this post was submitted on 05 Aug 2023
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Not so fun fact: Benadryl™ and similar drugs have been linked to dementia in older patients. I found this out when my doc told me to quit taking it as a sleep aid.
https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/common-anticholinergic-drugs-like-benadryl-linked-increased-dementia-risk-201501287667
Yeah a lot of the Benadryl memes out there are about dementia.
Jesus christ I don't think I've ever had a meme make me more uncomfortable than this one
There's a bunch of them in the wild
Really? Okay, have some more
No, Benadryl has not been (directly) linked to dementia, but it is classified as an anticholinergic drug, and those HAVE been linked to dementia. So not Benadryl, but the group it is classified under. That group of drugs also includes some extremely powerful antipsychotic medications (EDIT: sorry, anticholinergic drugs are often prescribed along side antipsychotic medications), so it's kinda like lumping a Nerf gun in with assault rifles. As well, sleep deprivation has also been linked to dementia and people will take Benadryl as a sleep aid (as you know), so any connection there might be ancillary. Your doctor's advice sounds like it is just precautionary, which is good, but may turn out to be unfounded. Bottom line is that it needs to be studied more as there currently isn't enough solid data about the subject.
It's crazy because zzzquil uses diphenhydramine as its active ingredient and you wouldn't know it unless you read the bottle; in that case, you could just get a bottle of generic diphenhydramine tablets and use those, but as you said it's linked to dementia and is not good to use frequently (which also isn't stated on any of these sleep aid packages). It just feels like they're trying to subtly hide that fact
Maybe I’m a minority here, but do people typically buy medicines and not read the ingredients?
That does seem to be the case.
I was trained early since reading medicine labels is a good way to find a nearby generic that's cheaper... but most of my partners have looked at me funny for doing so.