Word: tasimelteon
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...Pill. An experimental drug, tasimelteon, has been successful in helping people reset their body clocks and beat jet lag, in clinical trials. The drug hasn't been federally approved yet, but you may find similar benefits in taking melatonin - tasimelteon mimics that naturally occurring hormone...
...drug, tasimelteon, works by mimicking the effects of the naturally occurring hormone melatonin, which has long been identified as the regulator of the body's sleep and wake patterns. In Phase II and III clinical trials of 450 people who were subjected to simulated jet lag in a sleep laboratory (participants were forced to go to bed at 6 p.m. and wake up at 2 a.m.), a team from Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston found that the new drug restored near normal sleep the first night it was used. In one arm of the study, participants taking...
Melatonin, which is available over the counter in pill form, is a known treatment for jet lag, but the substance can't be patented, leading drug companies like Vanda Pharmaceuticals, the maker of tasimelteon, to rush to develop drugs that imitate it. Dr. Irshaad Ebrahim, medical director of the London Sleep Centre, says the recent study, published Dec. 2 in the journal The Lancet, confirms what experts already know. "I'm not sure this adds anything. Melatonin itself can be quite effective on its own. So, of course, something that mimics melatonin would show promising results," he says...
Melatonin, as well as its analogs, have the added advantage of being less addictive and safer than other sleep-inducing medications. (The current study reported no immediate adverse effects of tasimelteon, though participants were not examined the following day.) In recent years, the popular prescription sleep aid Ambien, for example, has been linked to a range of bizarre sleepwalking incidents, including air rage. In a high-profile case in London in 2002, REM guitarist Peter Buck was cleared of assault and drunkenness charges stemming from his destructive rampage aboard a British Airways flight, after successfully claiming that his Ambien pill...
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