FDA Strengthens Warnings on Sleeping Pills

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Jacobs also said he thinks the number of people who experience sleep-behavior side effects is underreported "because many people don't remember having them."

"In my practice, 10 percent of people who take sleeping pills have reported some kind of side effects that involve amnesia. The only way they know it is that a family member tells them about it," he said. "If somebody lives on their own, they don't know it."

More than 20 million Americans suffer from chronic insomnia, which is defined as poor sleep every night or most nights for more than six months, according to the American Insomnia Association.

According to Consumer Reports, pharmacists filled 43 million prescriptions for sleep drugs in 2005, a 32 percent increase from 2001. Prescription insomnia medications brought pharmaceutical companies more than $2.7 billion in 2005.

More information

For more information on sleep disorders, visit the U.S. National Library of Medicine.