A new study conducted by researchers at the University of Rochester Medical School may offer new hope for finally getting a good night’s sleep for women who suffer from insomnia due to hot flashes and other factors during menopause.

The research focuses on the drug Gabapentin, which is most commonly prescribed to treat seizures. The Rochester group had already demonstrated that if the drug was prescribed to menopausal women the incidence of hot flashes was decreased overall. Their new work however demonstrates a noticeable improvement in sleep quality for these women too if they take Gabapentin.

Scientists estimate that about 40% of menopausal women experience some degree of troublesome sleep disturbance, ranging from an inability to fall asleep in the first place to frequent unexplained night time awakenings.

For their study researchers used data culled from a previously published study of 59 postmenopausal women who participated in a double blind, placebo controlled study of the effects of Gabapentin. Subjects were either given a 300 milligram dose of the drug three times daily or a placebo.

Researchers used the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, a well known and validated sleep survey, to evaluate these women’s sleep quality. The results demonstrated an overall increase of the quality of the sleep experienced by the group of women taking Gabapentin , even after a full twelve weeks of treatment.

The lead author of the article was Michael E. Yurcheshen, M.D., assistant professor of Neurology at the University Of Rochester Medical School. He admits that he and his team are yet to understand why Gabapentin has this beneficial effect, but thinks that the common use of this drug for menopausal women can only prove to be beneficial. “Gabapentin improves sleep quality but does not have the potential dependency problems of some other sleep medications and does not involve the use of hormone replacement therapy, “he said “It has minimal side effects and it is a generic drug. That makes it a very attractive treatment for these problems in this patient population.”

The researchers of the University of Rochester have previously completed some of the most comprehensive work on menopausal issues undertaken in the United States, inclusing another study that was able to demonstrate that the use of Ganbapentin by women being treated for breast cancer reduced the number of cancer treatment induced hot flashes, a common problem amongst many breast cancer patients, not just those who are menopausal.