To print: Select File and then Print from your browser's menu --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Title: DG DISPATCH - ECNP: New Sleeping Pill Hailed As Businessman's Friend URL: http://www.pslgroup.com/dg/1316A6.htm Doctor's Guide September 23, 1999
By Cameron Johnston Special to DG News
LONDON,UK -- September 23, 1999 -- It could be just the drug that any businessperson who does frequent long-haul flights has been waiting for. It puts you to sleep by the time the "fasten-your-seatbelt" light goes off, but it wears off within a few hours, and doesn't leave you feeling like you've got a jumbo-jet sized hang-over.
"When you're going to take something to fall asleep on a plane, almost anything will help you fall asleep," said Dr. Martin Scharf, a pharmacologist who is also director of the Tri-State Sleep Disorders clinic in Cincinnati, Ohio. "The question is, will you remember anything when you wake up."
Dr. Scharf presented his findings dealing with the drug Sonata (zaleplon, Wyeth-Ayerst) at the annual meeting of the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ECNP), being held in London, UK, this week.
Zaleplon, he explained, is a novel type of hypnotic medication initially developed to treat insomnia. However, because of its rapid onset of action, and then its ability to wear off so quickly (within four hours) it will also have an important application for businesspeople who cross many time zones and are plagued by jetlag.
Dr. Scharf said zaleplon is not like the earlier drug triazolam (Halcion, Upjohn) which was also used by travelers to put them to sleep quickly but had such long lasting effects that the travelers were virtually paralyzed and unable to function when they woke up. So many cases of businessmen arriving at their destinations and not knowing where they were have been reported that the expression "global amnesia" soon popped up to describe the memory loss that those people experienced.
According to Dr. Scharf, patients in one zaleplon study were wakened 90 minutes after taking the drug, given a word recall test, and then allowed to go back to sleep until morning. When they awakened in the morning, they were able to recall the words on the list with no impairment.
"When you start testing virtually any other type of compound at peak blood levels - this has been demonstrated with most of those other sleeping pills -significant memory impairment was there," Dr. Scharf said in an interview.
In two clinical studies, zaleplon was compared with both placebo and flurazepam, another well-known sleeping medication which for a time was the best-selling sleeping pill in the US.
Large numbers of people with sleep disorders would also benefit from zaleplon, he said, adding that anybody who requires more than 20 minutes, or less than five minutes to fall asleep is considered to have a sleep disorder. And while behavioral therapy and relaxation skills would be the ideal means of helping those people develop better sleep habits, this rarely happens because patients and their doctors don't realize that learning those "healthy sleep" skills may take weeks of practice.
Fully half of the people who have defined insomnia also have significant psychiatric disorders, primarily depression, he said. Psychiatrists are often reluctant to treat insomnia with medications because it represents the beginning of the cycle of drug use, potential abuse, dependency and withdrawal.
Zaleplon represents a drug that can safely be used not just in the treatment, but in the management of acute insomnia, he added.
Dr. Scharf recommended that zaleplon not be used as a regular sleeping aid because it could potentially become habit forming, although not strictly speaking addictive. It should only be used as rescue medication when a person absolutely cannot sleep, he said.
It's important to note that people who have used zaleplon over longer periods of time do not develop "rebound insomnia" when they stop taking the drug, he added. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright © 1999 P\S\L Consulting Group Inc. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of P\S\L content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of P\S\L. P\S\L shall not be liable for any errors, omissions or delays in this content or any other content on its sites, newsletters or other publications, nor for any decisions or actions taken in reliance on such content. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This news story was printed from *Doctor's Guide to the Internet* located at http://www.docguide.com --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Return to News Story Page This site is maintained by webmaster@pslgroup.com Please contact us with any comments, problems or bugs. All contents Copyright (c) 1998 P\S\L Consulting Group Inc. All rights reserved.