David Juurlink,MD:Not starting benzodiazepines is an excellent use of dr.'s time

Okay, so here's an interesting bit of activity on Twitter regarding benzodiazepines. Dr. David Juurlink, a toxicologist/drug safety researcher/professor, commented on Richard Lehman's tweet about a recent BMJ study. This study states that there's no apparent increase in mortality caused by taking benzodiazepines. Have a look at Dr. Juurlink's tweet, Richard Lehman's tweet, and Richard Lehman's comments about the study in the BMJ.

To me, the idea that it's only death that matters and not quality of life is strange and limited. For many of us, benzodiazepines severely diminish quality of life, and staying on them forever is just not an option. For example, how do you live if you're so dizzy from the medication that you can't walk?

https://twitter.com/DavidJuurlink/status/884696060723122176 

https://twitter.com/RichardLehman1/status/884693688227696640 

http://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2017/07/10/richard-lehmans-journal-review-10-july-2017/?utm_campaign=shareaholic&utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=socialnetwork 

The BMJ 8 July 2017  Vol 358

Benign benzos

This week, the “bad” habits of us older GPs are being proved reasonable, one by one. We’ve seen that diclofenac really is the best NSAID for arthritis pain (though probably the most dangerous), and that continuous antibiotics (macrolides at least) do reduce exacerbations in asthma and COPD. Now it’s the turn of benzodiazepines. Yes, they do cause dependency, and they should be avoided where there are better alternatives. But this huge US cohort study shows that they do not increase mortality in older people, as has been repeatedly suggested. The few GPs remaining have better things to do with their time than try to wean old ladies off the diazepam they have taken every day for twenty years, in order to meet some arbitrary prescribing target.