Effects of ADHD medications on the heart

 A new study led by the University of Southampton has found that medications for ADHD have overall small effects on blood pressure and heart rate after weeks or a few months of use.

There have been concerns about the side effects of ADHD medications but the new findings, coupled with other studies, suggest that the benefits of taking these medications outweigh the risks, while highlighting the need for careful monitoring.

The study, published in The Lancet Psychiatry, conducted the largest and most comprehensive analysis of the cardiovascular effects of ADHD medications based on the results of randomized controlled trials—the most rigorous type of clinical study to assess medication effects.

Professor Samuele Cortese, senior lead author of the study from the University of Southampton said, "When it comes to taking any medication, risks and benefits should always be assessed together. We found an overall small increase in blood pressure and pulse for the majority of children taking ADHD medications.

"Other studies show clear benefits in terms of reductions in mortality risk and improvement in academic functions, as well as a small increased risk of hypertension, but not other cardiovascular diseases. Overall, the risk-benefit ratio is reassuring for people taking ADHD medications."

It is estimated that attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) affects around 4% of children in the UK. Of these, around 45% are treated with medication.

The international team of investigators analyzed data from 102 randomized controlled trials, including a total of 22,702 participants with ADHD. They used an advanced statistical approach—network meta-analysis—that allowed them to compare the effects of several medications, even when the medications were not directly compared in the trials included in the analysis.

They found that all ADHD medications were generally associated with overall small effects on blood pressure, heart rate, and ECG parameters. With the exception of guanfacine (which leads to decreased blood pressure and heart rate), other medications led to increases in the values of these parameters.

No significant differences were found between stimulants (including methylphenidate and amphetamine) and non-stimulants (atomoxetine and viloxazine) with regard to their effects on blood pressure and heart rate.

"Our findings should inform future clinical guidelines, stressing the need to systematically monitor blood pressure and heart rate, both for stimulants and non-stimulants. This should be particularly relevant for practitioners who might assume that only stimulants have a negative effect on the cardiovascular system," said first author, Dr. Luis Farhat (University of São Paulo, Brazil).

The researchers say that those with existing heart conditions should discuss the side effects of ADHD medications with a specialist cardiologist before starting treatment.

Co-senior author, Professor Alexis Revet (University of Toulouse, France) added, "Our findings, based on randomized controlled trials that tend to be of short duration due to ethical issues, should be complemented by results from real-world, longer-term studies."

The research team will now look to see if some groups might be more vulnerable to cardiovascular side effects than others.

NIHR Research Professor Cortese concluded, "While our findings are informative at the group level, that is, on average, we cannot exclude that a subgroup of individuals may have a higher risk of more substantial cardiovascular alterations.

"While it is currently not possible to identify those individuals at higher risk, efforts based on precision medicine approaches will hopefully provide important insights in the future."

More information: Comparative cardiovascular safety of medications for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder in children, adolescents, and adults: a systematic review and network meta-analysis, The Lancet Psychiatry (2025). DOI: 10.1016/S2215-0366(25)00062-8

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-04-effects-adhd-medications-heart.html

Oh, That Influence Peddling: Times Finds Evidence Suggesting Hunter Acted As Foreign Agent

 by Jonathan Turley,

For years, some of us have written about the Biden family’s multimillion-dollar influence-peddling operation and the Justice Department’s refusal to charge Hunter Biden with being an unregistered foreign agent. Now, years later, the New York Times has found evidence suggesting that Hunter Biden was acting as a foreign agent as early as the Obama Administration, when his Dad was Vice President.

Last August, the New York Times ran a story about Hunter seeking help from the government for his client Burisma.  Ken Vogel just ran a follow-up story with damaging new details:

Hunter Biden sought assistance from the U.S. government for a potentially lucrative energy project in Italy while his father was vice president, according to newly released records and interviews.

The records, which the Biden administration had withheld for years, indicate that Hunter Biden wrote at least one letter to the U.S. ambassador to Italy in 2016 seeking assistance for the Ukrainian gas company Burisma, where he was a board member…

The State Department did not release the actual text of the letter.

That is precisely what many of us have been writing about in asking why Hunter was not charged with being an unregistered foreign agent as was the case under cases from Paul Manafort to Bob Menendez.

The Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) covers anyone acting as “agent of a foreign principal,” including but not limited to (1) attempting to influence federal officials or the public on domestic or foreign policy or the political or public interests in favor of a foreign country; (2) collecting or disbursing money and or other things of value within the United States; or (3) representing the interests of the foreign principal before U.S. Government officials or agencies.

