Significant Cellular Changes in Rat's Vital Organs After Only 4 Weeks on Benzos

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3203915/#!po=41.8367

 

See images...

Oh well, that's interesting... 

Thank you for this! I haven't read the whole thing yet, but this caught my attention: "Alprazolam is one of the most commonly prescribed short-acting benzodiazepines in the childbearing period. It has replaced diazepam in drug prescription for treatment of anxiety disorders. This shift in the pattern of drug prescription was justified by the low likelihood of its accumulation (compared with diazepam) and by the sedative effects of multiple doses (Pinna et al., 1997)."

 

I think this is HUGE mistake. In my mind, people can go years with Valium. I know a woman who is now 98. and her daughter who have been on Valium for decades and haven't had the negative effects of the other benzo drugs. I cannot say that about Xanax. Since it is short-acting, it causes problems which are quite noticeable relatively early. Unfortunately, doctors are also using Klonopin in place of Valium now also. Almost anyone who has been on Klonopin will notice symptoms which can be debilitating. Any drug used for seizures is going to be a heavy drug.

That study was quite upsetting to read.  Benzo's also changed the DNA. 

Sad, that's all there is to it. Where are the doctors and why aren't they reading this??!!

why isolate albino male rats? thats an oddly specific choice of rat for a study

 

If you did a study on albino male men you would say thats not a very good sample of the general human population and so the study would lose statistical power. odd....

 

interesting conclusion....alprazolam (xanax) worse than clonazepam (klonopin)

 

No real take home message though except that male albino rats are being discriminated against

 

Well, the study is a start, and we have to start somewhere. If there are DNA changes in rats, there are going to be DNA changes in people as well.

 

I think since they did the study on Xanax, if they had done a study on Ativan, too, they would have had similar findings.

Regarding the use of a specific rat, there are reasons for this in lab research.

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laboratory_rat

 

If you look under stocks and strains it explains why different kinds of albino rats are used particularly for medical research.

 

Terry and Becks, I find it disturbing as well.

I've known about this article for a year and have been through so much that I didn't have it in me to post, I was still afraid to post it. I know no one wants to see or hear this, I'm no fool. I'm well aware that many will want to skim over or outright reject this material.

 

I have gotten physically ill reading pinkyandthebrain's comment, so I'm not going to battle to explain why I feel this study is unbiased, objective and relevant, to those who have reactions like this.

I've already been through enough and I feel that psychiatric drugs were what led to what I've been through over the last year +. It's very personal to me, as it is to all of you, but I was one who did get very sick (in terms of mitochondrial damage to my cells which I believe led to further cell mutations. This is my story and I own the right to it, no would-be silencers can take it away from me.)

And as you said Terry38, it's somewhere to start. You can see there is already another thread up as to why we shouldn't take this into consideration. Why completely reject the findings and scrap unanswered questions when human beings health and lives are in the balance? What is wrong with finding out for certain?

 

I never implied that human beings and rats were identical and that this was conclusive evidence, however I feel it calls for further study through research that is unbiased.

Since rats are a problem:

 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4602739/

 

And again, this is not the end-all-be-all study or the last word, but it does raise questions.

 

"Therefore, further animal or cellular model are needed to help in identifying a possible biological mechanism linking BZDs with risk of cancers.

 

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, we found diazepam, chlordiazepoxide, medazepam, nitrazepam, oxazepam, and lormetazepam are safer among all benzodiazepines for overall cancer risk. Our findings might provide clearer evidence about the benzodiazepines carcinogenic effects with respect to its classes, individual BZDs, defined daily dose and length of exposure.

 

The clinical trials for drugs are always expensive and could not be practical because of cost and ethical concerns however, it is important to clarify the carcinogenicity of benzodiazepines which is still unclear. Further investigations are needed to provide more information regarding the benzodiazepines carcinogenicity effects. At the same time, our results provided a strong evidence and warned physicians should select carefully best choice of benzodiazepine and patients from the possibly higher risk for cancers."

Azalea, it was very brave of you to put yourself out there like that. I was sadened to read your comment and how much you must have been through.  :'( For us in there in the trenches there isn't even need for proof. We KNOW we have been severly damaged.

 

I'm sure pinky didn't mean any harm. It was actually a bit funny that he has an ACTUAL ALBINO MALE RAT for his avatar. 

 

Many wishes of healing and emotional wellness to every benzobuddy fighting this monster.

:-*

Hahaha, new0girl 

 

Thank you, from my heart.

 

I chuckled too.

 

I also think it is funny that we "need" a CNN article to tell us that rats aren't humans (or identical to them.) 

