According to the High Authority for Health, the deficit disorder of attention with or without hyperactivity (ADHD) affects approximately 2 million people in France. This neurode development disorder, the first signs of which generally occur before the age of 12, can have an impact on many aspects of everyday life such as learning and social life. To fight against this condition, drugs (and more specifically, psychostimulants) can be prescribed, explains New Scientist.
Although these drugs are effective in alleviating immediate symptoms, such as class concentration difficulties, few studies are focused on their long -term effects. It is in this context that a team of scientists conducted a large research with 150,000 people with ADHD in Sweden.
The results, published in the scientific journal The BMJ, show that taking medication to manage the disease has wider and diverse beneficial effects: people who take it would have a lower risk of suicidal behavior, criminal convictions, drug addiction, accidental injuries and road accidents.
Treatment with unsuspected effects
To conduct this study, Samuele Cortese, of the University of Southampton (United Kingdom), Zheng Chang, of the Karolinska Institute (Sweden) and their colleagues used a method called “emulation of targeted tests”. This is to analyze large observation data sets as if they came from a randomized clinical trial. For this, the team analyzed documents from Swedish medical and legal files to compare those placed under treatment and those who are not.
Researchers found that people under treatment for ADHD had 25% risks in less to be sentenced to criminal or have a drug or alcohol problem. “They were also less likely 16% of being involved in a road accident, 15% trying to commit suicide and 4% to undergo accidental injuries”details the media.
“This information is important for governments to help political decision -makers understand the potential advantages of treatment for society as a whole, especially in matters of mental health or crime”, concluded Adam Guastella, of the university of Sydney, in Australia.
Recently, another study has shown a link between ADHD and hypersexuality. Another had suggested that the consumption of Adderall (the medication prescribed to alleviate the symptoms of this disorder) in too large quantity increased the risks of living a psychotic episode. Even today, knowledge of this disorder remains partial, and many gray areas remain regarding its mechanisms.