Sleep-aid drugs are much more dangerous than most people realize

The Big Sleep

“Never again!” That was the reaction of my friend Marcy after she tried Ambien to help her sleep.

Why never again? It wasn’t because of a bad reaction. Just the opposite. Marcy went to sleep quickly, slept well, and didn’t feel groggy the next day.

The problem, she said, was the last few minutes, just before she fell to sleep. She suddenly had a euphoric all-is-right-with-the-world feeling.

The next day she said, “Never again,” because when she found herself looking forward to bedtime and another dose of Ambien, she was suddenly afraid she might get hooked on chasing that feeling.

She’s lucky. A lot of people would not have the presence of mind or willpower to reject a nightly moment of joy followed by a long, sound sleep.

But the REAL problem here is something hidden that almost no one might suspect. Using a drug to kick-start a good night’s sleep might lead to the kind of sleep you definitely don’t want to rush into: the Big Sleep.

Counting hypnotic sheep

Two years ago I told you about a study that found a link between the regular use of sedative sleep-aid drugs and a 36 percent increased risk of death during the study period. Since then, we’ve learned about numerous studies that reveal a higher risk of early death in subjects who use sleeping pills compared to those who do not.

This disturbing trend comes into sharp focus with a new study published in the British Medical Journal.

For two and a half years, researchers tracked about 10,500 subjects who took a wide range of “hypnotic” sleep-aids, ranging from Ambien to Lunesta, and from barbiturates to sedative antihistamines.

All of those subjects were matched for age, gender, smoking status, body mass index, marital status, prior cancer, and other factors with a group of more than 23,600 subjects who didn’t use sleep aids.

The results are shocking.

Subjects who took a hypnotic sleep-aid more than 132 times each year were FIVE TIMES more likely to die during the study period. And those who took between 18 and 132 doses each year were four times more likely to die.

Those are deeply troubling results. But here’s the one I found most frightening: Subjects who took just 18 or fewer doses per year were more than 3.5 times more likely to die.

A risk that high from such modest use is just stunning!

And then there’s cancer. As if all these elevated risks of premature mortality weren’t enough, the study also showed a significantly higher risk of a variety of cancers in hypnotic drug users — especially in those who consistently took these drugs week after week.

The saddest thing about all this is that there are many ways to curb insomnia and other sleep problems without resorting to drugs. Daily exercise is helpful. And years ago, when I was having trouble sleeping, I invested in an excellent mattress, took the television out of the bedroom, and the quality of my sleep improved immediately.

But here’s the real kicker: As I’ve mentioned before, a review of several different sleep studies showed that, on average, subjects who took sleep-aids slept about 11 additional minutes per night.

Putting your life in jeopardy in exchange for just a few extra minutes of sleep is a risk-benefit ratio that could hardly be more lopsided or more heartbreaking.

Are you paying attention, FDA? It’s time to treat this class of drugs the way you would treat a dietary supplement that sharply increased death risk.

Shut it down.

Sources:
“Hypnotics’ association with mortality or cancer: a matched cohort study” BMJ Open, Vol. 2, No. 1, February 2012, bmjopen.bmj.com

“Common sleeping pills linked to more than fourfold increased risk of death” BMJ-British Medical Journal press release, 2/27/12, eurekalert.org