Dangerous Combo of Opioids and Benzos

Newswise — Veterans who simultaneously take opioids for chronic pain and benzodiazepines for anxiety and insomnia are at an increased risk of unintentional overdose and death as well as suicide.

Nearly 20 veterans kill themselves each day in the United States, a statistic that has led the Department of Veterans Affairs to make suicide prevention its highest priority and to recognize the risks from the simultaneous use of opioids and benzodiazepines. To tackle the issue, the VA asked the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine to develop protocols for a study that would use existing records to evaluate the best approaches to opioid treatment in veterans taking benzodiazepines.

“These records might reveal important insights that could inform the use of opioid treatment as part of chronic pain management,” said Brian Strom, chancellor of Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences and chair of the committee that developed the study protocol. “The committee’s report gives the VA guidelines on how to research the effects of starting veterans on an opioid for chronic pain while they are taking benzodiazepines and the effects of tapering patients off opioids and the relationship to any subsequent death by suicide or other causes.”

Strom discusses the study design... 

 

Read the full press release in Newswise.