Hyperactivity

...ba href=/hyperactivity/a/b disorder, or ADHD.Sleep on this Still, more sleep is no guarantee for overall health, and more sleeping pills might not bring on either.

A six-year study Kripke headed up, involving more than a million adults ages 30 to 102, showed that people who get only six to seven hours a night have a lower death rate than those who get eight hours of sleep.  The risk from taking sleeping pills 30 times or more a month was not much less than the risk of smoking a pack of cigarettes a day, he says.

Those who took sleeping pills nightly had a greater risk of death than those who took them occasionally, but the latter risk was still 10 to 15 percent higher than it was among people who never took sleeping pills.

Sleeping pills appear unsafe in any amount, Kripke writes in his online book "The Dark Side of Sleeping Pills.""There is really no evidence that the average 8-hour sleeper functions better than the average 6- or 7-hour sleeper," Kripke says.

His view is based on his ongoing psychiatric practice with patients - along with research, including the large study of a million adults (called the Cancer Prevention Study II).

He suspects that people who sleep less than average make more money and are more successful.  The Cancer Prevention Study II even showed that people who have serious insomnia, or get only 3.5 hours of sleep per night, live longer than people who get more than 7.5 hours.

And there are questions about the effectiveness of sleeping pills.  A study by researcher...

...ba href=/hyperactivity/a/b disorder in children until more is learned about a possible link to a serious skin disease, federal advisers said Thursday.

A Food and Drug Administration advisory committee voted 12-1 against recommending modafinil as safe for children with ADHD.

Earlier Thursday, the psychopharmacologic drugs panel agreed unanimously that the modafinil works in treating ADHD.

The FDA is not required to follow the recommendations of its advisory committees but usually does.

The committee recommended that Cephalon Inc.

undertake a 3,000-patient trial to determine what risk modafinil may pose for Stevens-Johnson Syndrome.

Drug reactions cause nearly all cases of the sometimes fatal skin disease, which can produce widespread blistering and rashes, according to The Merck Manual.

The FDA's drug chief, Dr.

Robert Temple, said one out of roughly 900 children involved in earlier studies of the drug developed the disease.

Temple and Cephalon spokeswoman Jenifer Antonacci said the agency and company would discuss the committee's recommendation.

The company, based in Frazier, Pa., does not see a "clear link" between its drug and the skin disease, Antonacci said.

In December 1998, the FDA originally approved modafinil, under the brand name Provigil, to treat adults with sleepiness associated with narcolepsy The company has proposed calling a higher-dose version of the pill Sparlon when used to treat ADHD.

Other drugs already approved by the FDA for...

...ba href=/hyperactivity/a/b disorder should not carry strong "black-box" warnings about potential cardiovascular and psychiatric risks.

Rather, the Food and Drug Administration pediatric advisory committee recommended that the drug labels include warning language written so people can understand it.

"I wouldn't use the word 'tougher,' said panel chair Dr.

Robert Nelson, of the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

"'Clearer.'" By rejecting the black-box warnings in a consensus decision, the advisory panel broke with another committee that voted just last month to include them on some ADHD drugs.

The FDA was poised Wednesday to follow the more recent recommendations.

"I think we are likely to follow them, yes," said Dr.

Robert Temple, director of the FDA's office of medical policy, following the meeting.

Any updated language may not appear on labels until pharmaceutical companies begin using a recently adopted format, something that could take several years.

And the FDA may yet require black-box warnings on stimulants to treat ADHD that would alert adults to increased risk of heart attacks, strokes and other similar problems, Temple said.

Nearly 3.3 million Americans age 19 and younger used an ADHD drug last year, according to Medco Health Solutions Inc., a prescription drug benefit program manager.

Psychiatrists and others had urged the committee to move cautiously before recommending strengthened warnings associated with the drugs.

In February, the FDA's Drug Safety and Risk Management adv...