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WASHINGTON – The increasing use of anti-anxiety pills is reminiscent of some early doctors of the opioid crisis.
Considered relatively safe and non-addictive by consumers and many doctors, Xanax, Valium, Ativan and Klonopin have been prescribed to millions of Americans for decades to calm nervous nerves and promote a good night's sleep .
But the number of people taking sedatives and the average duration of their intake have increased since the 1990s, when doctors also
Some state and federal officials now warn of excessive prescribing A class of drugs called benzodiazepines or "benzos" that exposes more people to the risk of addiction to pills and exacerbates the risks. the toll of fatal overdoses of painkillers and heroin. Some local governments are beginning to restrict the requirements of benzo.
When taken in combination with painkillers or illegal narcotics, benzodiazepines can increase up to ten times the likelihood of a fatal overdose, according to the National Institute on Cancer Therapy. Drug abuse. By themselves, medications can cause debilitating withdrawal symptoms that last for months or years.
Public health officials warn that people who suddenly stop taking benzodiazepines are at risk for convulsions or even death
. Some state officials and local authorities insist that these anti-anxiety medications begin to share attention.
"We have put in place all this infrastructure to prevent excessive prescribing of opioids and address drug treatment needs. Anna Lembke, researcher and addiction specialist at Stanford University. "We have to start being part of benzos of that."
"What we see is just like what happened with opioids in the 1990s," she said. "It really starts with over-prescription."
The number of adults filling a benzodiazepine prescription increased by two-thirds between 1996 and 2013, from 8 million to nearly 14 million, according to a study of data from Lembke market and the New England Journal of Medicine. Despite the known dangers of co-prescriptive analgesics and anti-anxiety medications, the combined prescription rate almost doubled between 2001 and 2013.
Since then, benzodiazepine prescriptions may have stabilized or decreased slightly , according to recent data. At the same time, the prescription of opioids dropped by more than a fifth.
Yet, Lembke said, the level of prescription is much higher than in the mid-1990s, and benzo addiction seems to increase based on one's own clinical observations.
As benzodiazepine prescriptions have increased since the late 1990s, deaths have also, according to a study at Montefiore Medical Center in New York. The National Institute on Drug Abuse reports that overdose deaths involving benzodiazepines quadrupled from 2002 to 2015.
However, a newly formed group of researchers and pharmacologists, the International Task force on benzodiazepines, wrote that recent negative publicity Psychiatrists, including Lembke, agree that relatively inexpensive benzodiazepines can be effective in relieving acute cases of anxiety and insomnia. But doctors agree that benzos should not be used in the long term to solve psychiatric problems.
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