Summary: Insomnia turning into a nightly routine? Scientists believe that a new drug, DORA-22, could be the answer to your sleepless nights.Tossing and turning, countless sleep remedies that never seem to work, watching the clock pass hour by hour... is insomnia turning into a nightly routine? You're not alone. Recent research shows that 10-15% of Americans chronically struggle with falling and staying asleep. Many people turn to sleep aids for relief, but these drugs have the risk of addiction, sleepwalking, sleep eating and immediate impairment of memory. Americans spend around $14 billion annually on sleep aids; the two most common are Ambien and Lunesta. However, these inhibitors have given doctors new reasons to create a safer drug that causes no side effects. Enter DORA-22, a sleeping aid still in the infancy stages of research that focuses more on orexin, a neurotransmitter that regulates wakefulness, appetite and arousal. DORA-22 differs from the drugs used in Ambien and Lunesta that concentrate on GABA, the neurotransmitter that involves mood, cognition and muscle tone. Even though DORA-22 hasn't been tested on humans yet, scientists have conducted research on animals and have strong belief that this could be the answer to your sleepless nights. Dr. Shelby Harris, director of the Behavioral Sleep Medicine Program at the Sleep-Wake Disorders center and an assistant professor of neurology and psychiatry at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine discusses the new sleeping pill that promises no side effects.
