Study, Apr/20: Risk of hip/forearm fractures in older occasional users of benzos

[[La...]]

The full title of this French study is "Long-term risk of hip or forearm fractures in older occasional users of benzodiazepines".

 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32285959

 

Abstract

 

AIMS:

 

This article sought to study the association between patterns of benzodiazepine (BZD) use and the risk of hip and forearm fractures in people aged 50 and 75 years or more.

 

METHODS:

 

In a representative cohort of the French National Health Insurance Fund of individuals aged 50 years or older) (N=106 437), we followed up BZD dispensing (reflecting their patterns of use) and the most frequent fall-related fractures (hip and forearm) for 8 years. We used joint latent class models to simultaneously identify BZD dispensing trajectories and the risk of fractures in the entire cohort and in those 75 years or older). We used a survival model to estimate the adjusted hazard ratios (aHRs) between these trajectories and the risk of fractures.

 

RESULTS:

 

In the entire cohort, we identified 5 BZD trajectories: "non-users" (76.7% of the cohort); "occasional users" (15.2%); "decreasing users"(2.6%); "late increasing users" (3.0%); and "early increasing users" (2.4%). Compared with non-users, fracture risk was not increased in either occasional users (aHR = 0.99, 95% CI 0.99-1.00) or in decreasing users (aHR = 0.90, 95% CI 0.74-1.08). It was significantly higher in early increasing users (aHR = 1.86, 95% CI 1.62-2.14) and in late increasing users (aHR = 1.39, 95% CI 1.15-1.60). We observed similar trajectories and risk levels in the people older than 75 years.

 

CONCLUSION:

 

Occasional BZD use, which is compatible with current recommendations, was not associated with an excess risk of the most frequent fall-related fractures in people older than 50 or 75 years.

[[Ma...]]

Hi Lapis,

 

I have clicked on the link you posted because I wanted to find out in which institute or hospital they have run this study. There are some which are connected to the pharma lobby and I wanted to find out if it was one of them. But I can only click on the names of the author. Do you know if in general we can find out more about the study, is there only the abstract or more to read?

 

Thank you:-)

Marigold

[[La...]]

Hi Marigold,

Sometimes I have some luck with Sci Hub, but I wasn't able to get the full study for this abstract. Sorry! If you know anyone who has more access to online medical libraries, perhaps they can track down the information you're looking for.

 

The abstract shows which institution(s) each researcher is associated with, but I'm not sure whether the sample group (which happens to be extremely large, in this case -- more than 100,000) was taken from those institutions or not. They mention the "French National Health Insurance Fund", so the individuals may  come from many different areas of France. Still, the only way to know for sure is to find the full study.

[[Ma...]]

Hi Marigold,

Sometimes I have some luck with Sci Hub, but I wasn't able to get the full study for this abstract. Sorry! If you know anyone who has more access to online medical libraries, perhaps they can track down the information you're looking for.

 

The abstract shows which institution(s) each researcher is associated with, but I'm not sure whether the sample group (which happens to be extremely large, in this case -- more than 100,000) was taken from those institutions or not. They mention the "French National Health Insurance Fund", so the individuals may  come from many different areas of France. Still, the only way to know for sure is to find the full study.

 

God. Since my med-free-journey started I might have read more medical studies than a normal general health practitioner. It is really interesting sometimes though. I did know about statistics a lot, was part of my education at University and needed in my later life at work.. but seen on medical studies it becomes even more complicated. When it comes to studies from Germany I now now my favorite doctors or scientists (I mean that ironically, because some publish a lot, but if you look closer it is not helping anyone else than them because the studies are only done on too small groups or the setting is just horrible and so on)..

So I assume, it is still the truth that in order to get the full picture you have to invest soooooo much time. 

How I wished I had one doctor who would do this work for me as a patient, .. but no, wait - I would re-check everything anyway

[[La...]]

I think it's good to be skeptical at this point. We've all been through so much, and it makes sense that our trust has been shattered.