Association between benzodiazepines use and lung cancer in U.S. adults: Results from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey

The link between benzodiazepines (BZs) use and lung cancer remains unclear. This paper investigates this association by analyzing data from 34,084 adults, aged approximately 47.08 ± 0.22 years, from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey study conducted between 2001 and 2016. Multiple logistic regression is employed to control for various factors including age, sex, ethnicity, education, poverty to income ratio, diabetes mellitus, smoke, alcohol user, hypertension, body mass index, hyperlipidemia, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and other cancer, in order to explore the impact of BZs on lung cancer prevalence. The findings indicate that the risk of lung cancer is 4.643 times higher in BZs users compared to nonusers (95% CI: 2.096, 10.283), and this association remains significant (OR: 2.575, 95% CI: 1.015, 6.529) after adjusting for all variables. Our research indicates that among the American population, especially men aged 60 or above, with a normal weight BMI and no hypertension, the prevalence of lung cancer is relatively high among BZs users. This requires further research to verify these findings.