Obese patients who frequently take sleeping pills face nine times the risk of dying compared to obese patients who did not take the medication, according to a study of more than 34,000 patients. The research results were presented in March at a meeting of the American Heart Association.
Popular sleeping pills include Ambien®, Lunesta® and Sonata®.
The study was done by examining the records of patients in the Geisinger Health System in Pennsylvania. The study took into account the patients’ age, sex, whether they smoked, used alcohol, were married and their ethnicity. It showed that obese patients, who took at least 132 pills a year, were 9.3 times more prone to die compared to patients who did not take the sleeping pills.
The death rate was still eight times higher in obese patients who only took 18 pills or less per year, according to the study.
One of the study’s researchers, Dr. Robert Langer, said sleeping pills might raise the obese person’s risk of dying for numerous reasons. The most important factor among overweight patients is sleep apnea, a condition in which someone stops breathing for short periods of time while sleeping. Obesity is linked to more deaths from diseases of the heart and blood vessels, strokes, and heart attack.
Langer, who specializes in family medicine, epidemiology, and preventive medicine, conducted the study with two physicians from the Scripps Clinic Viterbi Family Sleep Center in La Jolla, California. In addition to the greatly increased risk of the obese dying when taking sleeping pills, Dr. Langer and his co-authors found that among obese patients taking sleeping pills, the death rate for men is twice that of women.
The researchers also found that all patients who take sleeping pills died at 3.6 times the rate of patients who did not take the medication.
Langer said that 18 studies have shown an increased risk of death among those who take sleeping pills. Physicians ought to be "considerably more cautious about the extent to which they recommend these drugs," Langer said.
Source: American Medical Association
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