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New Insomnia Medication Found Effective

Posted on: Saturday, 25 October 2003, 06:00 CDT

HealthDayNews -- A new drug called eszopiclone (trade name Estorra) works in treating long-term insomnia, says a study in the Nov. 1 issue of Sleep.

During the six-month study, led by Duke University Medical Center, the drug was given nightly to patients with chronic insomnia. The patients taking the drug showed significant improvement in their ability to fall asleep and to stay asleep. They also experienced better quality of sleep.

There was no evidence of loss of drug effectiveness over time, the study says.

The improvement in sleep achieved by the patients taking the drug were associated with consistent improvements in the patients' ratings of their capacity to function well during the day.

This is the first time that any sleep medication has been shown to consistently improve all the components that define insomnia.

The double-blind, placebo-controlled study included 788 people aged 21 to 69. Those taking the drug were given 3 milligrams a night of eszopiclone.

"I believe that this study is a milestone for research into insomnia treatments," lead author Dr. Andrew Krystal, an associate professor of psychiatry and director of the Sleep Research Laboratory and Insomnia Clinic at Duke, says in a prepared statement.

"It greatly extends the period of time that a medication has been definitively shown to help people suffering from insomnia and it establishes that studies of longer-term drug treatment of insomnia are not only feasible but can be safely performed," he says.

Prior to this study, the longest large-scale, placebo-controlled study of a sleep medication for insomnia lasted five weeks.

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