Mar 31, 2014 03:40 PM EDT By Jaleesa Baulkman, UniversityHerald Reporter

Common anti-anxiety drugs and sleeping pills may increase the risk of premature death, according to a recent study Fox News reported.

Researchers from the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom found that drugs like Ambien and Xanax are associated with a doubling in the risk of mortality, Fox News reported. The findings are based on routine data.

"The key message here is that we really do have to use these drugs more carefully," Scott Weich, researcher and professor of psychiatry at the University of Warwick, said in a statement. "This builds on a growing body of evidence suggesting that their side effects are significant and dangerous. We have to do everything possible to minimize over reliance on anxiolytics and sleeping pills."

For the study, researchers analyzed data that tracked more than 34,700 people for seven and a half years on averaged from the time that the first received prescriptions for either an anti-anxiety or hypnotic drug.

Benzodiazepines were the most commonly prescribed drug class, including diazepam and temazepam.

"The study also examined the effects of two other groups of drugs; the so-called 'Z-drugs' and all other anxiolytic and hypnotic drugs. Many patients received more than one drug over the course of the study, and 5% received prescriptions for drugs from all three groups," researchers said in a statement.

The study accounted for other factors such as age, smoking and alcohol use, other prescriptions and socioeconomic status. Researchers also controlled for contributing risk factors such as sleep disorders, anxiety disorders and other psychiatric illness in all participants.

"That's not to say that they cannot be effective," Weich said. "But particularly due to their addictive potential we need to make sure that we help patients to spend as little time on them as possible and that we consider other options, such as cognitive behavioral therapy, to help them to overcome anxiety or sleep problems."

The findings were published in BMJ.

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