Read This If You Take Melatonin To Sleep At Night

Melatonin is a very popular sleep aid. It's naturally produced in your body. You don't need a prescription for it and can buy it in gummy form or in a fruity drink. But is it as effective and safe as we think? Natural melatonin, a hormone produced by the pineal gland, helps humans fall asleep -- and synthetic melatonin has been available as a sleep aid for nearly three decades. But the synthetic version's effects have not been extensively studied, and since it's classified as a "dietary supplement," it is almost completely unregulated by the FDA. As we mark World Sleep Day, which promotes the prevention and management of sleep disorders, it's important to take a closer look at this common supplement. "Any person in the sleep world will tell you the same thing: melatonin is not harmless, is vastly overused and should not be used as a sleep aid to treat insomnia," Michael Grandner, a sleep researcher at the University of Arizona, told The Huffington Post. Melatonin is meant to reset the body's internal clock -- for example, it's appropriate to use the supplement to counter the effects of jet lag, or help someone sleep if they have an unusual work schedule or suffer from a circadian rhythm disorder. It should not be used for general insomnia.  The proper dosage, according to a seminal 2001 study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is 0.3 milligrams. The research was conducted by Richard Wurtman, who pioneered the phar...
Source: Science - The Huffington Post - Category: Science Source Type: news