Benzodiazepines: Understanding the Risks of Anxiety Meds
Dr. Joseph Mercola - Take Control of Your Health
Briana Mercola
4.6 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 21 March 2025
⏱️ 12 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Story at-a-glance
- Benzodiazepines (benzos), the go-to treatment for anxiety, cause several issues, especially for the elderly, like cognitive impairment, lightheadedness, poor coordination, and fatigue, all of which increase the risk of accidents and falls
- When used for the correct type of anxiety and combined with other therapeutic interventions, benzodiazepines can greatly help anxiety
- Unfortunately, the fast-paced, insurance-driven healthcare system often leads to rushed 15-minute appointments, preventing doctors from properly evaluating whether benzodiazepines are right for a patient
- As a result, many people who should not be on benzodiazepines end up being put on them for years, if not decades, without proper oversight or treatment of their underlying illness
- One of the biggest problems with benzodiazepines is how quickly they create a physical dependence, leading to widespread addiction. They can also harm fetuses, worsen symptoms like insomnia and anxiety, and, in the worst cases, lead to deadly overdoses, especially when combined with opioids
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello everyone and welcome to Dr. Mercola's Cellular Wisdom, the show where we peel back the curtain on health topics you never knew you needed to know but can't help wanting to. I'm Ethan Foster, your friendly neighborhood observer of the human condition. I'm the guy who calmly reads every label, even on a bottle of water, just in case it has surprising side effects. And I'm a Lara Sky, a big fan of science, nature, and occasionally turning everything |
| 0:22.1 | we think we know on its head. Some people call me a walking medical library, with a sense of |
| 0:26.8 | humor attached. I prefer to think of myself as a comedic side effect with zero drowsiness guaranteed. |
| 0:32.3 | Today we're diving into something that affects an awful lot of folks, benzodiazepines, |
| 0:36.8 | or benzos for short. |
| 0:38.3 | They've often been branded as the ultimate solution for anxiety, insomnia, and a bunch of other |
| 0:42.4 | things. But, as with every silver lining, there's a cloud, and that cloud in this case may be |
| 0:46.7 | pretty stormy. |
| 0:47.4 | I like how you're tiptoeing around it, Ethan. Just say it. We've got a tiny, friendly pill that |
| 0:51.8 | can lull you into a false sense of security, lead to physical |
| 0:54.5 | dependence, and create brand new problems you never signed up for. |
| 0:57.9 | Precisely. |
| 0:58.7 | But before we start, let's set the scene. |
| 1:01.2 | People first leaned on barbiturates over a century ago. |
| 1:04.1 | Then we found out that made for TV disclaimers like may cause cognitive impairment, respiratory |
| 1:08.8 | depression, coma, or possibly leaving your keys in the |
| 1:12.0 | fridge again, were more than hypothetical. These barbiturates were powerful, but they arrived in your |
| 1:16.1 | system with a marching band of complications. Indeed. So, along comes a safer alternative. At least |
| 1:22.0 | that's what everyone hoped. Enter benzodiazepines. They quickly became the new and improved |
| 1:26.6 | answer for anxiety, insomnia, |
| 1:28.7 | seizures, mania, and apparently that fear we all have of forgetting to clean out our spam folder. |
| 1:33.4 | Marketing played a big role. One company ran a massive clinical trial. They tested more than 20,000 |
... |
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