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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/a...-examine-worrying-evidence.html#ixzz3DSY6VJ4f
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Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/a...-examine-worrying-evidence.html#ixzz3DTo2SNOI
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Excerpt
Most benzodiazepines have a strong sedative effect, helping to relieve the insomnia that accompanies anxiety.
They work by reducing activity in the part of the brain that controls emotion, by boosting the action of a chemical called gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA).
This chemical reduces the signals between brain cells, and has a calming effect on the brain, muscles and heart rate.
Under guidelines from the UK’s Safety of Medicines Committee, the drugs should be prescribed for only two to four weeks because of the risk of addiction.
However, patients may be taking them for far longer, warns Dr Allen Young, chair of the Royal College of Psychiatrists’ psycho-pharmacy committee.
‘My concern is that prescriptions are sometimes not reviewed and a patient can end up on them for long periods of time.
'For example, they may be prescribed the drugs in hospital for acute symptoms and then just stay on them long-term when they go home.’
Indeed, research in 2001 by Heather Ashton, professor emeritus of psychopharmacology at Newcastle University, suggests that around 1.5 million people in the UK are addicted to the drugs, and experts say little has changed since then.
Professor Ashton says: ‘If you take benzos, they dampen down neurotransmitters — chemical messengers — in the brain.
'It may be that after you stop taking them, these neurotransmitters come back, but they’re not as good. The point is we don’t know because long-term follow-up studies have never been done.’
Commenting on the latest study, Dr Chris Fox, a consultant psychiatrist who specialises in care of the elderly, says memory problems ‘are a well-known short-term side-effect of benzodiazepines, but side-effects usually disappear once you stop taking them.
'But it may be in that some people this effect is permanent.’
How exactly they may damage the brain is unknown, he says, but suggests they could alter the connections between brain cells, or even the structure of the brain itself.
He points to a number of studies that have linked an increased risk of Alzheimer’s with benzodiazepine use, including a 2012 French study which found that elderly patients who took them were 60 per cent more likely to develop dementia than those who did not.
He says further research is urgently needed.
‘What we need to find out is if benzodiazepines do cause permanent damage to the brain — is it like radiation, in that if you are exposed just once, then the damage is done?
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/a...-examine-worrying-evidence.html#ixzz3DTo2SNOI
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