It's that time of year again: when the unavoidable coughs and sneezes inevitably reach most of us. Allergies suck, especially when they ruin the entire season of spring. We will buy a mix of allergy medications for the day and sometimes need a little extra help when we go to bed at night. This has been common practice for people for as long as we can remember.
Well, it’s time to stop.
The University of Indiana recently published a study showing the cognitive effects that many over-the-counter medications for allergies, sleeping, anxiety, etc. have on people’s brains. There's one specific ingredient that is shown to be causing serious brain atrophy, and that would be anticholinergic (AC). It can be found in dozens of medications; some of the more popular ones include Benadryl, Zyrtec, Xanax, Unisom, Dramamine, and many more. I, myself, have taken Benadryl countless times for trying to sleep on a long flight. It is scary to think that I have been taking these over-the-counter medications without understanding the long-term effects that they are having on my health.
The study itself consisted of senior citizens; one group of 52 people was given AC and another group of 350 was not. The results showed that the group who were taking AC had lower scores on the Wechsler Memory Scale. This memory test has five different scores: auditory memory, visual memory, visual working memory, immediate memory, and delayed memory. The participants who took AC were consistently slower in every category. The participants consuming AC consistently showed slower memory cognition and the results are what led to the finding that drugs containing anticholinergic are harmful.
While it is recommended to not take drugs with AC, these tests were conducted with older citizens and the research can only state that these drugs are affecting people in the given age range that they studied. That being said, I know that I personally am not going to take the risk of harming myself by continuing to use Benadryl. I am also going to talk to my parents and grandparents about these drugs and discourage them from using these drugs in the future. I suggest you do the same.
