14 DAY TRIAL // Drugs that produce anticholinergic activity inside the body might cause cognitive impairment in the long run, and also contribute to an increased risk of death. This finding is very important, considering that seniors make up the vast majority of users for these medications.
These conclusions belong to a long-term, large-scale investigation. This class includes numerous drugs, which is why experts took an interest in it in the first place. Some of the most commonly-used drugs are over-the-counter and prescription sleep aids and incontinence treatments.
Seniors consume such drugs all the time, but this may increase their risk of dying prematurely, the research team behind the new work uncovered. The group was looking for a connection between consuming these chemicals and death risk, and they uncovered a pretty clear one.
For the new research, the team focused on men and women aged 65 or above. About 13,000 individuals were tracked for two years, in order to assess the impact that these drugs had on their health. All subjects were a part of the Medical Research Council Cognitive Function and Aging Studies (CFAS).
Details of the new investigation appear in the June 24 advanced online issue of the esteemed Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, Science Blog reports. The team explains that anticholinergics are drugs that block the actions of the nervous system neurotransmitter acetylcholine.
Some of the over-the-counter and prescription drugs that contain these compounds include Benadryl®, Dramamine®, Excedrin PM®, Nytol®, Sominex®, Tylenol PM®, Unisom®, Paxil®, Detrol®, Demerol® and Elavil®.
“Our findings make it clear that clinicians need to review the cumulative anticholinergic burden in people presenting with cognitive impairment to determine if the drugs are causing decline in mental status,” explains scientist Malaz Boustani, MD.
The expert is a coauthor of the new journal paper and an investigator at the Regenstrief Institute. He also holds appointments as an Indiana University School of Medicine associate professor of medicine and as a research scientist with the IU Center for Aging Research.
“Physicians should review with older patients all the over-the-counter and prescription drugs they are taking to determine exposure,” adds Dr. Boustani, who also works out of the Wishard Health Services’ Healthy Aging Brain Center, in Indianapolis.
“We looked at drugs with either moderate and severe anticholinergic activity,” explains team leader Chris Fox, MD, a psychiatrist at the University of East Anglia and the corresponding author of the study.
“After adjusting for age, [gender], baseline mental status, education, income level, number of non-anticholinergic medications and health conditions, we found that taking anticholinergic medications was linked to cognitive impairment and for the first time to death,” he adds.
“We need follow-up to determine the degree to which anticholinergics are being prescribed for diseases with significant risk of death and the impact of that on our findings,” Fox concludes.