 

 

It really depends on who is doing the study. This one happened to be very objective and well-done. I think the CNN article is a good one because many not-so-great prescription drugs (psychiatric and otherwise) may have been prematurely approved and sanctioned as beneficial drugs because there were some short-term benefits noticed, without much of a long-term testing or a follow up. Unfortunately, we cannot ask these rats and mice how they are doing after a repeated administration of a prescription drug. Unlike benzodiazepines which have unfortunately been approved decades ago with very few quality studies like this one, I wonder about newer Rx drugs like Lyrica, or Latuda or Abilify, which have been approved much more recently, and keep wondering if these kinds of safety studies were done on them (I assume they were tested on rats, too), or if only the therapeutic effects were taken into consideration and the rest discarded.

Another very good post, LRF! I think I'm gonna start liking your posts even before I read them. 

 

Aren't drugs supposed to pass clinical trials though(that is, on humans) before they are put on the market? That damn Lyrica gave me horrible withrawals. I was getting only 2-3h of sleep per night or none a year off of it, on top of other sxs. That's what has gotten me on benzos in the end. I hate it with every fiber of my being.

This one happened to be very objective and well-done.

 

I thought it was too, it's why I chose it and have kept it for over a year.

 

You bring up other good, related points and questions.

Another very good post, LRF! I think I'm gonna start liking your posts even before I read them. 

 

Aren't drugs supposed to pass clinical trials though(that is, on humans) before they are put on the market? That damn Lyrica gave me horrible withrawals. I was getting only 2-3h of sleep per night or none a year off of it, on top of other sxs. That's what has gotten me on benzos in the end. I hate it with every fiber of my being.

 

new0girl I think the problem is that the FDA and pharmaceutical companies are in bed with each other. There are several or more documentaries on this whole mess right now. I'm pretty sure that NETFLIX still has some of them.

I also have been looking up "serum sickness" and "psychiatric drugs and liver hepatotoxicity," it's amazing what you find when looking for scholarly articles with these searches.

 

One of course should be cognizant of who is funding a specific study and/or studies, however. There is an article out now that comes up when you look up "benzodiazepines and cancer" under scholarly articles that when you scroll to the bottom states that it must be labeled an advertisement. The word "advertisement" is even italicized, and guess what it claims- it claims that a benzo can aid in cellular aptosis (or death) of breast cancer cells.

 

There is a lot more on my mind about all of this, but I'll just leave it here for now. There are reasons I came upon "serum sickness" and "liver hepatotoxicity" as related searches and something else I can't erase from my mind is the theory from the first article that both klonopin and xanax seem to play a significant role in the suppression of natural killer cells.

Another very good post, LRF! I think I'm gonna start liking your posts even before I read them. 

 

Aren't drugs supposed to pass clinical trials though(that is, on humans) before they are put on the market? That damn Lyrica gave me horrible withrawals. I was getting only 2-3h of sleep per night or none a year off of it, on top of other sxs. That's what has gotten me on benzos in the end. I hate it with every fiber of my being.

 

As we all know, drugs have a "honeymoon" period where people seem to be improving (unless very sensitive). The clinical trials are done within that period of time. They are usually not long and drawn out because there is pressure to put the drug on the market. It's all about money.

 

In Anatomy of An Epidemic, Robert Whitaker found that the clinical trials on Xanax were botched, and the bad effects were hidden from the public. It's an excellent book.

azalea32, you absolutely did the right thing! This information has to come to the public's attention. I sent a link over to dm123, the "science" guy around here, to see what he thinks. I'm sure he'll have some interesting words to say! 

Hmm, Terry, yeah, that makes a lot of sense, sadly. Thanks for your input.  You made me curious about that book now though. 

Terry, I'm so glad. Thanks- sounds good.

 

And sorry if I'm a bit emotional, but which of us are not? (After having gone through all of this.)

 

It's possible I misinterpreted what your post was about L-Free, for that I'm sorry.

No worries, azalea32. The post I started was influenced by my own reflections on a few other rat studies where I kept thinking "Oh, dear. What were these researchers thinking?". The study you posted is a well-researched, quality study.

👍

 

This stuff is just not fair, for them either- agree.

 

 

 

 

Actually, Pinky's avator is not a rat, it's a mouse named Pinky from the cartoon series "Pinky and the Brain", which is about a pair of intelligent mice who are the result of a lab experiment gone awry.

I wonder where this study originated from?  A different country than the US?  Doesn't look like a Big Pharma backed one.  I like it.  I read in a different study years ago that benzo's can "nick" the DNA backbone.  It mentions in this article that benzo's can cause long-lasting changes in the DNA.  They also affect the mitochondria which are the energy "machines" of the cells.  Could explain the lack of energy many have in w/d.  I have a degree as a Med. Lab Tech, so know a bit about some of this stuff.  Sure wish I were an expert and had all the answers.