This week, Mad in America examines four new studies around harms linked to psychiatric drug use. The first finds that psychiatric drug use is linked to increased risk of death, falls, and cognitive decline in people diagnosed with dementia. The second reports that antipsychotics are associated with increased risk of death in dementia patients. The third finds that psychiatric drugs are linked to increased risk of acute kidney injury, kidney disease, falls, and fall related injuries, The fourth finds that benzodiazepine use as prescribed is linked to increased risk of suicide.
Psychiatric Drugs Linked to Increased Risk of Death, Falls, and Cognitive Decline in People With Dementia
A new article published in Research in Social and Administrative Pharmacy finds that psychiatric drugs are linked to several adverse outcomes in people diagnosed with dementia, including increased risk of death. This research, led by Fiona Carabine from Queen’s University Belfast in the UK, recommends regular medication reviews and deprescribing approaches to avoid and reduce harm in people living with dementia.
The goal of this study was to examine adverse outcomes and the prevalence of drug-related harm in dementia patients. The authors preformed a systematic review and meta-analysis of previous research around this topic. Included studies had to be peer-reviewed, published in English, and have the full-text available. In total, the authors used data from 115 studies. The majority came from Europe (71), followed by North America (23), Asia (12), Australia (7), and South America (2).
Fifty-nine included studies examined psychiatric drugs, with 43 linking these drugs to adverse outcomes in people with dementia. A meta-analysis of 6 studies, including 25,715 participants, found that antipsychotics were linked to a 42% increased risk of death. Anxiolytics, antipsychotics, and antidepressants were all associated with increased risk of falls and fractures. Sedatives, antidepressants, and drug combinations with a high anticholinergic burden, including tricyclic antidepressants and typical antipsychotics, were linked to increased risk of cognitive decline. Psychiatric drugs were also linked to increased rates of hospitalization, emergency room visits, and longer inpatient stays.
This research had three main limitations. Included studies used different outcome measures, terminology, and designs. The majority of included studies were observational. This means the findings cannot definitively say that psychiatric drugs are causing the adverse outcomes. Only studies published in English were included, limiting generalizability.
Antipsychotics Linked to Increased Risk of Death in Dementia Patients
A new study published in Frontiers in Psychiatry finds that antipsychotics are linked to increased risk of death in people diagnosed with dementia. This research, led by Poe Eindra Thant from Lund University in Sweden, also reports that these drugs were linked to stroke, but that finding did not reach statistical significance in their meta-analysis.
The goal of this study was to investigate adverse outcomes related to antipsychotic use in people diagnosed with dementia. The authors performed a systematic review and meta-analysis of studies around adverse outcomes and antipsychotic use in dementia patients. Included studies were published between January 1, 2010 and August 14, 2024. Studies involving Parkinson’s disease dementia were excluded. In total, the authors used data from 45 studies including nearly 2 million participants.
The clearest finding in the current meta-analysis was the link between antipsychotics and increased risk of death. Overall, antipsychotics were linked to a 32% increased risk of death. This was true for both typical (25% increased risk) and atypical (23%) antipsychotics. The meta-analysis also reported a 77% increased risk of stroke, but that finding did not reach statistical significance. The authors note that due to included studies using varying methods, effect measures, and follow-up periods, other adverse outcome risks could not be meaningfully pooled in their analysis. However, individual studies did report increased risk of numerous adverse effects related to antipsychotic use in people with dementia, including:
-
Pneumonia
-
Fractures
-
Falls
-
Orthostatic hypotension
-
Head injury
-
Traumatic brain injury
-
Myocardial infarction (heart attack)
-
Heart failure
-
Venous thromboembolism
-
Acute kidney injury
-
Hospitalization
-
Long-term care/nursing-home admission
-
Acute cardiac events
The risk of adverse outcomes was especially elevated in the first week following the start of antipsychotic use.
This study had three main limitations. Most of the included studies were observational, meaning the results cannot say for sure that antipsychotics are causing these adverse outcomes, only that they are linked. Included studies used varying designs, settings, measures, populations, and follow-up periods. Most included studies came from high-income countries and involved elderly patients. This limits generalizability to low- and middle-income countries and populations of younger people diagnosed with dementia.
