A POPULAR anti-anxiety drug has been linked with an increased risk of dementia in pensioners, according to new research.

Patients over the age of 65 who start taking benzodiazepines, also known as benzos, have a 50 per cent increased chance of developing dementia within 15 years compared with people who had never used the drug, according to the study.

Researchers from the University of Bordeaux, France, warned that "indiscriminate widespread use" of the drugs, which are also used to treat insomnia, should be cautioned against.

The drug is widely used in many countries. In France 30 per cent of people over the age of 65 take benzodiazepines. Many administer the drug for long periods despite guidelines suggesting it should only be used for a few weeks.

The research, which is published on bmj.com, examined 1063 people with an average age of 78 over two decades. They had never taken the drug before and were all free from dementia.

They found that 95 patients started taking benzodiazepine during the study.

After a 15-year follow-up, 253 people developed dementia. Of these, 30 had begun to take the drugs between three and five years into the study.

The chance of dementia occurring in those who had taken the drugs was 4.8 per 100 "person years" - a statistical measure representing one person at risk of development of a disease during a period of one year.

Of those who had not taken the drugs the likelihood was measured to be 3.2 per 100 person years, the researchers found.

"In this large, prospective, population based study of elderly people who were free of dementia and did not use benzodiazepines until at least the third year of follow-up, new use of benzodiazepines was associated with a significant, approximately 50% increase in the risk of dementia," the authors wrote.

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