Progress Toward an Ideal Sleeping Pill.

Thirty percent of Americans report insomnia. After eliminating obvious causes, the best therapy for insomnia is cognitive behavioral therapy, but this is not widely available. However, all the known oral sleeping aides are generally unsatisfactory. Recently, a new class of safe, nonaddicting, mechanism-based hypocretin blockers have been developed. Herein we review the information not only for insomnia but also for narcolepsy.