Posted on 04/09/2013 6:43:34 PM PDT by neverdem
Insomniacs desperate for some zzzs may one day have a safer way to get them. Scientists have developed a new sleep medication that has induced sleep in rodents and monkeys without apparently impairing cognition, a potentially dangerous side effect of common sleep aids. The discovery, which originated in work explaining narcolepsy, could lead to a new class of drugs that help people who don't respond to other treatments.
Between 10% and 15% of Americans chronically struggle with getting to or staying asleep. Many of them turn to sleeping pills for relief, and most are prescribed drugs, such as zolpidem (Ambien) and eszopiclone (Lunesta), that slow down the brain by binding to receptors for GABA, a neurotransmitter that's involved in mood, cognition, and muscle tone. But because the drugs target GABA indiscriminately, they can also impair cognition, causing amnesia, confusion, and other problems with learning and memory, along with a number of strange sleepwalking behaviors, including wandering, eating, and driving while asleep. This has led many researchers to seek out alternative mechanisms for inducing sleep.
Neuroscientist Jason Uslaner of Merck Research Laboratories in West Point, Pennsylvania, and colleagues decided to tap into the brain's orexin system. Orexin (also known as hypocretin) is a protein that controls wakefulness and is missing in people with narcolepsy. Past studies successfully induced sleep by inhibiting orexin, but had not looked into its effects on cognition. The researchers developed a new orexin-inhibiting compound called DORA-22 and confirmed that it could induce sleep in rats and rhesus monkeys as effectively as the GABA-modulating drugs.
Then the researchers went about testing the drugs' effects on the animals' cognition. They measured the rats' cognition and memory by assessing the rodents' ability to recognize objects. They presented the rats with a new object—say, a cone or a sphere—that the rats then sniffed and explored. Then they took the object away for an hour. After that hour, the rats were exposed to a new object and the one they'd already gotten to know; if the rats remembered, they spent less time checking out the familiar object. With the primates, Uslaner's team tested their ability to match colors on a touchscreen and to pay attention to and identify the origin of a flashing light. In all the cases, the researchers found the GABA-modulating sleeping pills caused both the rats and the primates to respond more slowly and less accurately. Monkeys taking the memory and attention tests, for example, were 20% less accurate on the highest dose of each of the GABA-modulating drugs. But DORA-22 had no such effect on cognition, the team reports today in Science Translational Medicine.
"We were very excited," Uslaner says. "Folks who take sleep medications need to be able to perform cognitive tasks when they awake, and this [compound] could help them do so without impairment."
Although DORA-22 has not yet been tested in humans, it holds tremendous promise for helping people suffering from sleep disorders, says Emmanuel Mignot, a sleep researcher with the Stanford University School of Medicine in Palo Alto, California. "This study is encouraging and exciting, because there's good reason to believe it would work differently from what we've used in the past," says Mignot, who helped discover the link between orexin (or its absence) and narcolepsy. "Not every drug works for everyone, so it's really, really good news to have a potential new drug on the horizon."
Do not take as tea other wise you will be up half the night swilling mouthwash to get rid of the taste.
But in pills or capsule form it works great.
Melatonin.
++++++++
I agree. Safe, effective and non-addictive. IMHO, time release is best.
Very interesting about honey — new information to me.
I have been using up to 10 mg of melatonin — including time release — definitely helps but still will wake up and stay awake way too early.
Diphenhydramine (generic Benedryl) helps as well but lasts only three hours. I must metabolize it quickly. Even so, it seems to “come back” like 10 AM and make me groggy - not good.
Same story with the antihistimine sleep-aid doxylamine succinate — somewhat stronger for me than Benedryl but pretty much the same story. I don’t want to be comatose, just asleep until the proper time.
So back to honey — the link with cortisol (stress hormone) makes perfect sense. I really do feel stressed out when lying there not sleeping. In fact, that is the most tiring part of the day when you can’t sleep.
So does “RAW and UNFILTERED” honey have to be purchased out at the bee farm or can you find it in stores?
Melatonin or Low Dose Naltroxene works great.
2 drops lavender essential oil.
100% natural and you’ll sleep so deeply that your dreams will be like something out of: “The Teachings of Don Juan”.
My thanks, too.
Good stuff, but does it ever give you wild dreams?
Your grocery store may actually have the Raw and Unfiltered kind, check the labels. Otherwise, there is a Honey Locator on this website: (scroll down a bit)
Try mullein tea.
Mullein is a common, easily identifiable weed with a long herbal history.
The FDA judges it safe, though doesn’t evaluate any health claims for it.
Personally, Ive found it a great expectorant and a mild sleep aid.
You are welcome. As per your question, you can find it in many places. I buy mine at the health food store in the winter and at the farmer’s market in the summer. Some grocery chains carry it in their natural food sections but it is more expensive. Raw honey is safe for diabetics because it does not spike your insulin like processed honey.
Wife is Type II — may have application there also although she sleeps like a baby.
Yes it is a good sweetener for diabetics and so is stevia. Artificial sweeteners are not good for anybody.
Anyway, I forgot to mention that you should not heat the honey in any way or it loses some of the benefits. Use it in tea for the taste but I would just take a plain tablespoon for sleep.
I would have heated the honey in tea first thing LOL. We do have stevia — Believe it or not I bought it the first time because it is like my name. Real scientific there.
heroine
Yes!
A bath with magnesium flakes in it will do it every time. If you can’t afford mag flakes, use Epsom salts. Their effect won’t last as long. But our bodies are crying out for magnesium and it relaxes you and gives great sleep.
Think of a heroine? What a great idea... beats counting sheep by a mile!
Let's see... Sarah Palin... Michelle Bachmann... Margaret Thatcher...
No but I have had the waking up in the middle if the night happen to me. Trying the honey tonight.
I have been having the same thing lately, but I am up at 0300 for about 30-60 minutes and then back to sleep. Never equated it with the melatonin. Trying honey tonight.
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