Paula Span Writes in 'The New Old Age:' Study Links Anxiety Drugs to Alzheimer’s Disease

For years, studies that examined the use of sedative-hypnotics have caused concern for researchers who looked at the link between Alzheimer's disease and the intake of such medications. A study released this month through the British Medical Journal (BMJ) concluded that benzodiazepine use is associated with an increased risk of Alzheimer's disease. Dr. Malaz Boustani, a geriatrician at Indiana University Health and former Beeson Scholar, co-authored an accompanying article arguing for the need for proper surveillance system for cognitive side effects by prescribers and patients.

For years, studies that examined the use of sedative-hypnotics have caused concern for researchers who looked at the link between Alzheimer's disease and the intake of such medications. A study released this month through the British Medical Journal (BMJ) and featured in The New Old Age blog in the New York Times concluded that benzodiazepine use is associated with an increased risk of Alzheimer's disease. Dr. Malaz Boustani, a geriatrician at Indiana University Health and former Beeson Scholar, co-authored an accompanying article arguing for the need for proper surveillance system for cognitive side effects by prescribers and patients.

However, the findings of the article does not show the extended benzodiazepine use causes Alzheimer’s? Rather, according to the article, "an observational study like this can never directly answer that question. But 'the stronger association observed for long term exposures reinforces the suspicion of a possible direct association,' the researchers wrote."

Dr. Boustani, lauded the study’s design for attempting to correct for "reverse causation bias." According to the article, "Because Alzheimer’s symptoms develop slowly and can include some of the very problems (like anxiety and insomnia) for which doctors prescribe benzos, the study looked at Alzheimer’s patients who had not taken benzodiazepines for five years before their diagnoses. Their use of the drugs occurred five to 10 years earlier than that."

Read the full article on The New Old Age.