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Sleep meds work, but hardly at all A perspective article in the New England Journal of Medicine offered some eye-opening insight into the effectiveness of a couple of insomnia drugs. As it turns out, they don't work much better than a placebo. The heavily advertised Lunesta, which was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2004, caused people to fall asleep only 15 minutes sooner than a placebo and increased total sleep time by only 37 minutes. More importantly, patients reported no meaningful improvement in next-day alertness or functioning- despite the extra half-hour of sleep. And they still met the criteria for having insomnia. However, those important bits of information are not included on the drug's label. In 2007, Sepracor, the drug's maker, spent $750,000 a day marketing the medication directly to consumers. Rozerem, which was approved in 2005, isn't any better. Young adults who took the drug fell asleep on average 14 minutes sooner and older adults, seven minutes faster. Patients reported no improvement in total sleep time or sleep quality. And there was no decrease in the number of people with insomnia. A lack of important informaiton on drug labels is a critical problem, according to the authors. "FDA approval does not mean that a drug works well; it means only that the agency deemed its benefits outweigh its harms," wrote Lisa Schwartz and Steven Woloshin of the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice. Dr. Cinque's comments: They didn't mention Ambien, which is the best-selling sleep drug today, but all of the sleep drugs are a waste of time and money, and worse than that, they are causing a lot of danger and harm. Taking sleeping pills is a Piper's song if there ever was one. Don't be tempted by it. It's no solution to your problem. Build your sleep naturally through nutrition, exercise, sunlight, mental work, and if you are going to take something, take safe, natural supplements, such as Melatonin, Lemon Balm, and Theanine. These supplements are not going to hurt you, and they are not going to interfere with normal, natural sleep the way drugs do. And, normal, natural sleep is exactly what you want. You're not looking for drug-induced narcosis. Sleep is every bit as much about quality as it is about quantity. Even a few hours of natural sleep will refresh you more than 6 or 8 hours of drug-induced stupor, which is all those drugs can deliver. Just stay away from them. I know M.D.s who refuse to prescribe any of those drugs. And I respect those doctors a lot. E-mail to a friend Previous Article Next Article |
