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Taking sleeping pills increases risk of premature death by 3 times
Last reviewed: 01.07.2025
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Even occasional use of common sleeping pills increases the risk of premature death by three and a half times, and regular use of high doses increases the risk of developing malignant neoplasms. This is the conclusion reached by the authors of a study from the Scripps Clinic in San Diego. Their article was published on February 27 in the journal BMJ Open.
We are talking about such frequently prescribed sleeping pills as benzodiazepines - temazepam (Restoril), nonbenzodiazepines - zolpidem (Ambien), zopiclone, zaleplon, as well as barbiturates and antihistamines with a sedative effect.
The authors based their findings on statistical data on approximately ten and a half thousand patients, with an average age of 54, who took sleeping pills for an average of two and a half years between January 2002 and January 2007. The survival rate of this group was then compared with the survival rate of a control group, which included data on more than twenty-three and a half thousand people of varying ages, genders, and health conditions who did not take sleeping pills during these years.
The results of the study showed that those patients who used sleeping pills even less than 18 times a year died three and a half times more often than those who did without sleeping pills. For those who used medication for insomnia up to 132 times a year, the risk of premature death increased almost four and a half times. If sleeping pills were taken even more often, this figure reached 5.3.
In addition, as the study found, regular use of high doses of sleeping pills also increases the risk of developing malignant tumors by 35 percent.
As the authors of the paper point out, in 2010, approximately six to ten percent of American adults regularly took sleeping pills. The production of new-generation sleeping pills, which are considered less toxic due to their short period of action, is a rapidly growing segment of the American pharmaceutical industry. In four years, from 2006 to 2010, this market grew by 23 percent. Almost two billion dollars worth of sleeping pills were sold in the country.