Psychiatric Drugs Linked to Increased Risk of Acute Kidney Injury, Kidney Disease, Falls, and Fall Related Injuries
A new study published in Frontiers in Pharmacology finds that psychiatric drugs are linked to significantly increased risk of acute kidney injury. This study, led by Yu-Hsien Wu from the Taichung Veterans General Hospital in Taiwan, also reports that these drugs are associated with increased risk of falls, fractures, head injury, vertigo, and rhabdomyolysis.
The goal of this research was to examine links between psychiatric drug use and acute kidney injury, kidney disease, falls and related injuries, vertigo, and rhabdomyolysis. The authors used data from TriNetX, a global health research database. Adult psychiatric drug users were matched with non-users based on demographic information including medical ailments, psychiatric diagnosis, and neurological conditions. In total, the authors analyzed data from 169,309 matched pairs. Each pair was followed for five years.
Psychiatric drug users had significantly increased risk of acute kidney injury (83%). Psychiatric drugs were also associated with new onset stage 3 chronic kidney disease (21% increased risk) and advanced chronic kidney disease (28%). In addition to kidney disease, psychiatric drugs were linked to increased risk of falls (2.32 times more likely) and fall related injuries including fractures (85% increased risk), head injury (88%), vertigo (81%), and a more than tripled risk of rhabdomyolysis (3.71 times more likely). The authors note that these “associations were generally consistent across medication classes, age groups, and sex.”
This study had several limitations. It is possible that unmeasured factors may have differed between participants. Underlying psychiatric and neurological conditions may have contributed to fall risk or kidney disease. The available data indicated that patients were prescribed psychiatric drugs, but cannot establish that they actually took the drugs. This data also did not capture some variables that could have affected the results such as dose, adherence, treatment changes, and duration of drug exposure.
Benzodiazepines Use as Prescribed Linked to Increased Risk of Suicide
A new study published in BMC Psychiatry finds that benzodiazepine use is linked to significantly increased risk of suicide and suicide attempts. This research, led by Zelfa Hamadieh from the City University of New York, concludes that prescribing guidelines around benzodiazapines should be refined and users should be regularly assessed for suicide risk.
The authors conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of research around prescribed benzodiazepine use and suicide. Included studies were published in English between October 2016 and January 2025. Studies that looked at illicit benzodiazepine use, misuse, polysubstance use, and suicidal thoughts or self-harm without suicidal behavior were excluded. In total, the authors used data from 21 studies.
Overall, benzodiazepine use was linked to a more than doubled (2.74 times more likely) risk of suicide or suicide attempt. This association persisted in sensitivity analysis for studies that reported odds ratios (2.79 times increased risk) and hazard ratios (doubled risk). When including only higher-quality studies, benzodiazepine use as prescribed was still linked to a more than doubled risk of suicide or suicide attempt (2.45 times increased risk).
This research had four main limitations. The included studies used varying methods and reporting measures. The authors excluded studies related to illicit benzodiazepine use, misuse, and polysubstance use, limiting generalizability to populations not using these drugs as prescribed. Included studies were published in English, limiting generalizability to non-English speaking populations. The authors did not analyze factors such as dose, duration of exposure, patterns of use, or type of benzodiazepine (short- versus long-acting).
****
Carabine, F., Hughes, C. M., & Barry, H. E. (2026). The prevalence and impact of medication-related harm in people living with dementia − a systematic review and meta-analysis. Research in Social and Administrative Pharmacy, 22(12), 1061–1074. (Link)
Hamadieh, Z., Goldfarb, D. G., & Ellendon, N. (2026). Prescribed benzodiazepines and suicidal behaviors: A systematic review, meta-analysis, and clinical implications. BMC Psychiatry, 26(1). (Link)
Thant, P. E., Zenker, A., Jarl, J., Gerdtham, U.-G., Lenander, C., Persson, S., & Saha, S. (2026). The consequences of antipsychotic medication use for people living with dementia: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 17. (Link)
Wu, Y.-H., Tsai, S.-F., Huang, S.-S., & Hou, P.-H. (2026). Psychotropic medication use and risks of kidney injury and fall-related events: A propensity score–matched cohort study. Frontiers in Pharmacology, 16. (Link)
Given the long list of deleterious and even fatal side effects of psychiatric drugs, what possible justification can there be for administering them to dementia patients (often elderly women in nursing homes) who may be physically infirm and have a severely compromised immune system? Isn’t that a blatant case of iatrogenic harm and medical malpractice?
