Adderall, Stimulants & Modafinil for ADHD: Short- & Long-Term Effects

All the data point to the fact that combining alcohol with sympathomimetics such as Vyvanse, Adderall, Ritalin or any kind of amphetamine is going to be more detrimental to the brain and body than simply taking those drugs on their own ... If you are taking any of the drugs that we've been talking about to treat ADHD, or if you just happen to be taking them for whatever reason, you are going to want to avoid drinking alcohol at any time.

Whether or not you're taking your sympathomimetic treatment for ADHD early in the day or late in the day, you are very likely experiencing elevations in cortisol late in the day ... In fact, cortisol, in many ways, competes with or can out-compete for the production of testosterone and other so-called steroid hormones.

I've spoken to people and I spoke to this clinician expert in ADHD who told me that some people will take as little as 2.5 mg of Adderall at 6 AM and have a hard time falling asleep later that night at 11 PM.

Having a first relative with schizophrenia or bipolar depression... is going to be a strong predisposition for psychotic episodes—made much greater anytime one takes a sympathomimetic drug...

So, what's happening when you take Adderall is that you're getting more out of the dopamine and norepinephrine that you're releasing, and you're releasing more dopamine and norepinephrine altogether.

Vyvanse is a drug in which the pharmaceutical industry has taken one component of Adderall—just the d-amphetamine component—and attached to it an amino acid called lysine ... When one takes Vyvanse... the lysines are cleaved off slowly over time; and as a consequence, Vyvanse is basically timed-release d-amphetamine.

Dopamine, while it does many different things in the brain... one of its main functions in the context of all this prefrontal cortex and attention stuff is to quiet the amount of noise. That is, it helps the prefrontal cortex suppress the signals that would otherwise distract us...

Children with ADHD, true ADHD, who are diagnosed with ADHD and are treated with appropriate doses of drugs like Adderall, Ritalin, or Vyvanse fair far better both in childhood and later in life when it comes to performance in school, performance in terms of focusing on anything, and in terms of general outcomes.

Kids with ADHD who are not treated with drugs and behavioral treatments to deal with their ADHD have a much higher tendency towards illicit drug use and addictive drug potential in their adulthood.

It does not appear that treatment with sympathomimetics during development... is going to limit overall height. In fact, if you look at the data, it appears that children with ADHD who are treated with ADHD meds actually arrive at slightly higher BMIs (body mass indexes) compared to age-matched peers.

ADHD is not necessarily a deficit in prefrontal cortical function but rather the prefrontal cortex's ability to communicate with other brain areas in the proper ways. And so, what results in the brain of a person, either young or old, with ADHD is that a lot of the background chatter becomes very, very loud.

The effects of Vyvanse can extend over anywhere from 12 to 16, sometimes even 18, hours depending on how quickly somebody metabolizes it.