plåtmonster skrev:Det kan ju vara så att orsaken till att man tar pillren är densamma som ökar risken för död liksom om man ej sover ordentligt.

Erathe skrev:Det borde vara mer oväntat om folk som tar sömnmedel inte överlag dör något i förtid. Det är inte precis kärnfriska personer som tar sömnmedel.

Autismsmurfen skrev:Tur att jag använder Atarax som sömnmedel...

Wine skrev:Här finns en tråd om bl.a. en studie som publicerats i Canadian Journal of Psychiatry där man kom fram till att sömntabletter är farligare än man trott och att risken att dö i förtid ökar vid regelbundet intag av sömntabletter:

Risker med sömntabletter - ångest, Alzheimer och beroende

The author concludes that in this study, people who reported use of sedatives or hypnotics in the month before survey had an increased mortality risk. She notes possible mechanisms, but also comments that there were limitations to the analysis due to the data available.



[Editor's comment: adds to the evidence, but too many potential limitations to consider it definitive - e.g. people taking these drugs may have been doing so because they were suffering from serious illness.]

The recent study in BMJ about the dangers of sleep medications had methodological shortcomings: It compared a large group of people who had been prescribed sleep medication with a large group that had not, matching them in terms of age, sex, ethnicity, body mass index, smoking and drinking — but not in terms of how well they slept. Given that those taking the medications had more hypertension, heart failure, obesity, asthma and other health problems associated with poor sleep to begin with, it’s not surprising they had higher mortality rates.

Inadequate sleep is a predictor of numerous health problems including depression,1 hypertension,2 diabetes3 and cardiac events.4 To reduce these problems many people rely on hypnotics. Americans filled some 60 million prescriptions for hypnotics last year, up from 47 million in 2006, according to IMS Health, a healthcare services company.5 Despite their obvious acute effects, their long-term efficacy for treatment of sleep disorders is unclear.6–8 In addition, there are concerns that these medications may have adverse health effects. A recent study found high hazard ratios for mortality and cancer associated with hypnotic use.5 9 10 Other studies have also found evidence that hypnotic use may increase the risk of disease and mortality.11–19

A potential flaw in these studies, however, is the possibility that higher-risk patients take more hypnotics, and it is this higher risk rather than the hypnotics that contributes to adverse health outcomes. For example, it might be that health problems or psychological problems interfere with sleep, and people with these problems are more likely to take sleeping pills. It is also possible that sleep problems rather than sleep medications cause adverse health outcomes

"It is important to note that our results are based on observational data, so even though we did everything we could to ensure their validity, it's still possible that other factors explain the associations," said co-author Lawrence Kline, D.O., who is medical director of the Viterbi Family Sleep Center. "We hope our work will spur additional research in this area using information from other populations."

For obese patients in the study who had an average body mass index of 38.8, the risk of death was 8.1 times higher on average among those who were prescribed the smallest number of pills (18 or fewer annually) when compared with similar study participants who did not take the medications. The mortality rate was 9.3 times higher on average among obese patients receiving the largest number of pills (132 or more annually).

Additionally, men who took sleeping pills were about twice as likely to die as women who received the medications, after accounting for other factors, he said.

mikael skrev:Flera kända har tagit sömnmedel och blivit mycket gamla.

The research was the first to show that eight of the most commonly used hypnotic drugswere associated with increased hazards of mortality and cancer, including the popularly prescribed medications zolpidem (known by the brand name Ambien) and temazepam (also known as Restoril), Dr. Kripke said.

Female Male
Death 60.98% 39.02%

plåtmonster skrev:DN: Sömnmedel kan öka risk att dö i förtid
NFR: Sleeping pills can bring on the big sleep — study (pang på rödbetan detaljerna)

Man verkar hittat korrelerande data. Men inte nödvändligtvis ett samband som visar att sömnpiller ökar dödsrisken. Det kan ju vara så att orsaken till att man tar pillren är densamma som ökar risken för död liksom om man ej sover ordentligt.

Publicerat: British Medical Journal Open
Störst koppling i åldern 18-55
Ökad risk för cancer och död
10500 personer jämfördes med 23500 personer utan sömnmedel mellan 2002-2007