Nutrition Frenzy

Adderall spurs rapid weight loss, but it can lead to dangerous addiction

Abusing Adderall
Since 2002, the number of prescriptions for all amphetamine-based drugs used to treat ADD — including Concerta and Strattera — have skyrocketed. Sales for Adderall XR (extended release) have more than doubled in the past five years, from 4.2 million in 2002 to 9.5 million in 2007, according to IMS Health, a health-care information company. And online, Adderall ranks right up there with Viagra in most-hawked pharmaceuticals on the Internet; indeed, type in the words “Adderall abuse” and you’re likely to be directed to a site that sells the stuff.

Just why Adderall helps people with ADD is a little unclear. But scientists believe that sufferers have some imbalance of three chemicals in the brain dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin — and that Adderall helps by inhibiting the reuptake of these chemicals so they remain in the synapses longer, says Paul Thompson, professor of neurology and director of a neuroimaging lab at UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine. For the most part, Adderall is used exactly the way it is prescribed — to increase concentration among those with ADD. But there is a tempting yet dangerous side effect to all stimulants: They stimulate the dopamine — or pleasure — center of the brain, which causes a feeling of euphoria and a loss of appetite. So it’s no great surprise that the young and beautiful, many of whom have grown up bumming their friends’ Adderall to increase their mental edge at exam time, do not necessarily want to give it up when studying is no longer the issue.

Indeed, the weight-loss effects of Adderall have not been lost on some physicians. Fuad Ziai, a pediatric endocrinologist in Oak Lawn, Illinois, made headlines last year when CNN reported that he had prescribed Adderall to hundreds of obese kids; reportedly, 90 percent of his patients lost weight. His rationale? The risk of side effects — headaches, irritability, mood swings, and increased heart rate — was far smaller than the risk of diabetes to the overweight-kid population. The report neglected to mention a detail that might have been used to bolster Ziai’s treatment: The formulation now known as Adderall was originally marketed as the weight-loss drug Obetrol. (In a statement to Allure from Shire Pharmaceuticals, the maker of Adderall XR, Matt Cabrey, the company’s director of corporate communications, noted that a physician can prescribe Adderall “off-label” — i.e., in whatever way he sees fit — but that a pharmaceutical company cannot promote it for anything other than what the FDA approved it for. Says Cabrey, “Shire does not support the abuse, misuse, or diversion of any prescription medicine and Shire does not promote the use of ADHD medicines for any purpose other than the approved indication as an ADHD treatment.”)