Report comment
Yes. And since these findings are derived from meta analysis, they should be considered valid. However, there is nobody there-there to teach or oversee this change in prescribing.
Care homes try to control behaviors that interfere with residents and staff. So my adopted Mom Sherrie was drugged for her dementia stage where she’s mean to everybody. They all breathe a sigh of relief, so she won’t get kicked out of the place, but now, a passive zombie, she’s docile all-right, but does anybody even care that the dangers measured in this study will increase her risk for falls or stroke?
I care. I was a 20-year subject of poly-pharma iatrogenic poisoning. The hitch is that short term goals of the institutions of mental and health care have not prioritized individual lives and life after drugs— if anyone even manages to successfully taper off at all.
Report comment
When I worked at nursing homes they have a strict policy of no physical restraints- instead they chemically restrain them. Or at least try. No one says anything. And it’s well known to all not to interfere.
Report comment
ANXIETY
The 1971 study by H.H. Shey, titled “Iatrogenic Anxiety” and published in Psychiatric Quarterly, provides a critical historical look at physician-induced (“iatrogenic”) mental distress.
It is highly likely that dementia patients are historically drug harmed, and such drug harms lead to dementia. Providing more drug treatments per se to such people is a boost in financial gains for the service providers, operators, related industries, governments et al.
And when such people reach their usefulness limits, they are left to expire for days without any “care” at all.
Isn’t it wonderful for all psychiatry related presentations, that no temporal cause can be asserted, under the age old grading system. Add in the fact that even if a drug, treatment produces adverse effects not present before the treatments started, the individuals history, or anatomy, or genes, or any variety of other factors will be unearthed, often without tests or evidence, as proof that it was not the prescribers’ choices that initiated changes, regardless of the make-up of the individual.
“Temporal precedence is a core criterion in psychology and scientific research used to establish a causal relationship between two variables. It means that the presumed cause must happen before the presumed effect in time.”
Report comment
ANXIETY
The 1971 study by H.H. Shey, titled “Iatrogenic Anxiety” and published in Psychiatric Quarterly, provides a critical historical look at physician-induced (“iatrogenic”) mental distress.
It is highly likely that dementia patients are historically drug harmed, and such drug harms lead to dementia. Providing more drug treatments per se to such people is a boost in financial gains for the service providers, operators, related industries, governments et al.
And when such people reach their usefulness limits, they are left to expire for days without any “care” at all.
Isn’t it wonderful for all psychiatry related presentations, that no temporal cause can be asserted, under the age old grading system. Add in the fact that even if a drug, treatment produces adverse effects not present before the treatments started, the individuals’ history, or anatomy, or genes, or any variety of other factors will be unearthed, often without tests or evidence, as proof that it was not the prescribers’ choices that initiated changes, regardless of the make-up of the individual recipients.
“Temporal precedence is a core criterion in psychology and scientific research used to establish a causal relationship between two variables. It means that the presumed cause must happen before the presumed effect in time.”
Isn’t it so that now the Product Information leaflets, merely relay legal BS, to read that such side effects and adverse effects are possible, likely, or rare, and not actually a known problem with the drug itself. Those mice, and rats, and hamsters, and monkeys, and pigs, and dogs, and cats, and [ … ], have been mutilated and deformed and killed or died for nothing. Their stress and anxieties and aggressions and hostilities and violence caused by psych drugs, weren’t real. Those swim tests, and electric shocks, and starvation, and seizures, and [ … ], were playtime events for students and researchers and supervisors.
Those after market notifications to the FDA and other global Regulatory Bodies, are meaningless.
It’s all in the wording of that fine print. These are all the things that could happen to the person taking the drug, BUT, it is not because of the drug. The drug is not the cause. The drug “induces” “unintended” physical, chemical, biological, electrical, cellular, protein, gene, enzyme (and more) changes. BUT it is not the drug. Prior to taking the drug, none of the NEW signs and symptoms were present. So! So what! Shrug of the shoulders.
