A study on ADHD medications has shown that, "children and teens taking ADHD stimulant medications were seven times more likely to die suddenly than their peers".
"What we found -- to our surprise -- is that even if you take out confounding factors, the association between stimulant use and sudden death was still significant," said study author, Madelyn Gould, a professor of clinical epidemiology in psychiatry at Columbia University/New York State Psychiatric Institute in New York City.
Current prescribing information also suggests that physicians request a thorough family history of heart problems and sudden deaths and perform a physical exam before starting youngsters on these medications.