Zolpidem has been available for more than 15 years and, in recent years, has had more than 25 million prescriptions yearly in the US alone. Whenever you get this many people taking a drug, you see some of the really unusual side effects showing up which were too rare to appear in the clinical studies. So far, there have only been about 1000 incidences of nighttime binge eating from Zolpidem – which is very rare considering how many people use the insomnia medicine.
But why would an insomnia medicine make you sleep-eat? Researchers have some interesting theories about how Zolpidem does this. The primary theory revolves around the fact that sleep and eating are both instinctual actions which are linked. When you take Zolpidem to induce sleep, the drug also invokes your instinctual urge to eat. Other experts have different theories though. They believe that the nighttime Zolpidem eaters already had a predisposition to binge eating. The Zolpidem just helped bring the problem to light.
There is a mental health condition that may be linked to the unusual Zolpidem side effect: nighttime eating disorder. It occurs when people (generally while awake!) binge eat only at nighttime and only on carbohydrate-rich foods. When you eat carbs, it causes an increase in serotonin, which is the neurotransmitter responsible for making us feel content. It is thought that nighttime eating disorder may be the body’s way of self-medicating against low serotonin.
A few incidences of sleep eating form Zolpidem may not mean that you have to stop taking the medicine. Instead, your doctor may recommend that you follow steps to avoid the activities. You should keep a strict sleep schedule as this can help stop the unusual activities (and also help your insomnia). You may also need to call in family or friends to monitor your nighttime activities to make sure you don’t cause yourself any harm from the nighttime effects of Zolpidem.