Anxiety Drugs Linked With Alzheimer's

People who use anxiety drugs such as Valium and Xanax long-term may be raising their risk of Alzheimer’s disease, French and Canadian researchers report. They found that elderly people who used drugs called benzodiazepines for three months or longer had a 43 percent to 51 percent higher risk of later developing Alzheimer’s. It’s not clear whether the drugs are causing the Alzheimer’s directly, or if people perhaps use the drugs to treat other symptoms that may be early signs of Alzheimer’s, such as depression or insomnia. But the researchers tried to factor this in as much as possible and still found a higher risk of Alzheimer’s in those who took the drugs long-term.

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