(HealthDay News) — Use of benzodiazepines is not associated with increased dementia risk in older adults, according to a study published online July 2 in BMC Medicine.
Ilse vom Hofe, from Erasmus University Medical Center in the Netherlands, and colleagues examined long-term effects of benzodiazepines (anxiolytics or sedative-hypnotics) on neurodegeneration and dementia risk. The analysis included 5,443 cognitively healthy older adults participating in the population-based Rotterdam Study.
The researchers found that 49.5% of participants had used benzodiazepines at any time in the 15 years preceding baseline and 12.8% were still using at baseline assessment. During 11.2 years of follow-up, use of benzodiazepines was not associated with dementia risk overall versus never use (hazard ratio [HR], 1.06; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.90 to 1.25), irrespective of cumulative dose. Risk estimates trended higher for any use of anxiolytics than for sedative-hypnotics (HR, 1.17 [95% CI, 0.96 to 1.41] versus 0.92 [95% CI, 0.70 to 1.21]), with the strongest associations for a high cumulative dose of anxiolytics (HR, 1.33; 95% CI, 1.04 to 1.71). Current use of benzodiazepines was associated with lower brain volumes of the hippocampus, amygdala and thalamus cross-sectionally. Longitudinally, benzodiazepine use was associated with accelerated volume loss of the hippocampus and to a lesser extent amygdala.
“Our results indicate that benzodiazepine use may have a subtle, long-term impact on brain health, although we found no evidence of a dose–response relationship,” the authors write.
