So Who Is Using Sleeping Pills? Lots of people – especially people not prescribed them. According to the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (reported in the BBC), a full third of adult Britons complain of insomnia. Fully half of these insomniacs take prescription sleeping pills their doctors don’t know about. Thirty percent take them for at least […]
Safe to drink? With the FDA moving on Lazy Cakes, what’s up with relaxation drinks? (8/3/11)
Generally Recognized as Safe When drugs as marketed to foods, people get hurt. That’s what the FDA concluded about Lazy Cakes, a melatonin laced brownie sold as “adults only” but marketed to kids and teens. Michael Roosevelt of the FDA send a warning letter last week to HBB, maker of Lazy Cakes, declaring the “relaxation […]
Relaxation Drinks – cause for anxiety? (7/29/11)
Immediate and Ultimate Relaxation? Any idea what’s in that can you’re drinking? In a wired up nation worried about multiple wars, fiscal collapse, disappearing jobs, hurricanes and floods, global climate change and the Casey Anthony trial results, it’s no surprise that people want to relax. Into that “perceived need” have jumped “relaxation drinks,” presently numbering […]
Sleep in a can (7/11/11)
Why Do We Have Relaxation Drinks? Americans are pretty wired up these days, and getting enough sleep is tough. Close to 40% complain of insomnia making them too tired to fully function (http://www.jhsph.edu/healthymonday/2011/03072011_sleep.html), perhaps 5-10% of the population is presently suffering significant depression (http://userpages.umbc.edu/~marcotte/depression%20prevalence.pdf), and many millions more complain of high levels of anxiety – […]
Banned in Arkansas – Lazy Cakes are off the shelves (5/23/11)
Regulators Begin Actions on Drugs as Foods Lazy Cakes, a brownie filled with now 7.8 mg of melatonin, unknown amounts of valerian root and other “herbal” drugs, was banned last week by the Arkansas Department of Health. It also facing a ban in Fall River and New Bedford, Massachusetts. When I wrote about Lazy Cakes […]