Popular medication may increase risk of dementia, new research suggests

dailyrecord.co.uk:

A widely-used type of medication has been found to potentially increase your risk of dementia by a staggering 79 percent.For many people, getting to sleep at night is a struggle - whether that's down to stress, anxiety or just a bad sleeping pattern.

To help you doze off, you might have resorted to taking sleeping medication prescribed from your doctor.But researchers at the University California-San Francisco have published a study that suggests taking this can make you more likely to develop dementia - especially if you're white.The Mirror reports that popular prescription sleeping medications including Benzos, Ambien, and antidepressants, may increase the risk of developing the devastating syndrome.

Published in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, the study focused on around three thousand adults without dementia who were monitored for nine years.

Around 42 per cent were black and 58 per cent white.During the study, 20 per cent of patients went on to develop dementia. It was discovered that white participants who 'often' or 'almost always' took sleep medications had a 79 per cent higher chance of developing dementia, compared to those who 'never' or 'rarely' used them.At the same itme, black participants - whose reliance on sleeping medication was much lower – were still linked to a higher risk through frequent use.Lead author Yue Leng said: "Differences may be attributed to socio-economic status."Black participants who have access to sleep medications might be a select group with high socio-economic status and, thus, greater cognitive reserve, making them less susceptible to dementia."It's also possible that some sleep medications were associated with a higher risk of dementia than others."White people were three