Sleep aids are some of the most popular medications in the UK. Whether in over-the-counter or prescription forms, millions of people rely on them to whisk them away to dreamland. But just how safe are these pills?
Yes, we have all read those tiny words on the bottle: May be habit forming. But what exactly does that mean? To answer this question, let us take a quick look back at the history of sleeping aids.
The very first sleeping pills were barbiturates, and they were not only extremely effective, but also highly addictive . But because doctors had deemed them safe, tens of thousands of people became addicted to them. Some of them even died after overdoses.
So, when physicians finally discovered just how dangerous these sleeping aids were, they decided to back a new class of drugs. They were called benzodiazepines and they were believed to be non-habit forming. The most popular drug from this class is Valium.
Due in a large part to the success of drugs like Valium, doctors started to prescribe benzodiazepines to nearly every patient they encountered who complained of a sleep disorder. And guess what? Decades later, it was discovered that benzodiazepines are actually addictive too.
Today, we have a new gaggle of soporifics, most of which belong to the imidazopyridines class of drugs. And not surprisingly, physicians are once again promising the public that these pills are most certainly, most assuredly, one-hundred percent not addictive. Only time will tell if they got this one right for once.