Sleeping pills for insomnia increase risk of death fourfold, and could raise risk of cancer
A new study by American scientists has shown that sleeping pills used by thousands of people in the UK are linked with an increased risk of death.
The study, published in BMJ Open, compared more than 10,000 patients taking sleeping tablets with 23,000 patients not taking these drugs.
Researchers from the Jackson Hole Centre for Preventative Medicine in Wyoming and the Scripps Clinic Viterbi Family Sleep Centre in California looked at a wide range of sleeping pills, including those regularly used in the UK.
They found that people prescribed sleeping pills were 4.6 times more likely to die during a 2.5 year period compared to those not on the drugs.
People taking higher doses of temazepam pills, which were dispensed 2.8m times in England in 2010, were six times more likely to die in the next two-and-a-half years.
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