More and more people are dependent on sleep and sedatives

Prescriptions of dangerous drugs are increasing
The number of prescriptions for addictive sleeping pills and tranquilizers has risen sharply. This is shown by the scientist Gerd Glaeske on the basis of current data from the healthcare provider "Insight Health". According to this, up to 1.5 million people are dependent on the risky funds, which in most cases are prescribed by primary care physicians or internists.

Pharmacies spend more than 18 million remedies
More and more people are obviously dependent on sleep and sedatives. The health scientist Gerd Glaeske came to this frightening result by the calculation of current data, the company "Insight Health" exclusively the "TIME" had provided. Accordingly, it can be assumed in this country from 1.2 to 1.5 million dependent people. Overall, pharmacies sold 18.7 million packs of risky drugs last year, which could lead to addiction if taken long-term.

Around one and a half million Germans are dependent on tranquilizers and other medicines. (Image: Dan Race / fotolia.com)

Competent neurologists fill in only 18.5 percent of cases, the recipes
As the "ZEIT" reported, the evaluation had shown that fewer and fewer remedies were prescribed on POS and instead increased the number of private recipes. In 70 percent of the cases internists and general practitioners had prescribed the means, although the patients actually had to be looked after by a specialist in neuropathy. However, these only filled out the recipes for 18.5 percent of those affected. As the ZEIT writes further, the calculations would also have revealed an unequal distribution in the prescription of dependent sleep and sedatives. According to this, the pharmacies spent most of the remedies in the Saarland, in North Rhine-Westphalia and in Baden-Württemberg. In Hesse, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia, however, there was the least need.

British study shows association between sleeping pills and increased mortality
How dangerous a permanent intake of sleeping pills and tranquillizers is, also shows a recent study British researchers. The scientists around Scott Weich from the University of Warwick had observed for almost seven years, nearly 35 000 adults aged 16 and over who were prescribed for the first time these funds. They then compared the data with those of people who did not receive any medications. The result: Of the 100 subjects aged 35 to 75 who took sleep aids or sedatives, four more had died over the years than in the other group.

"These results are consistent with earlier evidence of a statistically and clinically significant association between anxiolytic and hypnotic drugs and mortality," the researchers write in the journal British Medical Journal. However, it should be remembered that "as in all research findings, the results are prone to distortions that may result from unmeasured and residual disturbances," the researchers added. (No)