You Are 3 Times As Likely To Die if You Take Sleeping Pills

The Atlantic reports on a new study:

RESULTS: Those prescribed fewer than 18 doses of sleeping pills a year were more than 3.5 times as likely to die as those in the control group. Moreover, the risk of death of moderate (18 to 132 doses) and heavy users (132+ doses) were four and five times greater than that of non-users, indicating that the risk level rose in tandem with increasing doses. Heavy users were also at higher risk of developing several types of cancer.

CONCLUSION: Sleeping pills are associated with a more than threefold increase in mortality risk, even if seldom used.

The past few years I’ve grown more and more skeptical of our medical culture.

When you “feel bad” in some way you’re supposed to go to the doctor. Usually they just write you a prescription and then like magic the medicine is supposed to make you better.

Instead what seems to happen instead in most cases is the medicine — if you’re lucky — treats the symptoms while perhaps causing a few side effects of its own. Meanwhile deep down you’re still sick — and the doctor may or may not care. Instead he’s content with you just coming in more than you need to so that he can overcharge your insurance company for a bunch of tests you don’t really need but he has to do in order to cover his butt from malpractice lawsuits.

Meanwhile we supposedly have a crisis in healthcare costs. More like we have a crisis in people thinking that other people should be responsible for maintaining their health and well-being.