Adderall risks: much more than you wanted to know

slatestarcodex.com

15 points·balfirevic··5 comments

Must have been written on Adderall it’s 20 pages long...no tldr at the top unfortunately

The tl;dr is that the state of research on Adderall/Ritalin effects is "overall terrible" but risks seem to be low, with a possible increased rate in Parkinson's being the most troubling long-term effect.

The last graf seems to contain the gist of things:

> Despite all this, I compare these risks to the risks of eating one extra strip of bacon per day and decide that overall this is not enough for me to stop prescribing stimulants to patients who I think might benefit from them. These are about the standard level of side effects for a powerful medication and I think there’s a major role for these in ADHD treatment as long as patients are well-informed about the risks they’re taking.

Another takeaway:

> But “ability to concentrate” is a normally distributed trait, like IQ. We draw a line at some point on the far left of the bell curve and tell the people on the far side that they’ve “got” “the disease” of “ADHD”.

Is it called a disease, or a disability? Since IQ is mentioned, it was my understanding that one speaks of "intellectual disability" when someone has difficulty living independently due to impaired intelligence. They don't have a "disease".

Could someone please sum it up in a few sentences?

It requires adderall to process :)

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