MELATONIN
Melatonin is a hormone produced by the tiny pineal gland in the center of the brain and, in ways that are not understood, tells the body when to fall asleep and when to wake up. The brain makes a large amount at night and very little during the day. Melatonin has been linked with changes in mood, performance, fatigue, sleep patterns, and biological rhythms. Levels in the body are affected by light and darkness, temperature, and other factors.
Minute doses of 3 mg. or so are being used to improve sleep patterns and to help jet lag sufferers to reset their biological clocks.
Josephine Arendt, Ph.D., of the University of Surrey in Guildford, England, told a meeting of the Society for Light Treatment and Biological Rhythms in Betheseda, Md., in June 1996 that the most appropriate use for melatonin is for regulation of the sleep-wake schedule.
Jet lag is the most studied of these, and, since low dosages are given for short times, it may be among the safest uses of melatonin, reports the Journal of the American Medical Association. (oct.2,1996;276(13): 1012)
In 10 years of jet lag studies, Arendt has given healthy, nonpregnant volunteers up to 5 mg per day of melatonin for no more than seven days. She has consistently found that this prevents or reduces jet lag symptoms more effectively than a placebo. The only adverse side effect, she says, is that about 8 in 100 people are groggy after taking the 5mg dose.
