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February 28th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda MONDAY, Feb. 27 (HealthDay News) — Prescription sleeping pills
may help you get some much needed rest at night, but using them routinely
might also make it more likely that you will die or develop certain types
of cancer, research suggests.
A new study suggests that those who take these medications are four
times more likely to die than people who don’t take them. What’s more, the
research shows that sleeping pills is also associated with a raised risk
for certain cancers. The findings appear online Feb. 27 in the journal
BMJ Open.
Sleeping pills linked to these risks included benzodiazepines such as
temazepam; non-benzodiazepines such as Ambien (zolpidem), Lunesta
(eszopiclone) and Sonata (zaleplon); barbiturates; and sedative
antihistamines.
The new study only shows an association between the sleeping aids and
death risk, not cause-and-effect, and many experts are urging caution in
jumping to any conclusions from the findings.
The study author, however, was less reticent.
“Popular sleeping pills are associated with a shocking excess of deaths
and a horrible increase in new cancers,” said Dr. Daniel Kripke, of the
Scripps Clinic Viterbi Family Sleep Center, in La Jolla, Calif.
Many Americans use sleeping pills. During 2010, between one in 20 and
one in 10 adults took a sleeping pill in the United States.
In the new study, Kripke’s team tracked more than 10,500 people
averaging 54 years of age. These patients had a range of underlying
health conditions and were prescribed sleeping pills for an average of
about 2.5 years between 2002 and 2007. The researchers compared these
patients’ risks for death and cancer against those of people who did not
take sleeping pills.
Those who were prescribed up to 18 doses a year were 3.6 times more
likely to die than their counterparts who were prescribed none, while
those prescribed between 18 and 132 doses were more than four times as
likely to die, the study showed. Those taking more than 132 doses a year
had five times the risk of dying compared to those prescribed none. This
was true regardless of age, but risks were highest among those individuals
aged 18 to 55.
Specifically, there were 265 deaths among 4,336 people taking Ambien,
compared with 295 deaths among the 23,671 people who had not taken
sedatives or sleeping pills.
Those taking the highest doses were also at greater risk of developing
several types of cancer, including esophagus, lymphoma, lung, colon and
prostate cancers. Interestingly, the risks of leukemia, breast cancer,
uterine cancer, bladder cancer, leukemia and melanoma were not elevated.
This association was not explained away by preexisting health problems,
the researchers added.
There are many known mechanisms that may explain these increased risks,
Kripke stressed. For example, esophageal regurgitation may lead to
esophageal cancer. These medications may also make sleep apnea worse, and
they may make people more susceptible to falls and automobile crashes.
“For the particular sleeping pills studied, I do not see any time I
would prescribe them,” Kripke said.
However, other experts weren’t ringing alarm bells.
Dr. Victor Fornari, director of child and adolescent psychiatry at the
Zucker Hillside Hospital of the North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health
System in Manhasset, N.Y., said that people who take sleeping pills should
not panic. There could be many reasons for this increased risk of death
that have little to do with the pills and more to do with the reasons why
people take them, he explained.
“Sleep is the first thing affected when someone is under distress due
to medical illness or psychological problems,” he pointed out. “These are
safe and effective medications when prescribed by a physician as part of a
comprehensive treatment plan.”
“Don’t stop taking these medications if you feel that you need them and
are taking them with a doctor’s prescription, but be mindful that they
shouldn’t be taken frivolously and there are alternatives such as avoiding
napping, getting proper exercise, eliminating caffeine and doing other the
kinds of things that improve sleep hygiene,” Fornari said.
But Dr. Bryan Bruno, acting chairman of the department of psychiatry at
Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, cautioned against the chronic use of
sleeping pills.
“They can be dangerous and are ideally used on a temporary or
short-term basis,” he said. “Chronic use should be avoided if possible,
particularly because there are risks involved, including dependence. They
are not benign or without risk, and should be used cautiously.”
More information
Learn more about good sleep hygiene at the National Sleep Foundation.
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