--- title: "Giving ADHD Drugs to Kids Has a Long-Term Side Effect That Might Change Their Minds About Taking It" description: "ADHD drugs may have bizarre side effects for kids who take them while they're growing — and it's a tall order as to whether they're worth it." date: "2025-04-14" modified: "2025-04-14" authors: - name: "Noor Al-Sibai" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/nooralsibai" url: "https://futurism.com/neoscope/adhd-drugs-kids-side-effects" categories: - "Health & Medicine" - "Studies" tags: - "adhd" - "children" - "neurodivergent" - "ritalin" --- # Giving ADHD Drugs to Kids Has a Long-Term Side Effect That Might Change Their Minds About Taking It ![ADHD drugs may have bizarre side effects for kids who take them while they're growing — and it's a tall order as to whether they're worth it.]() *\Image: Getty / Futurism\* As wildly overinvolved parents shell out to [give their kids growth hormones]() to make them taller, some research suggests that putting them on drugs for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) may have the opposite effect. As the [*New York Times* reports](), the scientists behind the [Multimodal Treatment of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Study](), or MTA Study for short, weren't exactly looking for physiological changes in their subjects: a cohort of 579 kids with ADHD, some of whom were given methyphenidate (better known as Ritalin), counseling, a mix of the two, or neither. Beginning in 1994, researchers across the country began tracking outcomes of children who were seven to ten years old at the start of the study. After 36 months, the researchers realized something odd: that the children who had been given the popular stimulant seemed to be growing more slowly than their non-medicated counterparts. The researchers presumed, per their retelling to the *NYT*, that this "height gap" would close in adolescence. When they followed up with them nine years after the study began, however, the medicated cohort was still 1.6 inches, on average, shorter than the kids who didn't take Ritalin. On a certain level, the concern is very shallow. There's nothing wrong with being short, and if a drug can help with a myriad of other symptoms, maybe the risk is worth it. But that's not the only controversy around prescribing ADHD drugs to kids. The MTA study's biggest takeaway was, troublingly, that the attention benefits of Ritalin seemed to cease after the first year, and that there were no apparent benefits to academic performance. And even on top of that, the "height suppression" side effect was also enough to give the researchers pause. In 2017, the MTA study scientists [published a follow-up]() looking into the height gap that tracked the original cohort until they were 25. That height gap remained, per the study, into adulthood. And the findings countered [bold academic assertions]() from just a few years prior claiming that any height suppression from ADHD meds in children would, as the researchers initially presumed, ultimately be undone in adolescence. Years later, another group of scientists [reviewed 18 childhood Ritalin studies]() and found, similarly to the MTA researchers, that the drug can indeed "result in reduction in height and weight" — though their opinion was that the size of the effect is negligible when compared to the purported benefits of these drugs. To this day, researchers can't agree as to whether or not stimulants can cause height suppression in children, primarily because the mechanism behind the demonstrated effect remains unknown. Speaking to the [website *Health Central*]() in 2022, childhood psychiatrist and MTA study co-author Laurence Greenhill of the University of California, San Francisco suggested that amphetamines' well-known [propensity to suppress appetite]() could be behind the growth differences. "There could be some lack of nutrition going on that explains this," Greenhill told the website. "However, the kids aren't malnourished," he countered. "They're just growing a little more slowly." If Ritalin or other stimulants help a child significantly, such a minor height disparity would be worthwhile. But with some of the original MTA study authors now questioning how effective these medical interventions really are, it may behoove parents to think before they put their kids on these pills. **More on ADHD meds:** [*To Fill Your Adderall Prescription Amid Shortage, Try Getting It Filled on This Particular Day of the Month*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've often been drawn to unpacking the narratives that underlie technological, scientific and medical progress, with a special interest in areas of conflict and ambiguity that end up setting agendas and steering the fates of both elites and the hoi polloi. I'm a committed generalist, but I often find myself returning to work involving NASA and the private space sector, the effects of AI on media and society, and the mechanics of the pharmaceutical industry, with a specific focus on the spread of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. Prior to Futurism, I worked for publications ranging from Media Matters and Truthdig to Raw Story and Bustle. I'm also the author of "Myspace Scene Queens," a 2024 title in Instar Books' acclaimed "Remember the Internet" series. My work at Futurism has been cited by outlets including the New Yorker, Slate, Nieman Lab, the Verge, the MIT Technology Review, the Sunday Times, and the Daily Beast. I grew up in North Carolina, attended the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and now live in Brooklyn, New York. In my free time, I'm an avid reader and music fan; you can probably find me at a local poetry reading, concert, underground rave, or DJ set. I'm the proud parent of an ineffable orange cat named Mee-Mow. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()