As if America weren’t globular enough already, now you can get fat off sleeping pills.

“The sleeping pill Ambien seems to unlock a primitive desire to eat in some patients…the drug’s users sometimes sleepwalk into their kitchens, claw through their refrigerators like animals and consume calories ranging into the thousands,” reports the New York Times.

A night nurse who took the drug describes one such experience. “One day,” she said, “I got up
my husband describes this in great detail
I got a package of hamburger buns and I just tore it open like a grizzly bear and just stood there and ate the whole package.”

So you can’t sleep and you take Ambien. But you get fat from sleep eating so you take diet pills. Then you’re depressed and anxious about your sleep disorder and weight gain and embarrassed about your new chemical dependency. So you take some Xanax.

Then one day, you eat an Altoid. All the drugs in your body chain reaction and you transmogrify into a tiny pill, clattering to the floor. Pfizer collects the capsule and prescribes it to immigrants to help them feel more American.

Study Links Ambien Use to Unconscious Food Forays [New York Times]

Want more consumer news? Visit our parent organization, Consumer Reports, for the latest on scams, recalls, and other consumer issues.