The WARNING is that the drug produces side effects and adverse effects. Are these side effects and adverse effects wanted? Are these side effects and adverse effects going to be helpful? Are the RISKS, “induced” unnatural changes (that likely cannot be undone), better than any other quality healthy alternatives?
Elderly women, et al., in nursing homes are provided with polypharmacy, cascade prescribing, being the equivalent to chemical restraint, though no longer allowed to be viewed in that way, because they have rights, you know. Right?
Same harmful treatments with legal rights on the side for the drugged and electrocuted.
Who set up such a precedent?
Report comment
Vic,
Great question!
Our government seems to be on the side of pharma, handing out full liability to the makers of vaccines in 1986. And we allow rampant conflicts of interest: whopping pharma donations to American Academy of Pediatrics, AMA, etc. Pediatricians incentivized financially to persuade a certain percentage of the practice to be fully immunized. 65% of the funding of med schools comes from pharma. It would be laughable if the consequences weren’t so tragic.
One of the worst: no personal liability for the people who perpetrated vioxx and opioid murders on us. Corporate liability yes, but the actual people: scampering along with their millions, free and clear, unburdened by so much as one day of community service, let alone jail time or removal of a portion of their fortunes.
There are a multitude of things that are not pharma drugs that decrease anxiety quite effectively: but first, it’s important to rule out all the physiological contributors to anxiety – which virtually no Dr does.
https://thirtyyearsdowntherabbithole.substack.com/p/mopsys-tip-33-if-your-depression?r=1easgq
https://thirtyyearsdowntherabbithole.substack.com/p/mopsys-tip-35-anxiety-getting-the?r=1easgq
Report comment
Aspirin is more harmful than psychiatric drugs.
Report comment
Really? Aspirin more harmful than ALL psychiatric drugs? What’s your evidence for that claim?
Report comment
Honestly, I don’t know what this fuss is about health, disregarding the source. To begin with, give J K Rowling a reward, since she’s advised people she was on antidepressants, if that is even true. Consequently, she’s created such a furor with so many people blocking her, that not only will we have new sex change procedures, but there will be a special edition on how to become a J K Rowling clone! Follows SEVEN years of chase scenes! Will the real one stand up!?
You can’t go down the street, you can’t press a button, you can’t open a newspaper, magazine, what have you without being bombasted with “this is my place called fill in copyrighted logos, and you’ll see it so often that you won’t know where you are from the last one that isn’t this one: just WAIT we’ll have some round one projected on the moon!” Or the high ones really up there, on stilts, so big are the words that your eyes will pop out of your head and blow up like balloons just to match to read and not seem like a germ in comparison to what you’re using to read such. BIG ONES! Something like the Hindenburg, which they say was an accident. I guess hanging them from over the castle wall just is outdated. Now you press something in, or it looked like you have when you touch it, and more of it, speaking to you with moving things! And this has nothing to do with maintaining health!? And when it does you’re still sent to…….
It’s all lies! Harry Potter’s mother isn’t dead at all she works at a gas station where they also have refreshments and just reinstated sitting spaces, everyone is supposed to sit and gawk at her, as if she’s God. And Voldemoort had a change of heart, when it turned out Scrooge was handing out geese, so constant that they are frozen now being insulted further regarding their bumps, and the vegetarians had enough of it, put that poor remains on his doorstep with a wand describing his unlimited happiness, and they were assured he could bring all the geese back to life. Would take Voldemoort! And sure enough! Had a change of heart. Now the ace first had to take over city maintenance and have flapping lids to take in the garbage and recycling so it could be warped in to for where it’s taken there once hurled properly in container….. Lies and more of it. Her husband is supposed to be a doctor, but when my friend was supposed to be dead, who knows why, another for the irrigation where I can’t mention, sat there leaking all over the bus, and this “doctor” supposed to be didn’t know what to do. The DAY before the funeral! I suppose he went home sniffing at his wife to see if she smelled better than what would be presented the next day, don’t know. Don’t ask either. Given the considerable damage she’s done to people’s eyes, with chase scenes and all, you might check the change in optician rates. Just to get people to go to a doctor…..
Report comment