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Older adults lose the ability to absorb medications well
Last reviewed: 01.07.2025
For older people (over 60 years old), antidepressant drugs, which are often prescribed to patients starting at age 30, can cause significant harm to health, as stated by American experts.
Many doctors who prescribe drugs for depression and anxiety to their elderly patients do not even suspect that they are harming people's health. According to the research group, the body of elderly people loses the ability to absorb drugs well. As experts noted, the body is not able to cope with benzodiazepines, which are a class of psychoactive drugs, tranquilizers that have a sedative, anticonvulsant, and other effects. Scientists included librium, midazolam, valium, quazepam, etc. in this group. All these drugs help get rid of the feeling of anxiety, anxiety, muscle spasms, and also normalize sleep.
Experts from the Geriatric Society of the United States are concerned: as they believe, all these drugs have a rather strong effect on the elderly body. Benzodiazepines have a high probability of side effects: dizziness, loss of consciousness, impaired concentration, hallucinations. All this can cause accidents or road accidents.
Experts noted that the risk in this case is not only the drugs, but also the regular visits of elderly people to different doctors, who can prescribe drugs that are incompatible with each other. As a result, the body of an elderly patient cannot effectively absorb all the drugs.
A number of physiological deviations are observed in the human body after 60 years, which can affect behavior when taking certain drugs, especially antidepressants. Scientists have already noted earlier that with age, the body perceives drug treatment worse, the effectiveness of which begins to gradually decrease, and the risk of developing side effects, on the contrary, increases.
Experts recommend extreme caution when taking midazolam, estazolam, flurazepam, temazepam, chlordiazepoxide, oxazepam, etc. (benzodiazepine group). As a rule, such drugs are prescribed for muscle pain, stress, insomnia. In people over 65 years old, the body becomes more sensitive to this group of drugs, the metabolism of which decreases and the period of action in the body increases. As a result, after taking such drugs, elderly people often experience cognitive disorders, delirium, etc. There have been cases when elderly people during treatment with benzodiazepines got into accidents, lost consciousness, etc.
Recently, scientists have also found that at the age of over 70, men's attitude to life changes completely. According to scientists, this is due to a decrease in mental abilities, the death of loved ones and friends. At this age, a person reacts more acutely to different situations in life, since he becomes very dependent on circumstances.
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