It is sweeping. So is the definition of what a “foreign principal” encompasses, including “a foreign government, a foreign political party, any person outside the United States (except U.S. citizens who are domiciled within the United States), and any entity organized under the laws of a foreign country or having its principal place of business in a foreign country.”

As I previously wrote,  special counsel Robert Mueller seemed to charge by the gross under the act. He hit a line of Trump associates with such allegations from Manafort to Michael Flynn to George Papadopoulos to Rick Gates. The Justice Department used FARA to conduct searches on the homes and files of former Trump counsel Rudy Giuliani, Republican counsel Victoria Toensing and others.

However, the Justice Department and Special Counsel David Weiss seemed to tie themselves into knots to avoid tripping the wire on FARA even as it discussed Hunter’s work for foreign clients.

The government also resisted FOIA requests from the Times and other media. Vogel wrote:

The request was initially filed under the Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, in June 2021. After nearly eight months, the State Department had not released any records, and The Times sued. About 18 months later, the department moved to close the case after releasing thousands of pages of records — none of which shed light on Hunter Biden’s outreach to the U.S. government.

The Times challenged the thoroughness of the search, noting that the department had failed to produce responsive records contained in a cache of files connected to a laptop that Mr. Biden had abandoned at a Delaware repair shop. The department resumed the search and periodic productions, but had produced few documents related to Mr. Biden until the week after his father ended his re-election campaign and endorsed Vice President Harris for the Democratic nomination.

Now we have a copy of a key letter from Hunter that gives us an insight into the evidence buried for years:

The State Department last week released a letter that Hunter Biden wrote while his father was serving as vice president in which he sought assistance from the U.S. government for the Ukrainian energy company Burisma.

In the previously unpublished June 2016 letter on Burisma letterhead to the U.S. ambassador to Italy, Mr. Biden requested “support and guidance” in arranging a meeting with an Italian official to resolve regulatory hurdles to geothermal energy projects Burisma was pursuing in the Tuscany region…

The letter requested help arranging a meeting between Burisma officials and Enrico Rossi, the president of the Tuscany regional government at the time, “to introduce geothermal projects led by Burisma Group, to highlight their social and economic benefits for local communities and develop a common action plan that would lead to further development of the Tuscany Region.”

How could any Justice Department official, let alone a Special Counsel, read that letter and not see the glaring disconnect between the handling of the case involving Joe Biden’s son and others like Manafort?

The letter references a trip on which Hunter, as was his pattern, used official travel with his father to make these business connections. The letter mentions meeting a key ambassador on Air Force Two as he seeks assistance for his client.

The ambassador then sent a follow-up letter saying he knew the president of Tuscany and identified a Commerce Department official working at the US embassy to “see where our interests may overlap.”

It was another example of alleged influence peddling through his father and work for a foreign client in lobbying the government.

During this period, the Justice Department seemed to be on a hair-trigger for FARA charges. Yet, when it came to Hunter Biden, the entire department seemed composed of legal Sgt. Schultzs.

Many in the media attacked those of us who have been writing about this corruption stretching back to the Obama Administration. Many simply insisted that there was no evidence while taking no steps to find out. While the media was unrelenting in investigating Trump allegations of Russian collusion and business improprieties, it took a largely passive stance in pursuing this story.

Even the New York Times, which can be credited with pursuing this FOIA information, did comparably little with the ample evidence of corruption by the Bidens in securing millions through influence peddling.

What remains is a corruption scandal involving not only what the Bidens did but also what the Justice Department did not do over this extended period. It appears to heed the advice not of whistleblowers but politicians like former Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) that “everybody needs to back off” the influence-peddling story.

Of course, Joe Biden ultimately broke his repeated promise not to pardon his son. What was most notable, however, was that he not only pardoned him for any crimes from human trafficking to tax evasion, but did so for a period running from Jan. 1, 2014 to Dec. 1, 2024.

This letter explains why such a sweeping, extended pardon was needed. Yet, in the end, the greatest indictment from this scandal was of the Justice Department itself.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/oh-influence-peddling-times-finds-evidence-suggesting-hunter-acted-foreign-agent

White House Skewers Obama & Kamala After They Crawl Out Of Holes To Attack Trump

 by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

The Trump White House fired back after both Kamala Harris and Barack Obama came out of the woodwork to bad mouth the President, effectively telling audiences ‘we told you so,’ playing off the left’s ongoing hysterical moral panic.

During a speech at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York, Obama stated “Look, I don’t think what we just witnessed in terms of economic policy and tariffs is going to be good for America, but that’s a specific policy.”

He continued, “I’m more deeply concerned with a federal government that threatens universities if they don’t give up students who are exercising their right to free speech.”

