Up to one in FOUR middle and high school students are abusing Adderall, Govt-funded study finds 

One in four American teens abuse drugs like Adderall, a National Institutes of Health (NIH) study suggests.

The study also found a contagion effect among students in schools where attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) was more likely to abuse the drugs by 36 percent — regardless of whether they had a prescription themselves. But more than 100 percent of the schools in the study reported no abuse of the drug.

Adderall use boomed during the pandemic after many prescription drug regulations lifted and online telehealth companies like Cerebral and Done rose to prominence, making it easily accessible.

The drug is intended to treat ADHD but is often misused as a party drug due to its ability to make users feel more focused and calm.

A report last month found that one in 10 teenage boys in the U.S. was prescribed the drug — not counting many who abuse it without a doctor’s consent.

Stimulants are increasingly used to treat ADHD, but they are among the most commonly abused prescription drugs among teens.

Many children get the drugs from their peers, who often have prescriptions of their own but abuse them to misuse the drug.

The NIH teamed up with the University of Michigan on the study, which was released Tuesday JAMA network openedand used data from between 2005 and 2020.

A total of 231,141 middle and high school students from 3,284 schools participated in the study.

Researchers broke the data down by school and found that in some of them, 25 percent of students had abused the drug in the past year.

Schools with the highest number of children on ADHD prescriptions reported the most abuse of the drugs.

Michigan researchers said the study highlights a “significant” link between legitimate and illicit ADHD drug use.

Pupils at these schools were more often white and had highly educated parents.

Dr. Sean McCabe, a Michigan nursing professor and lead researcher on the study, said: “I can tell you that a student’s experience will be different in a school with no peers who abuse stimulants than in a school where one in four of their peers is abusive. of stimulants. ‘

Stimulant therapy is a common treatment for ADHD.

Its popularity has increased enormously in recent years. A recent study found that Adderall — the most popular ADHD drug — now accounts for 2.3 percent of U.S. prescriptions, up from 1.1 percent at the start of the pandemic.

However, these drugs can be harmful if used without a prescription or if a doctor’s advice is ignored.

Consistent abuse of stimulants can cause serious health effects such as cardiovascular disease, depressed mood, drug overdoses, psychosis, anxiety, seizures, and stimulant use disorders.

Mr McCabe said: ‘The main takeaway here is not that we need to reduce the prescription of stimulants for students who need them, but that we need better ways to save access to and use of stimulants among young people , to check and screen to prevent misuse.’

The easing of online prescribing rules during the pandemic also made ADHD medications accessible with just a few clicks of a button.

Before the pandemic, patients who wanted a prescription for Alzheimer’s disease had to see a doctor in person before being allowed to receive the drug.

But the pandemic led to a surge in telemedicine and these rules were relaxed. Now a person can get a prescription after just a virtual consultation.

This allowed many to abuse the relaxed regulations to obtain the medicines without actually having to visit a doctor.

Furthermore, online telehealth platforms that provide easy access to Adderall are starting to take off and advertise heavily on social media platforms such as TikTok and Instagram.

Prescriptions for Adderall have skyrocketed over the past three years, and rising demand combined with supply issues for manufacturers led to a shortage.

ADHD is one of the most common conditions that affect a child’s neurological development.

It is usually diagnosed in childhood, but in recent years there has been an increase in adult diagnoses.

Neuroscientists have not found a cause for ADHD, although genetics are believed to play a major role.

The primary symptoms of ADHD, which typically manifest before age 12, are inattention and hyperactive-impulsive behavior.

Among other things, people with ADHD may be constantly nervous, unable to concentrate on a task, talk excessively, interrupt others, and be easily distracted.

Stimulants are the most commonly used medications for ADHD because they increase levels of dopamine, a neurochemical key to concentration and sustained focus by slowing how much of it is reabsorbed back into the neuron that produced it in the first place.

By slowing the reuptake of dopamine, the neurotransmitter has more time to travel from neuron to neuron, relaying information and eventually binding to a receptor, allowing messages to be sent and received more effectively in the brain.

This improves communication in parts of the brain that produce dopamine and norepinephrine, a chemical that helps you stay awake, pay attention, and think clearly.

ADHD medications are generally very effective and, in many cases, are critical to people’s academic and social success and development.

Between 70 and 80 percent of patients experience fewer or milder symptoms on ADHD medication.