Warning over sleeping pills 'risk'

Warning over sleeping pills 'risk'

news.uk.msn.com

Sleeping pills commonly prescribed in the UK may increase the risk of death more than four-fold, according to new research.

The higher the dose, the greater the risk of dying, while people on higher doses also had an increased risk of cancer, experts found.

A wide range of drugs was analysed for the study of more than 10,500 people taking sleeping pills. They included drugs used in the UK, such as benzodiazepines (including temazepam and diazepam), non-benzodiazepines (including zolpidem, zopiclone and zaleplon), barbiturates and sedative antihistamines.

Around a third of people in th

(visit the link for the full news article)

Well, this is BIG news surely...

How long have sleeping pills been in use? This news article is going to frighten a lot of people as well as make others sit up and listen who have lost a friend to Cancer or has died suddenly....

This will put the Pharma Industry on alert and Doctors in the loo if all data is confirmed!!



news.uk.msn.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

dang i use them almost daily, well at least a few times a week exactly for nights like tonight, its 430am and im still not sleeping. I get the OTC 'unisom' which I suppose fall under the category of drowsiness antihistamine type. The alarming thing is that sometimes one doesnt work so I take two. I'll have to either rethink my nightly routine or eliminate coffee and caffeine from my morning routine . I read somewhere that caffeine has a half-life of 5-6 hours inside the body, so that mid-day pick me up can still be in your system after dinner, but Ill have to double check that figure. EDIT Source of claim

Then again it seems like everything will kill you these days, so I may as well just keep doing what I do, right?

Interesting article though, thanks for the post

hi op
that is frightening
i rarely even touch any pill uless i have a bad hangover lol

a few years ago my uncle was found dead in his bed
he had chocked on his own vomit
autopsy showed
high level of sleeping tablets and alcohol
i will never touch a sleeping tab
if you cant sleep go for a run
(then again it would look dodgy running around at 3am lol)

Well it's common sense. Shouldn't be a shocking revelation that sleeping pills cause death. What does the pill make you do? Hmm, makes you go to sleep. It's not there to keep you awake. The more you take, the more lethal it will be, and with mixed with alcohol, it's a double dose of lethal.

Yuh, if you really want to go to sleep than take Benedryl. If anything, that's a sleeping pill. Hmm or Nyquil.

Give me ten bottles!

some people have low tolerance.
like the Old and cancer.
I bet lots of old peoples homes start giving them more meds.

any idea how it kills them?
puts them in a coma?
or stops the bodie? hart, lungs!

from what they are saying.
if you take 2 each day every day for a year.
you have a 28.6% chance of dieing?

but they make it sound low.
They say,
"Those taking the lowest doses - four to 18 pills a year -
had a 3.6 times higher risk of dying"
who takes just 18 a year?

I think it's fearmongering and/or just sub-standard reporting to be honest, and I include the BBC in this too.

Sub-standard because :

a) neither the BBC nor MSN added a link to the actual study. BBC are better than MSN on it slightly because they linked to the site, but still not good enough because there's no idea of what to search for.

Headlines are BBC : Sleeping pills pose 'death risk', MSN : Warning over sleeping pills 'risk'.

You can't search that on the site because the title is : Hypnotics' association with mortality or cancer: a matched cohort study.

Not one word in either headline is the same as the study title.

b) Main reason for me personally is that both reports fail to mention the mean age of people tested, which was 54 years old. Instead we're left to think in both reports that it's just random ages.


Here's the link, via The Guardian, to the actual study page : Hypnotics' association with mortality or cancer: a matched cohort study

Guardian article link : www.guardian.co.uk...

This concerns me a bit as I was prescribed zopiclone in Nov 2011 and have taken 22 in total deciding in Jan2012 that i was suffering really bad adverse effects in the form of depression, aggression and all round inability to function normally, and this was only taking a half of one tablet on the nights where i was unable to sleep ( not every night ) My GP initially said that these would be a short term fix as they have proved to be habit forming although when I returned with these adverse symptoms in Jan my GP actually wrote a second script for another 28 tablets! which I have not filled, and a script for a course of anti depressants Mitrazapine, also which I decided not to start.

I did research on a few forums and what I read about both zopiclon and mitrazapine was frightening and instead have decided to change diet, lifestyle and am taking Vit D and 5 HTP with Vit B6. Whether through placebo effect or the effect of the supplements and/or dietery changes I am feeling so much better. There are still occasional nights when I have insomnia and I am just accepting that and trying not to get into the cycle of stress about not sleeping.

Reading this report worries me, but at the same time I feel justified in searching out my own solutions to make my SELF feel better.

Sure is sad how we all seem to need something to keep us awake and active during the day while also needing something to relax and sedate us at night so that we can sleep. Might there come a day where we need a pill for every human function?

Well i moved to herbal tablets instead of chemicals a few years back and this is very reassuring.

I stopped taking the chemical ones because i always felt like crap the next day, switched to herbal and while they dont work as well as the chems didnt feel as "bad" this news just validates that further for me.

It amazes me to no end how much crap people will put in their bodies just so they don't have to give up the other crap they put in their bodies.

Are you over weight, have high blood pressure, high cholesterol, can't sleep and have ulcers? There's pills for that. Or you could change your diet.

If they would treat pharmaceutical companies like they do crack dealers on the corner, we might have a fighting chance. I remember when I was growing up, we weren't bombarded with all the drug pushers on TV like we are today. Who was the idiot that made direct marketing of prescription drugs to consumers legal? People are so brainwashed--if it's on TV, it must be okay.

