Angst and more could easily be the monicker for some cozy, laid back Deep South legal firm.
But in this case it isn't. It's about anxiety and the popular medicines prescribed to relieve it.
Who among us hasn't experienced his or her share of anxiety? It's rampant in these fast-changing high-tech-laden days. That itself is a paradox. Technology is suppose to makes things easier, less frustrating. Good luck with that one.
In the global effort to understand the causes of Alzheimer’s disease, another culprit emerges: Benzodiazepines. This class of drugs includes the widely prescribed anti-anxiety medications Ativan (lorazepam), Xanax (Alprazolam), Valium (diazepam), and Klonopin (Clonazepam). Researchers from France and Canada report in The BMJ that prolonged use of the drugs – for three months or more – may significantly increase the risk of Alzheimer’s disease years later. The drugs have been associated with short-term cognitive impairment, but the connection to Alzheimer’s has been less clear. Now, the new study finds a convincing, and apparently strong, link between benzodiazepines and Alzheimer’s disease.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2014/09/10/common-anxiety-medications-may-increase-risk-of-alzheimers-disease
One concern with studies like this is that reverse causation is at play: It could be that people who are already showing early symptoms of Alzheimer’s – like anxiety, depression, insomnia – are taking benzodiazepines to treat those symptoms. So it’s more that early effects of Alzheimer’s disease “caused” the use of the benzodiazepines, instead of the other way round. But the authors intentionally omitted the five years directly before the Alzheimer’s diagnosis. Instead, they looked at an earlier time period – five to 10 years preceding it. For this reason, and the dosing reasons mentioned above, they say it’s more likely that there is, in fact, a causal relationship going on, where long-term benzodiazepine use may actually trigger Alzheimer’s pathology.
According to the study, more than 50 percent of older people take some kind of mediation for mental health problems.
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