Taking the anxiety drugs benzodiazepine may raise the risk of Alzheimer’s disease, researchers warned today.
With the current lack of effective treatments for dementia, identifying risk factors is a priority, say Dr Sophie Billioti de Gage of the University of Bordeaux, France, and colleagues.
"Several studies have shown that benzodiazepine use could be one of these," they write in today’s (10 September) BMJ. Benzodiazepines are mainly used for anxiety or insomnia, and prescription rates are high among elderly patients, between 7% and 43% in developed countries.
The negative impact of benzodiazepines on memory and cognition are well known, but it has been less clear whether they are linked to dementia.
The team looked at figures on 1,796 people with Alzheimer’s disease who had been followed for at least six years beforehand, as part of the Quebec health insurance program database in Canada. Their information was compared with that of 7,184 similar participants who were not diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. All were aged over 66 years.
This showed that any benzodiazepine use in the previous six years was linked to a 51% increased risk of Alzheimer’s. Further analysis indicated that the risk was only raised when more than 91 daily doses were prescribed.
"The stronger association observed for long-term exposure to benzodiazepines reinforces the suspicion of a possible direct association," say the researchers, "even if benzodiazepine use might also be an early marker of a condition associated with an increased risk of dementia.
"Unwarranted long-term use of these drugs should be considered as a public health concern," they conclude.
Billioti de Gage, S. et al. Benzodiazepine use and risk of Alzheimer’s disease: case-control study. BMJ 10 September 2014; doi: 10.1136/bmj.g5205 [abstract]
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