I wonder what kind of damage the lack of sleep does compared to the damage caused by sleeping pills.

Not saying that they are harmless here, just wondering if one is really worse than the other.

may increase the risk of death more than four-fold

What the study does not tell you is that the risk of death from car accidents. industrial accidents and health problems from chronic insomnia are likely as high or higher then from the sleeping pills.

I know because i suffer from chronic insomnia from the fibromyalgia and autoimmune disorders i have.
and if i have to work i would be a danger.
Lucky i am on disability and no longer work for both me and everyone else.

Where just about everyone else has a 24 hour wake sleep cycle i am permanently on a 35 hour day.
When disease messes with your neurochemistry it can do strange things

Originally posted by MrAndy
Sure is sad how we all seem to need something to keep us awake and active during the day while also needing something to relax and sedate us at night so that we can sleep. Might there come a day where we need a pill for every human function?

im sure elvis died that way
taking uppers during the day
and sleepers at night

great now they're gonna ban Benedryl. First it was Sudafed because some ppl were making meth from it and that caused all sorts of ripples on allergy sufferers and the runny noses that followed. Now they are gonna ban Benedryl for the same reason, someone could die form taking too many... 99% of the sleeping pills sod OTC are just higher does fo dipenhydramine (Benedryl) and it's not fun to see the rapid onset allergy medication under attack. Just one more way to make our lives miserable, oh yeah , can anyone remember when you u sed to actually be able to buy tylenol without being looked at funny?

reply to post by robhines


Thanks for your post... i'm just checking the link out that you provided!!

I've also starred the others...

But yeah, this a concern! I mean people who thought they were safe to take around 20 a year (which is pretty odd) will now be thinking 'damn, i'm at risk'... we also know that many people take these to commit hari-kari!!

EDIT: Actually the link you provided was for the US.. the one i've provided is the UK!!

Originally posted by lewman
I wonder what kind of damage the lack of sleep does compared to the damage caused by sleeping pills.

Not saying that they are harmless here, just wondering if one is really worse than the other.

Well, i have problems sleeping and used to take pills for something else which also helped with my sleep... i came off the pills a couple of years ago and was able to sleep for a while without taking anything but then all of a sudden i'm back to finding it real hard to sleep (mainly because of worrying bout stuff) so i began taking pills again (they're not 'sleeping pills per se but they do help me to sleep)...

Anyway i'm just hoping that i wont get any 'cancers' or die earlier than i would have....

Will there now be millions of people suing big pharma Companies? I bet there will if all this is true. It will be like when those Tobacco Companies were taken to court!

reply to post by CoherentlyConfused

If they would treat pharmaceutical companies like they do crack dealers on the corner, we might have a fighting chance. I remember when I was growing up, we weren't bombarded with all the drug pushers on TV like we are today. Who was the idiot that made direct marketing of prescription drugs to consumers legal? People are so brainwashed--if it's on TV, it must be okay.

That!!
There are times when medications are needed - when benefits outweight the side effects. Not everything can be solved by natural remedies or changing diet.
But overmedication is skyrocketing, and i agree with you that commercials of medicine is making it much worse. I think that it is a crime, actually. I know for a fact that even when doctors do not want to prescribe things lots of people who saw the "magic solution" on tv and do not realise the consequences pressure them into prescribing it. And it is not only RX problem, usual medication is also dangerous when heavily commercialised. All the "flu treating" OTC formulas with several components cause lots of harm because people buy one, strangely the flu is not gone in a minute, they buy some other product with different name but same ingridients.
I think that on all drugs should be written in big red letters something like this - "Warning - poison in low dosage. Take only if you are really sure that you need it".

reply to post by TruthxIsxInxThexMist


Unfortunately I HAVE to take sleeping pills. I don't want to. I'd love to fall asleep naturally but sadly I cannot. I don't have Level-4 R.E.M sleep so even if I sleep 20 hours, it will still feel like an hour or two. Sometimes I'll stay awake for days before I was prescribed the pills. Originally, years ago, I went to my doctor for help and I got a snobby, "I don't prescribe narcotics for arthritis." I tried telling him I don't want narcotics, I want you to find out what's wrong with me and why I can't sleep. I ended up switching doctors, who did a sleep study. Between restless leg syndrome, sleep apnea, and the Level-4 R.E.M. sleep I don't get, they found out WHY I was up all night long for years and years prior and that it got worse to the point of instead of being a night owl, I wasn't sleeping period. I now take over the counter sleep aids and melatonin. I highly recommend melatonin, but be warned, a side effect is can be some very vivid nightmares.

reply to post by vkey08

great now they're gonna ban Benedryl.

Nobody is going to ban it. There are lots of companies making money on it so maximum that would happen is just tougher regulations - because it is not harmless. Just as tylenol (Paracetamol/Acetaminophen), by the way.
Try to understand - this is poison by definition. It is poison in low dosage, but a poison never the less. If it works ,it has side effects. Sometimes it is needed, but in majority of cases it is not needed.
Someone with heavy nasal congestion ,sitting at home ,during the day - has no need for pseudoephedrin. All that is needed is lots of rest,lots of water and lots of tissues. It will go away ,there is no need to overload the liver and kidneys and raise blood pressure because of few hours of feeling better. Someone who needs to go to work - i can understand the usage of medication, but it still will be better to rest at home.