Anti-depressants, benzodiazepines, newer sleeping medicines and risk of motor accidents?

@HealthMed: The following comments were in response to a new paper linking use of anti-depressants, benzodiazepines and newer sleeping medicines to increased risk of motor vehicle accidents.

These comments were part of the briefing on this paper from the Science Media Centre.

In a paper published in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, Tsai and colleagues from Taiwan have reported a ~40-70% relative increase in risk of non-fatal driving accidents in Taiwan linked to prescription of a wide range of anti-depressants, benzodiazepines and newer Z-drug sleeping medicines. In their study, around 5200 people who had had motor accidents were compared with around 31,000 people with no history of accidents. The medicines appeared possibly linked to from 1 in 20, to 1 in 70 accidents, depending on the drug type. Obvious questions for pharmacologists, health professionals and the public are whether these findings are credible, and if so, generalisable to other parts of the world.

This Taiwan report was based on a case-control study – more open to bias than randomized trials. Although the researchers matched controls for age, gender and year of the accidents, they were unable to rule out differences in patterns of driving or in alcohol intake between the groups. Alcohol amplifies any impairment in concentration resulting from effects of drugs that act on the brain; and ethnic Taiwanese are commonly are intolerant of alcohol, due to genetic lack of the enzyme needed to break down alcohol.

It is also possible that the increased accident risk resulted from effects of underlying psychological or psychiatric disorders for which the drugs were prescribed e.g. through poorer concentration or indirectly through additional effects of sleep disturbance caused by the conditions under treatment, independent of the drugs. In addition the researchers noted that those who had accidents also had a higher burden of a range of non-psychiatric diseases, also recognized as increasing risk of accidents.

What do these results mean for populations in other countries? Several of the drugs implicated in Taiwan are not commonly used in other countries and there are several sources of bias indicating need for caution in interpreting the study. However other studies have stressed the need for caution when driving when using these types drugs. When these drugs are prescribed, patients should seek advice about risks of driving from their physician or pharmacist. In any event, patients on these drugs should avoid any alcohol when driving.

More information: Chia-Ming Chang and colleagues. Psychotropic Drugs and Risk of Motor Vehicle Accidents: a Population-based Case-Control Study; British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology; DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2125.2012.04410.x

Prevalence of alcohol and other drugs in fatally injured drivers. Joanne E. Brady, Guohua Li.  Addiction. Published online August 20, 2012

Teenagers, IQ risk and cannabis: cause and effect, bias or other explanations?

@HealthMed My first contact with study of the science of cannabis was as a medical student in Aberdeen undertaking a summer project in pharmacology: a new researcher, Roger Pertwee, was interested in the effects of bioactive ingredients of cannabis on brain regulation of temperature and muscle function.  Research since then by Pertwee and many others has identified the importance of endogenous chemicals, endocannabinoids, that are part of normal functioning of the brain and other parts of the body, for example in modulating mood and stimulating appetite. Abnormalities in endocannabinoid pathways have also been implicated in a wide range of medical conditions, including inflammation, obesity, cancer, cardiovascular disease as well as mood disorders. 

Now this week we have a report illustrating a new facet of potential harm from cannabis. In a long-term follow up study by scientists in Otago, at Duke University, USA and King's College London, lead by Madeline Meier (Duke), IQ and reported cannabis use was monitored over the 25 years from age 13 to 38 in the Dunedin Birth Cohort. Of particular interest, their study of over 1000 subjects included teenagers in whom IQ was checked before any cannabis exposure. Around 1 in 7 reported being regular cannabis users, 1 in 20 doing so at least weekly before the age of 18.

What did the investigators find? With no cannabis history, there was a small fall in IQ. However recurrent cannabis use was associated with an 8 point decline in IQ, comparable to that seen in early dementia. Importantly, this decrease in IQ was particularly marked when cannabis use began during teenage years. A further concern was that stopping cannabis use did not lead to recovery of the IQ loss. Commentary on the results has ranged from concluding that cannabis is harmful in teenagers but safe in adults, to more cautious notes that adolescent brains appeared more vulnerable to cannabis, without providing carte blanche for longer term safety of cannabis use in adults …

Are these fair interpretations? For further discussion of this long-term, prospective observational study, important caveats in its interpretation, and its potential implications, see my discussion posted on The Independent blogs site.