{"id":1241,"date":"2023-02-08T08:54:10","date_gmt":"2023-02-08T13:54:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/?p=1241"},"modified":"2023-02-08T08:54:10","modified_gmt":"2023-02-08T13:54:10","slug":"melatonin-medicine-myth-or-mischief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/?p=1241","title":{"rendered":"<strong>Melatonin: Medicine, Myth or Mischief<\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The sale of melatonin is a two billion dollar a year business which must mean that a lot of people have trouble sleeping.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sleep is an intricately choreographed neurologic process.&nbsp; Critical to good sleep is the circadian variation of the reticular activating system.&nbsp; Melatonin produced in our brains has a mild modulating effect on our sleep cycle.&nbsp; However, people who have had their pineal gland (a major source of melatonin) removed are able to sleep just fine.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Because melatonin sales are not regulated by the FDA, scientists decided to do controlled studies to determine its potential benefit.&nbsp; Multiple studies comparing melatonin to placebo found the same results.&nbsp; Sleep latency (the time required to fall asleep) was decreased by 7 minutes and total sleep duration was increased by 8 minutes.&nbsp; So, there is a measurable benefit, albeit very modest.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The flip side of the coin is safety.&nbsp; Accidental or purposeful overdoses with melatonin occur in one out of 20 ER visits for overdose.&nbsp; Some children have died or<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>required ventilator support to recover. The other issue is content of the product.&nbsp; Chemical assays of melatonin products have shown that the actual content can vary from 83% lower to 478% higher than what was claimed on the label.&nbsp; One chewable tablet for children contained 9 mg rather than the 1.5 mg noted on the label.&nbsp; Moreover, a quarter of the products sampled contained serotonin (not on the label) in addition to melatonin.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Twenty-five years ago, the science journal \u201c<em>Cell\u201d<\/em> cautioned about melatonin madness.&nbsp; They advised ignoring the hyperbole and histrionics of advertising and instead to focus on sound science.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The sale of melatonin is a two billion dollar a year business which must mean that a lot of people have trouble sleeping.&nbsp; Sleep is an intricately choreographed neurologic process.&nbsp; Critical to good sleep is the circadian variation of the reticular activating system.&nbsp; Melatonin produced in our brains has a mild modulating effect on our sleep cycle.&nbsp; However, people who have had their pineal gland (a major source of melatonin) removed are able to sleep just fine.&nbsp; Because melatonin sales&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"><a class=\"btn btn-default\" href=\"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/?p=1241\"> Read More<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">  Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[600],"class_list":["post-1241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-melatonin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1241"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1241\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1242,"href":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1241\/revisions\/1242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}