Manuel Antonio Fernández
Neuropaediatrician, director of the Andalusian Institute of Paediatric Neurology (INANP) and coordinator of the ADHD and neurodevelopmental disorders working group of the Spanish Society of Paediatric Neurology (SENEP)
It is a meta-analysis that seems well designed. The information it provides, although not very specific, coincides with what we know to date and what we see in routine clinical practice.
ADHD drugs have always been quite reviled and have had a bad reputation, especially stimulants.
Some have tried to present them as a kind of drug or doping to help children improve their grades at school or be calmer and less disruptive, trivialising ADHD. On the other hand, there are those who have attacked them, citing a series of adverse effects that are highly dangerous to the physical and mental integrity of the children who take them. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Regardless of the beneficial effects in regulating self-control processes in different areas of daily life, which are very important to bear in mind in order to develop a normal life, the adverse effects of these drugs are characterised by being scarce, and those that appear are generally transitory and of low intensity. There is a phrase that describes very well what is referred to in this study when referring to the cardiovascular effects of ADHD drugs. They are statistically significant, but clinically irrelevant in healthy people. In conclusion, there is no reason to reject their use because of them.
[Regarding possible limitations] They are not very relevant, but it is true that it limits itself to saying that the effects on heart rate and blood pressure are slight. There are studies that estimate this level at approximately 10%, which, as I said before, is statistically significant, but clinically irrelevant in healthy people.