OBJECTIVE In Lebanon, benzodiazepines are often available without medical prescription. We aimed to carry out the first community-based pharmaco-epidemiological study on benzodiazepine consumption in the Middle East Area. METHOD The prevalence of past-month benzodiazepine use was assessed in a 1000-subject randomized sample from the Lebanese community, and risk factors were studied in a group...

OBJECTIVES To determine whether differences in cognitive function between alcoholic and non-alcoholic cirrhotic patients relate to differences in endogenous ligands for the benzodiazepine receptor and/or benzodiazepine binding. METHODS Seventeen grade-I hepatic encephalopathic patients (nine alcoholic, eight non-alcoholic) were compared with 10 matched controls on plasma concentrations of end...

Conflicting results identifying the relationship between benzodiazepine drug use and cancer risk. Therefore, we conducted a dose-response meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies to clarify and quantitative assessed the relationship between benzodiazepine drug use and cancer risk. Up to July 2017, 22 original publications were included in current meta-analysis. Our results showed statistical...

BACKGROUND Despite generally accepted advice to keep treatment short, benzodiazepines are often prescibed for more than six months. Prevention of long-term benzodiazepine use could be facilitated by the utilisation of risk indicators for long-term use. However, the characteristics of long-term benzodiazepine users described in the literature are based on studies in which long-term users were co...

to obtain drugs which are more selective at benzodiazepine (bzd) receptors, design and synthesis of functionally selective ligands for bzd receptors is the current strategy of our pharmaceutical chemistry department. the affinity of newly synthesized ligands is assessed by radioligand receptor binding assays. based on our previous studies, 2-phenyl-5-oxo-7-methyl-1,3,4-oxadiazolo[a,2,3]-pyrimid...

GABA and its associated benzodiazepine interactions play an important role in basal ganglia function. Distinctive GABA, benzodiazepine and opiate receptor changes occur in response to striatal lesions and in the human neurodegenerative disorder, Huntington's disease (HD). In animal experiments, the in vivo administration of [3H]flunitrazepam labels benzodiazepine receptors and can demonstrate t...

Flumazenil, an imidazobenzodiazepine, is the first benzodiazepine antagonist and is being used to reverse the adverse pharmacological effects of benzodiazepine. There have been a few reports on the central nevous system side effects with its use. We report a patient with generalized ballism following administration of flumazenil. The mechanism through which flumazenil induced this symptom is un...

Benzodiazepine agonists stimulate feeding in animals. This paper reviews evidence which indicates that benzodiazepine-induced feeding is due to a specific enhancement of the perceived palatability of food and fluids, and is not a mere secondary consequence of anxiety reduction. In studies of the effect of benzodiazepines on affective reactions that are naturally elicited from rats by tastes, we...