Side Effects of Benzos and Z-Drugs

Benzodiazepine and Z-drug adverse reactions are many, diverse and range from mild to catastrophic, even life-threatening.   See the tables below for alphabetical listings of adverse reactions.  Benzodiazepine users are at a significantly increased risk of mortality.  Of the many studies that have been done on this, perhaps the most significant was done in 2012 by Kripke, Langer & Kline.^[7]  This 2.5-year study showed that frequent BZ users (>132 doses per year) were 5.3 times more likely to die than those who did not use BZs.  Even with 18 or fewer doses per year, BZ users were 3.6 times more likely to die.

Adverse reactions include psychologic, neurophysiologic, and somatic reactions which may challenge patients and clinicians trying to determine if symptoms are due to these agents, or something else. At times the relationship can only be determined retrospectively after discontinuation. Because of the latter, it is important to consider deprescribing, particularly if other potential causes are eliminated.

Table 4:  Benzodiazepine Side Effects (alphabetical)

Table 5:  Z-Drug Side Effects (alphabetical)