attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in children,
but exactly how the stimulant helps young people calm down and payattention
has been unclear.
Now, researchers at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton and the State
University of New York at Stony Brook report that the medication appears to
work by increasing levels of the brain chemical dopamine...
[Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD:
There is no proof in humans manifesting ADHD behaviors, of a
diminution of dopamine, or any brain chemical. It is not a
demonstrable/diagnosable disease. It is not a disease. The NIMH, any
organization, or any physician saying it is a disease is
violating the informed consent rights of their patient/the
public--medical malpractice.]…
And they think they also know why the drug--unlike other
dopamine-triggering medications--is not addictive when given
to children..
[Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD:
Saying it is not addictive is an outright lie. The most impressive
research on addiction to these drugs, that of
Nadine Lambert of UC Berkeley, reported at the ADHD Consensus
Conference, November 16-18, 1998, demonstrated that Ritalin is
every bit as addictive as all the rest of the amphetamines, leading to
increased smoking and use of all drugs of addiction
over the short- and long-term. Ritalin, like all of the other Schedule
II control substances has never been considered
other than highly addictive, needing control, by the Drug Enforcement
Administration and the Int. Narcotics Control Board.
All interested should send for the October, 1995 DEA Background Paper on
Methylphenidate (Ritalin).]…
Dopamine, a hormone that plays a role in feelings of pleasure, is also
intimately involved with the motivational process, according to the study's
lead author, Dr. Nora D. Volkow. By increasing dopamine levels in the brain,
the drug may increase interest in activities that normally do not hold the
attention of a child with ADHD, she told Reuters Health in an interview.
For instance, after taking Ritalin, an arithmetic problem might become more
interesting to a child who is normally turned off by math, Volkow noted.
"All of a sudden, it's not boring," she said...
[Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD:
Drug the child for this on the pretence they have a disease that
makes math achievable in no other way. After 45 years
of Ritalin/stimulant 'research' and 'treatment' there is no evidence of
long-term enhancement of the educational outcome] .
Previous research in animals and people had shown that Ritalin, also known by
its generic name methylphenidate, increases dopamine levels, but the studies
involved injections of doses much higher than normally prescribed to
children.
To see whether the smaller oral doses of Ritalin that are usually prescribed
to children have the same effects, Volkow's team conducted a study involving
11 healthy men who did not have a history of drug or alcohol abuse and who
were not taking any medications...
[Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD:
None of the research in humans described in this paragraph and the
one preceding should have been funded or allowed to
proceed for the simple reason that ADHD has never been validated as a
disease, an abnormality in humans of any age. What is
known is that Ritalin is an addictive substance and that all human
subjects exposed to it in this 'research' are that much
more likely to become addicted. The NIMH should not be allowed to
fund/enable such unscientific, reprehensible, research].
The men's brains were scanned using technology called positron emission
tomography. One scanning session occurred after the men had taken Ritalin,
while the other took place after they had taken a placebo, which did not
contain any medication.
About an hour after the men took Ritalin, dopamine levels in their brains
increased significantly, Volkow's team reports in the January 15th issue of
The Journal of Neuroscience. The drug appears to raise levels of the hormone
by blocking the activity of dopamine transporters, which remove dopamine once
it has been released...
[Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD:
Again there is no evidence whatsoever that their dopamine levels
were abnormal--either high or low--prior to taking
Ritalin; no evidence that they were other than normal. What were they
told ADHD was by way of informed consent?]
According to Volkow, two groups of researchers have previously shown that
some people with ADHD have too many of these dopamine transporters. What this
means, she said, is that the transporters "clean up" dopamine in the brain
too quickly, making it difficult for the brain to pay attention. By blocking
these transporters, Ritalin appears to keep dopamine levels high enough so
that a child does not lose interest, she explained.
The findings may also help explain why Ritalin, when used as recommended, is
not addictive, according to the New York researcher..
[Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD:
Another restatment of the manufacturer-friendly lie] .
Ritalin does increase dopamine levels, as do many addictive drugs including
cocaine, alcohol and amphetamines, but the key difference may be the length
of time the drugs take to reach the brain, Volkow said. She noted that a drug
must reach the brain very quickly for it to become addictive...
[Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD:
They would like us to believe this, but it is anything but
established. The conclusion of Lambert, at the 1998
Consensus Conference, based on the biggest, longest-running prospective
survey of those 'treated' with all stimulants,
Ritalin most often, has "provided evidence that childhood use of CNS
treatment is significantly and pervasively implicated
in the uptake of regular smoking, in daily smoking in adulthood, in
cocaine dependence, and in lifetime use of cocaine and
stimulants."]
On average, it
takes an oral dose of Ritalin about an hour to have an effect on the brain,
she said, which prevents the drug from causing the "high" produced by most
drugs that stimulate dopamine.
This lag explains why children who take appropriate doses of Ritalin (based
on a child's weight, age and metabolism) do not become addicted to the
stimulant, Volkow said. However, she pointed out that Ritalin can become
addictive when tablets are crushed and then either snorted or injected, which
makes the drug reach the brain much more rapidly.
[Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD:
The primary purpose of this research (Volkow's) is to use it as a
propaganda piece to counter the unassailable proof
coming from the research of Lambert. One and all should write new
Secretary of Dept of Health and Human Services, Tommy
Thompson and ask why Dr. Steven Hyman, Director of the NIMH is not fired
but is allowed to stay on and to fund such frankly
fraudulent, pharmaceutical industry friendly (at expense of the public)
research. None of their 'research' is believable.
80% of it is industry financed, bound to result in industry-friendly
outcomes--and they do]
The Journal of Neuroscience 2001;21:RC121.
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