Posts Tagged ‘children’s mental health’

ADHD behaviors as seen in children seem to have very little meaning.

ADHD Diagnoses

An ADHD diagnosis seems to be arbitrary. Two published studies seem to say something is wrong with the way ADHD is diagnosed in young children. In the U.S. nearly one million kids may be misdiagnosed just because they are the youngest in their kindergarten class. The youngest in the class is twice as likely to be on stimulant medication.

What was found the youngest children were much more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD and be prescribed behavior modifying stimulants such as Ritalin.

Could it be the teacher was just having a bad hair day, and had no patience for an unruly 5 year old?  Since this is such a subjective diagnosis this can be a factor.

Hyperactivity

Hyperactivity in a five year old seems normal to a sedentary adult. This is a perception, not always a reality. It is estimated that the misdiagnosis rate is about 1 in 5, and that 900,000 of the 4.5 million children currently diagnosed with ADHD have been misdiagnosed.

Wow, 4.5 million children diagnosed with ADHD is correct. I don’t buy it. With our diet, and vaccine schedule it is possible that we have fostered a nation of unruly children. This number doesn’t add up. 

Attention Deficit Disorder

Attention deficit disorder is a relatively new term. It use to be called rambunctious, acting out, class clown, energetic, and irascible behavior. With a profit center build around Ritalin, a new term is just what the drug companies ordered.

Legal drugs vs. Street Drugs, the difference profit for big pharma:

Antipsychotic drugs for children will impact future generations. Outlawing illegal drugs is not the issue. It is curtailing the use of legal drugs for children, the frail and the elderly.

Our Problem

We have a problem, the use of the potent antipsychotic drugs has increased more than fivefold from 1993 to 2002 in children and teens. These findings add to earlier studies that showed a sharp rise in the last decade of psychiatric drug prescriptions for children. These include stimulants such as Ritalin and antidepressants.

These findings were published in Archives of General psychiatry, and it is an important debate. Antidepressants have been linked to an increase in suicidal thinking and behavior, and Ritalin may cause or contribute to heart problems. Antipsychotic drugs cause weight gain and blood fat changes that increase the risk of diabetes. Antipsychotics have not been studied extensively for their use in children.

 “We are using these medications and don’t know how they work, if they work, or at what cost.” Said Dr. John March, a professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at Duke University.” “It amounts to a huge experiment with the lives of American Kids, and what it tells us that we’ve got to do something other than what we’re doing now” to access the drugs’overall impact.

With the limited amount of knowledge on how children systems handle these drugs, Dr. Olfsonsaid said “to me the most striking thing was nearly one in five psychiatric visits for young people included a prescription for antipsychotics.”

Are We Producing More Psychotic Offspring?

These drugs are being used for aggression, mood swings, and other behavior problems. Doctors’ are relying on these drugs as an answer to childhood behavior problems. There may be more disrupted children due to environmental issues. However, there are a few questions about the liberal use of these drugs. Boys are more often than girls to be written a prescription for antipsychotics. This may be a shortcut and band aid for behavior problems.

The newer antisychotics are being heavily promoted by the pharmaceutical companies. “The rapid rise of atypical antipsychotic drugs to blockbuster status is troubling. “ said Stefan Kruszewski, former clinical professor of psychiatry at Penn State medical School.  He said  “The drugs were adopted almost as quickly as they came out.”  Atypical antipsychotic drugs were the only other class of drugs besides HIV medicines to be covered under a special pharmaceutical benefits program that facilitated the rapid and incautious rise in the use of new drugs 

The FDA is still examining whether older antipsychotic agents are also associated with higher mortality. Drug companies pay doctors for lectures and other services. Psychiatrist earn more money from drug companies than any specialty doctors. It has been shown that psychiatrists  have prescribed the new class of powerful antipsychotics to children. It is know that these drugs are the most risky for and not approved for children in some cases. The New York Times June 2007 reported this and the fact that the drug companies on average spend twice as much to market drugs as they do researching them.

Antipsychotic drugs are probably the most brain altering. About 90% of the antipsychotics used are: cozapine, risperidone, olazapine, and quetiapine. These are the most commonly prescribed for children, they are not approved for use in this age group. There was a study reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association that showed that youngsters gained from 9.7 to 18.7 pounds after almost 11 weeks of treatment, depending on the type of medication.

“We were able to show all of these agents can cause quite a bit of body weight changes and body composition changes that are not beneficial to health,” said Chistoph Correll, the study’s lead author, in a telephone interview on Oct. 23.

“What we need to figure out is what are the long-term consequences in the lives of children,” Correll, who is a medical director at Zucker Hillside Hospital in New York City’s Queens borough and an associate professor of psychiatry at Yeshiva University’s Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx.

Our Children’s Future

Antipschotic drugs for children cause Weight gain, obesity and increases in cholesterol in this population. These conditions are linked to their adult risk of cardiovascular problems and cancer. The trade off in profits for both the psychiatrist and pharmaceutical company is the future health of our nation’s children.

With children packing on the pounds, it was found that fast food and soft drinks made them happy. Well liquor makes a wino happy, at least for a few minuets. This comes from studies at a few universities. For the first time the relationship between unhealthy dietary habits and children’s psychological health was studied. What they looked at was the fast food and soft drink consumption on children’s body weight and unhappiness.

The subjects were 2366 children aged between 2 and 12 years. The food included French fries, pizza and hamburgers. The soft drinks included soda and other sugar-sweetened drinks. A quarter of the children were overweight or obese. About 19 percent were sometimes or many times unhappy, sad or depressed. The finding was the children who consumed the fast food and soft drinks were more inclined to be overweight. This is rocket science. The study found them less likely to be unhappy. The happy drunk comes to mind.

What was found is that the mothers’ consumption influenced her child’s eating habits. Who would have known that. Children who ate fast food consumed more soft drinks. How are they going to wash down the food, and you do build thirst from sodium laden food. After having something with sodium many people desire something sweet. It was also found that lower income families were more prone to unhealthy diets. They also tend to be overweight or obese. Besides the expense, the education they are getting about food is surely lacking.

The conclusion of this was that there was going to be a trade-off between obesity and unhappiness. Policies and programs should be in place that should take this in to account. Aim for well-being without sacrificing the child’s happiness. Previous generations must have had unhappy children before the fast food craze.

Sugar is known to cause depression, and to get out of it the body needs more. It is an addictive substance. Of course science claims sugar is not an additive substance.. The tastes and additives in fast food are additive. It is set up that way for profits. Children are more vulnerable to the effects. If there is such as a thing as video game addition than this one surely exists. Try taking video games away and see if the person is unhappy.

A study and conclusion like the one above puts our children and the whole nation at risk. It shows a lack of understanding about nutrition. Fast food and sweet drinks have an addictive component. It is more so if there is a lack of physical activity. That would help stabilize the sugar highs and lows that come from the diet. The addictive nature of theses so called foods often results in overeating. The children are the real victims of the lack of understanding about what it takes to make a health human being. Children put at risk by junk science wind up on the wrong side of wisdom. What the so-called experts say and what is idea are two different things.