It starts with little slips of the memory. Like forgetting where you left your car keys or having trouble recalling your grandkids’ names.
But those senior moments aren’t going away — they’re only getting worse. And before you know it, you’re hit with one of the most frightening diagnoses in medicine today.
Alzheimer’s disease.
We’ve been told that the Alzheimer’s rate in America is climbing every year and that more than 5 million people are living with disease.
But it turns out many of those people may not have Alzheimer’s at all.
Their condition is being caused by a common class of prescription drugs they’re taking every day… dangerous meds that are triggering a growing epidemic of Alzheimer’s-like symptoms.
And if you and your doctor aren’t careful, you could be next.
That’s what P. Murali Doraiswamy, chief of biological psychiatry at Duke University Medical Center, had to say about the countless patients being diagnosed every year with a disease they don’t really have.
For years now I’ve been warning you that the overuse of more than 100 different drugs can mimic the symptoms of Alzheimer’s.
And because an Alzheimer’s diagnosis can’t be confirmed until an autopsy, that means many patients — and their caregivers — are left to suffer for years without realizing that their prescription drugs were causing their declining memories and loss of independence.
In fact, a five-year study by the National Institute on Aging looked at autopsies and found that as many as a third of so-called Alzheimer’s patients didn’t really have the condition. Many of their brain issues were likely caused by the medicine cabinet full of drugs that many seniors are taking today.
But this serious problem may be about to hit epidemic proportions. All thanks to the skyrocketing prescriptions for anti-anxiety meds called benzodiazepines (or benzos).
Last year, for example, research published in the journal BMJ concluded that benzos like Valium and Xanax, as well as other common prescription drugs, can increase your risk of Alzheimer’s symptoms by a whopping 84 percent.
Benzos are especially dangerous because they can “cause confusion and slow down mental processes,” according to Dr. Anne Fabiny, head of geriatrics at the Harvard Cambridge Health Alliance. And that can be all it takes for you or someone you love to end up with an Alzheimer’s diagnosis.
But even though this link has become common knowledge, the crisis may soon become much, much worse.
You see, for years Congress refused to allow Medicare to pay for benzo prescriptions. And that made sense because, aside from cognitive problems, benzos have been proven to cause dangerous falls and fractures.
But just two years ago, Congress rolled back the restriction and made benzos reimbursable by Medicare. And that’s when the real frenzy started.
In that first year, according to research from ProPublica, Medicare footed the bill for almost 40 million benzo prescriptions. And those pills are leaving millions in a near-constant brain fog.
The rise in benzo prescriptions is set to send the number of faulty Alzheimer’s diagnoses through the roof. The Alzheimer’s Association estimates that we’re going to see 44 percent more cases diagnosed in the next 10 years.
And because benzos are so cheap and commonly prescribed, the problem isn’t just limited to folks on Medicare. In fact, many people are being told they have Alzheimer’s before their first Social Security check arrives.
Health experts say there are more than 200,000 Americans who have been given an Alzheimer’s diagnosis before they turn 65. And in the United Kingdom, where benzos are wildly popular, the number of people with early onset dementia is now twice what health officials previously thought.
If you or someone you love is suffering from a declining memory — or has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s — it’s never been more important to check your prescriptions and talk to your doc about getting off benzos. According to Dr. Gary Kennedy, chief of geriatric psychiatry at Montefiore Medical Center in New York, you might just see a remarkable — and fast — difference.
“I have had people referred to me with a clear history of dementia and when I started to peel back the medications, they were much better,” he said.
*Brand and generic names of some common benzo drugs include: Ativan, Librium, Valium, Xanax, alprazolam, diazepam, temazepam and triazolam. For a full list, click here.
Sources:
“One nation, under sedation: Medicare paid for nearly 40 million tranquilizer prescriptions in 2013” Charles Ornstein and Ryann Grochowski Jones, June 10, 2015, <i>ProPublica</i>, propublica.org
