A Surprising Vegetable Approach to Insomnia

Lactucin, the hypnotic component of lettuce, is put to the test in a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of lettuce seeds.

“There is a perception that time spent asleep is time wasted,” but it’s widely recognized that insufficient sleep is linked to multiple acute and chronic conditions and increases the risks of death and disease.

As I discuss in my video Natural Dietary Remedy for Insomnia, forcing people to get only six hours of sleep per night for one week can change the expression of more than 700 genes. The most dire effect may be endothelial dysfunction. The endothelium is the thin layer of cells that lines the inside of blood vessels and is responsible for allowing our arteries to relax and dilate properly. Randomizing people to get five instead of seven hours of sleep for about a week results in a significant impairment in artery function from just that two-hour nightly difference.

How bad is a week of getting only five hours a night? Sleep deprivation is no joke. “The magnitude of impairment…is similar to that reported in people who smoke, or have diabetes, or who have coronary artery disease.” No wonder people who sleep less than seven hours a night may experience a 12% to 35% increased risk of premature death compared to those who get a full seven hours. Yet a significant portion of the population—28% of adults in the United States, for instance—may routinely get less than that. “Sufficiently long, restful sleep sessions each night are an indisputable cornerstone of good health.” So, what can we do about it?

Those who have sleep apnea, a common consequence of obesity that interferes with sleep, benefit from the use of CPAP machines while they’re losing weight to hopefully treat the underlying cause. But what if apnea isn’t your problem? What if you just have trouble falling asleep or staying asleep? In my book How Not to Diet, there’s a whole section on sleep enhancement, where I go through the Four Rules of Sleep Conditioning and the Four Rules of Sleep Hygiene, as you can see below and at 2:04 in my video. What if you follow those guidelines but still can’t get to sleep? Are there any natural dietary remedies?

I’ve previously talked about using kiwifruit and tart cherries to fight insomnia. Are there any vegetables that might help? Lactuca sativa is a plant that has traditionally been used to treat insomnia. What is this exotic-sounding leafy vegetable? Lettuce! Evidently, lettuce extracts have been used for their sedative and sleep-inducing properties since the Roman Empire. Lettuce actually does have a hypnotic substance in it called lactucin, which is what makes lettuce taste a little bitter. But you don’t know if it actually works until you put it to the test.

And it does work…in toads. It also works in rodents. Sleep for both mice and rats is enhanced by romaine lettuce. Researchers used romaine since it has a higher lactucin content compared to other lettuces.

But does it work in people? About 10 years ago, a study was published in which insomnia sufferers were randomized to receive lettuce seed oil, which is oil extracted from lettuce seeds. Within a week, about 70% of those in the lettuce seed oil group said their insomnia “very much or much improved,” compared to just 20% in the placebo control group. The researchers concluded that lettuce seed oil was found to be a useful, safe sleeping aid in geriatric patients with sleeping difficulties. They chose to study older individuals because insomnia affects about 20% to 40% of older adults at least a few nights a month.

You think that’s a lot? Sleep disturbances can plague as many as nearly 8 out of 10 women during pregnancy. Of course, there are lots of different sleeping pills, but they may endanger the fetus or mother. For example, doctors frequently prescribe Ambien for pregnant women who have trouble sleeping, but Ambien use is associated with a wide range of adverse pregnancy outcomes, such as low-birth-weight babies, premature birth, and cesarean section. And the use of valium during pregnancy has been linked to birth defects including limb deficiencies. There has to be a better way. What about trying lettuce?

The lettuce seed oil study had a number of limitations. For example, it was only single-blind, meaning the researchers knew who was on the lettuce supplements and who was on placebo, which could have introduced some bias. But the researchers essentially said, Give us a break. Big pharma has billions to spend on research. No one wants to fund studies on lettuce.

However, researchers finally performed a double-blind, placebo-controlled study, but this time on a whole food, not just a lettuce seed extract. But how does one come up with a placebo lettuce? How is it possible to hide who gets lettuce and who doesn’t? Well, a head of lettuce can’t fit into a capsule, but whole lettuce seeds can. In a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial on lettuce seeds for pregnancy-related insomnia, 100 pregnant women with insomnia were randomized to receive capsules containing either a quarter teaspoon of ground lettuce seeds or a placebo for two weeks. Those on the lettuce seeds saw a significant improvement in a sleep quality index score compared to placebo with no reported side effects.

Doctor’s Note

The insomnia videos I mentioned are Kiwifruit for Insomnia and Tart Cherries for Insomnia.

For the Four Rules of Sleep Conditioning and the Four Rules of Sleep Hygiene, go to your local public library or independent bookstore and pick up How Not to Diet. (All proceeds I receive from my books are donated to charity.)