The role of benzodiazepines in nonpsychiatric medical practice.

The benzodiazepines are widely prescribed by many physicians for patients with depression, anxiety reaction, circulatory disorders, digestive disorders, tension headache, and pain in chest and back. According to various studies there is reason to believe that benzodiazepines not only possess the anxiolytic effects universally attributed to them but may also ameliorate somatic complaints affecting such systems as the cardiovascular and the gastrointestinal. twhether the bensodiazepines affect organ systems known to be linked in important pathophysiological ways to the nervous system deserves further study.