ADHD Drugs Show No Increased Heart Attack Risk
By: Stephanie Castillo
Updated: December 14, 2011
There's good news for more than a million American adults who take
ADHD drugs such as Ritalin and Adderall.
A new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association says those meds, which are mostly stimulants, may slightly raise blood pressure and heart rate.
But the drugs don't appear to increase heart attack or stroke risk in users. In the study, which federal health agencies funded and partly oversaw, researchers studied the medical records of almost 450,000 twenty-five to sixty-four year-olds.
About a third of them used stimulants or a non-stimulant ADHD drug. Only one-half of one-percent of those studied had a heart attack, stroke, or sudden cardiac death.
A previous study by the same group of researchers found no link between ADHD drugs and serious cardiovascular events in children and young adults.
A new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association says those meds, which are mostly stimulants, may slightly raise blood pressure and heart rate.
But the drugs don't appear to increase heart attack or stroke risk in users. In the study, which federal health agencies funded and partly oversaw, researchers studied the medical records of almost 450,000 twenty-five to sixty-four year-olds.
About a third of them used stimulants or a non-stimulant ADHD drug. Only one-half of one-percent of those studied had a heart attack, stroke, or sudden cardiac death.
A previous study by the same group of researchers found no link between ADHD drugs and serious cardiovascular events in children and young adults.
