Fitness & Health

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28th February 2012
09:17am GMT

If you sometimes need to take a sleeping pill in order to help you nod off, you might want to read this. New research has revealed that sleeping pills could be a lot more dangerous than we think.
The Irish Independent reports that hundreds of thousands of people who take sleeping pills twice a month are nearly four times more likely to die prematurely. Not exactly the best news in the world if you suffer from insomnia every now and then…
The results of the research found that some serious questions need to be asked about the safety of sleeping tablets. Yes, if they’re causing people to die prematurely, we reckon it’s probably a good idea to question these things.
The study, which was published in the journal BMJ Open analysed 10,500 people who were taking a wide-range of sleeping pills. People who took sleeping pills were compared with people who didn’t use the drugs but had a similar lifestyle and health conditions to the people who did.
People who were taking pills that contained higher doses of the drug tamazepam were six times more likely to die in the next two and a half years.
For people who were taking pills that contained the drug zolpidem, the risk of death was 5.7 times higher.
The study also revealed that sleeping pills, also known as ‘hypnotics,’ can increase depression and impair everyday skills such as driving. The authors of the study believe that the drugs may be linked to up to 507,000 deaths in America.
Do you occasionally take sleeping pills to help you doze off? It might be time to try alternative methods to get some sleep. We hear lavender oil on the pillow is supposed to be a great help…
Here’s why you feel exhausted all the time

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