Nocturnal eating -- literally eating while still asleep -- could be a side effect of the sleep medication Ambien.
Salt Sandwiches
The sleep eating can include bizarre foods such as buttered cigarettes, salt sandwiches, and raw bacon.
It can also cause people to gain weight; one woman gained over 100 pounds while on Ambien. Others have cut themselves while trying to chop up food in their sleep.
Ambien, which is made by Sanofi-Aventis, made over $2 billion last year, with more than 26 million prescriptions written for it.
Signs of Sleep Eating
The percentage of people who suffer from the sleep eating side effect is unknown. Signs of sleep eating can include empty food wrappers by the bed, missing food, unexplained weight gain, and the taste of food in your mouth upon waking.
Americans are taking more sleeping pills than ever. Those that are using Ambien may be taking to the road while they're asleep. Not only do patients drive in their sleep thanks to this potentially harmful drug, they can eat food too, and, in some cases, quite a lot of it.
This drug has single handedly created a brand new disease, sleep-eating. Somewhat similar to the side effect for the drugs used for Parkinson's disease, which can cause people to gamble away their life savings.
Sadly, the woman who gained more than 100 pounds since she started her drug regimen is still taking Ambien; but now, she's also taking a second absolutely unnecessary medication to curb those Ambien-induced urges.
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