• N&PD Moderators: Skorpio | thegreenhand

  • Neuroscience & Pharmacology Discussion Welcome Guest
    Posting Rules Bluelight Rules
    Recent Journal Articles Chemistry Mega-Thread
    FREE Chemistry Databases! Self-Education Guide

The Z-drugs as carcinogens (zolpidem, zopiclone, indiplon)

Meanwhile, i'll proceed to go crazy from worry about the sunshine and barbecued meat I exposed myself to in the past..!
 
be extra scared if you have ever had a BBQ in the sun whilst dosed with a z drug
 
Is there any studies which examine exposure rates of various carcinogenic substances and the extent to which the chance of cancer developing increases? Wishful thinking I guess.
 
There are populations of Imidazopyridine, Pyrazolopyrimidine & Cyclopyrrolone dependant patients and addicts. There are several papers floating around concerning primary addiction to Zolpidem, Zopiclone/Eszopiclone & Zaleplon, including multiple use during each part of the day (early morning, mid morning, afternoon, evening, night) by different routes of administration.

Examining physically dependant patients who have been using one of these drugs for a long period of time and physically dependant addicts who eat, snort or inject large doses of one of these drugs everyday could probably provide a lot of answers regarding carcinogenicity. Recreational and addictive use of sedative-hypnotics is part of that class; most sedative-hypnotics become drugs of abuse and addiction. Even if, for example, Zolpidem were to increase the risk of a certain type of cancer, but only in people who consume large daily doses for extended periods of time, it would still have to be pulled, since there will inevitably be a population that does just that.
 
A commercial by an attorney looking for people who have had deaths in their family due to the Z-drugs also threw Restoril in there. Is this based on any research or did they unfairly lump this in with the Z-drugs. A google search doesn't show anything correlating Restoril and cancer.

Also has there been any new studies since 2008 clarifying if it is insomnia or sleeping pills causing the higher instances of cancer?
 
Nexus298 said:
A commercial by an attorney looking for people who have had deaths in their family due to the Z-drugs also threw Restoril in there. Is this based on any research or did they unfairly lump this in with the Z-drugs. A google search doesn't show anything correlating Restoril and cancer.

Also has there been any new studies since 2008 clarifying if it is insomnia or sleeping pills causing the higher instances of cancer?
Click to expand...

There's been a big meta-analysis in 2010 that analyzed all-cause mortality and sleep:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20469800

Implications
Currently, there is no evidence that sleeping habitually between 6 and 8h per day in an adult is associated with harm and long term health consequences. In terms of prevention, consistently sleeping 6 to 8 h per night may therefore be optimal for health. However, sleeping 9 h or more per night may represent a useful diagnostic tool for detecting subclinical or undiagnosed co-morbidity. People reporting consistently sleeping 5 hours or less per night should be regarded as a higher risk group for all-cause mortality. A 12% increased risk of death in short sleepers, if causally related, would equate to over 6.3 million attributable deaths in the UK in people over 16 years of age and over 25 million attributable deaths in the US in people over the age of 20 years. Future studies should be designed to answer the question whether sleep duration is a cause or simply a marker of ill-health. Indirect evidence seems to suggest to date that sustained sleep deprivation may trigger biological mechanisms contributing to the deterioration of health status, whereas long duration of sleep may be a powerful additional marker of ill-health.
Duration of sleep should be regarded as an additional behavioral risk factor or risk marker heavily determined by the environment and possibly amenable to modification through both education and counselling as well as through measures of public health. The latter would aim at favorable modifications of physical and working environments to allow sufficient sleep and avoid habitual and sustained sleep deprivation.
Click to expand...

Probably it will be hard to tell, but this study found a 300% increased use of death with hypnotics which is a lot more than 12%:
Conclusions: Receiving hypnotic prescriptions was associated with greater than threefold increased hazards of death even when prescribed <18 pills/year. This association held in separate analyses for several commonly used hypnotics and for newer shorter-acting drugs. Control of selective prescription of hypnotics for patients in poor health did not explain the observed excess mortality.
Click to expand...
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22371848
 
Last edited:
So then it does carry over to benzos? Benzos have been around for more than half a century, how is this just coming to light being used as sleep aids? It seems to me they could just study people using them for GAD and get around the whole sleep issue interfering with the results.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top