“I am more troubled by the idea that a White House can say to law firms, ‘If you represent parties that we don’t like, we’re going to pull all our business or bar you from representing people effectively,” Obama further whinged, adding “That kind of behavior is contrary to the basic compact we have as Americans.”

Obama went on to accuse Trump of attempting to “destroy” the global trading order, stating “in the last two months, we have seen a U.S. government actively try to destroy that order and discredit it.”

He further complained, “And the thinking, I gather, is that somehow, since we are the strongest, we’re going to be better off if we can just bully people into doing whatever we want and dictate the terms of trade all the time, and if we see a piece of land, be like, ‘who’s going to stop us? Greenland looks good.’”

Elsewhere in the speech, Obama stated “imagine if I had done any of this. I just want to be clear about this. Imagine if I had pulled Fox News’ credentials from the White House press corps. You’re laughing, but this is what’s happening. Imagine if I had said to law firms that were representing parties that were upset with policies my administration had initiated, that you will not be allowed into government buildings.”

He continued, “We will punish you economically for dissenting from the Affordable Care Act or the Iran deal. We will ferret out students who protest against my policies. It’s unimaginable that the same parties that are silent now would have tolerated behavior like that from me, or a whole bunch of my predecessors.”

These comments immediately prompted respondents to note that Obama did worse things during his time in office.

The cut off text reads…“The Obama administration weaponized the IRS against conservatives, spied on a Fox News journalist, sued nuns over the birth control mandate in the ACA, spied on Trump, lied to Americans about Benghazi, armed cartels resulting in the death of a Border Patrol agent, and his CIA spied on congress.“

Speaking at the Leading Women Defined Summit in California, Harris whines about “progress” being halted and claimed too many people are remaining “quiet” as the country is being subjected to “unconstitutional threats.”

“What has changed is that there is a sense of fear that has been taking hold in our country, and I understand it,” she said, adding “But we’re seeing people stay quiet. We are seeing organizations stay quiet. We are seeing those who are capitulating to clearly unconstitutional threats, and these are the things that we are witnessing each day in these last few months in our country.”

“And it understandably creates a great sense of fear. Because, you know, there were many things that we knew would happen, many things — I’m not here to say ‘I told you so,’” Harris proclaimed before bursting into her finger nails on chalkboard cackle.

The White House responded with two succinct paragraphs.

“During her time in office, Kamala Harris presided over the weaponization of our justice system against political opponents, the coercion of social media companies to censor free speech, and the wholesale destruction of our country’s economy and borders,” White House spokesman Kush Desai wrote in a statement.

“Neither she nor Barack Obama, who wrote off worker layoffs by saying ‘some of those jobs of the past are just not going to come back’, are in any position to weigh in on the merits or constitutionality of the Trump administration’s historic action to put Americans and America First,” he added.

*  *  *

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/white-house-skewers-obama-kamala-after-they-crawl-out-holes-attack-trump

Starmer set to acknowledge popularity of Trump’s tariffs as he admits ‘globalization is over’

 United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer is set to admit that he understands the rationale behind US President Donald Trump’s tariff push, according to a report.

The center-left Starmer will announce on Sunday that he understands the reason why the economic nationalist framework imposed by the Trump tariffs is popular with voters — while arguing that tariffs are still wrong, The Times reported.

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United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer will reportedly discuss President Trump’s tariffs on Sunday.AFP via Getty Images

“Trump has done something that we don’t agree with but there’s a reason why people are behind him on this,” a spokesperson for the Prime Minister said in a statement to the outlet.

“The world has changed, globalization is over and we are now in a new era. We’ve got to demonstrate that our approach, a more active Labour government, a more reformist government, can provide the answers for people in every part of this country,” the statement concluded.

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President Trump issued sweeping ”reciprocal tariffs” to trading partners on April 2, 2025.ZUMAPRESS.com
In the address, Starmer will emphasize the supposed end to globalization and admit to Englanders that the accompanying policies of free trade and mass migration have failed millions of voters, the report stated.

Starmer has yet to speak with President Trump about the freshly imposed tariffs.

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President Trump stamped a 10% tariff on all goods from England.AFP via Getty Images
The Prime Minister did discuss the issue with France’s President Macron Saturday on a phone call, in which the two Western leaders agreed that a trade war is in nobody’s interests, “but nothing should be off the table,” the outlet reported.

On Wednesday, President Trump announced sweeping new tariffs on nearly every country in the world — including a 10% tariff on all goods imported from England.

https://nypost.com/2025/04/06/world-news/uk-prime-minister-keir-starmer-set-to-admit-trumps-tariffs-are-popular-report/