What are the risks of Sleeping Pills? Just because a pill makes you sleepy doesn’t mean it’s safe to take for insomnia long-term. One class of medications that make you sleepy have been shown in multiple studies to increase the risk of Dementia, especially in those over 40. Avoid the medicines in this class to lower your risk of dementia.
There is a short list of medication although seemingly safe and innocuous that can actually increase your risk of developing dementia substantially i’m going to talk about this short list of medications in this video and give you some pictures of the brand names these medications are both prescription medications and over-the-counter medications your doctor may
Have told you these medications are safe for the long term treatment of your insomnia or difficulty getting to sleep or you may be buying these medications over the counter with the false belief that just because something is over the counter that it must be safe or that wouldn’t be the case that’s absolutely not true in the case of this short list of medications
I’m dr barry i’m a family physician and i want to help you avoid dementia by telling you about this short list of medications these medications are all in a drug class known as anticholinergics and they’re prescribed for many different things including insomnia depression mood disorders neuropathic pain but in this video we’re just going to talk about taking them
For sleep many doctors will prescribe this class of medications for insomnia even though they’re not specifically fda approved for that because they do in fact make you sleepy there are many things in life that can make you sleepy that are definitely not safe for long-term use like a fifth of vodka right that’ll make you sleepy and make you pass out but that doesn’t
Mean you’re getting healthy restful sleep it doesn’t mean it’s healthy for your brain to do that every night for months and months or years and years this medication class the anticholinergics have been linked in multiple research studies with an increased risk of dementia so if you’d like to not have dementia and decrease your risk for developing it in the future
Then please avoid these six medications for getting sleep the first medication in this drug class is the over-the-counter one so you would think well it’s over the counter uh it wouldn’t be that way if it were dangerous absolutely not the case it’s called diphenhydramine and it’s marketed under multiple brand names all across the world in the united states you
Can buy this as benadryl or you can buy it as z-quill or you can buy it as unisom and then there’s hundreds of different generic brands of this but it’s diphenhydramine and if you take this every night to help you get to sleep it’s going to increase your risk of dementia the next drug to avoid using every single night to help you get to sleep is amitriptyline
And it’s marketed under the brand name ellaville and several other brands and generics as well it is in this drug class and will increase your risk of dementia with long-term use the next drug in this class is doxepin which is marketed under the brand name cinequon or salinor and it’s actually marketed as an insomnia drug but it absolutely increases your risk of
Dementia and you should avoid nightly use of it the next drug in this class is hydroxyzine and it’s prescribed for multiple different uses but many doctors will give it to you as a safe insomnia medication it’s marketed under the brand names visceral and cataracts and other names it is an anti-cholinergic and it will increase your risk of dementia with long-term
Use the next drug in this class is seroquel which is marketed as quiepine and several other names it is an anticholinergic and long-term use will increase your risk of dementia now the research on this so far is that older people using this for insomnia it definitely increases their risk of dementia but we don’t really have any research on people in their 20s 30s
And 40s taking these medicines every night for insomnia why would we think that they won’t increase your risk of dementia as well the final drug i want to talk about is trimipramine which is marketed under the brand name sermontil and several others it is an anticholinergic taking it every night to help you get to sleep will increase your risk of dementia in my
Opinion regardless of what age you are now a lot of people will give diphenhydramine which is benadryl to their children every night to help them get to sleep believing that since it’s over the counter that it must be very very safe i would be highly caught cautious of giving this to your child every single night for sleep regardless of their age i think that
Using these pills or liquids occasionally for rare insomnia is probably fine it’s the long-term nightly use that’s going to really bump up your risk of developing premature dementia my recommendation is that everyone over the age of 40 should avoid using these medications nightly 100 you should not do that if you’re currently taking one go see your doctor have a
Conversation and say hey i heard this increases my risk of dementia is this true if so then i want to switch to something else or wean down and stop this and try to just get sleep more naturally without taking a pill every night hopefully your doctor will be on board with that getting good sleep every night is very very important but you do not want to be taking
An anticholinergic every night to try and get some sleep you have to find an alternative hope this video helps this is dr barry i’ll see you next time
Transcribed from video
Sleeping Pills Causing DEMENTIA? (Insomnia Medicines & Dementia Risk) By KenDBerryMD