CIRCADIAN RHYTHM
Melatonin in the body controls the circadian rhythm so we sleep at night and stay alert during daylight hours. The amount of light that reaches the eyes controls the amount of melatonin the pineal gland produces. Light slows production of the hormone, so on a bright sunny day, we are often alert and filled with energy.
On a dull, cloudy day when the house is full of dark shadows, we become more lethargic and sleepy. When evening falls and the lights go out, the pineal gland increases its production of melatonin. The hormone flows throughout the body and makes us sleepy. People in the northern areas of the world have to adjust to a different rhythm as some of their nights last for weeks. In polar regions, the animals have larger pineal glands to compensate for the many hours of darkness.
JET LAG
Melatonin tablets help reduce the effects of jet lag. Often, after a long flight, jet lag leaves you feeling overwhelmed with fatigue, sluggish, irritable, disoriented or nauseated. By regulating the time your body produces melatonin, you can lessen these symptoms.
MELATONIN BOOKS AND MAGAZINES
All the publicity and hype about melatonin began with a book entitled The Melatonin Miracle, Nature's Age-Reversing, Disease- Fighting, Sex-Enhancing Hormone. The authors, William Regelson, MD, and Walter Pierpaoli, MD, are said to be leading medical researchers and key scientists at the forefront of melatonin research. The book was first published by The National Academy of Science and the New York Academy of Science.
In April of 1996, Pocket Books published The Melatonin Miracle as a mass market paperback. Some readers commented that the book read more like a public relations advertisement for melatonin instead of a scientific treatise on the hormone.
In the fall of 1996, Simon & Schuster published a second book on melatonin by Dr. Regelson entitled Superhormone Promise, Nature's Antidote to Aging. In this book, Regelson claimed that the hormone could reverse aging and extend life expectancy.
In a third book, Melatonin: Nature's Sleeping Pill, written by Ray Sahelian in 1997, the author, an authority on melatonin, attempts to separate the grains of truth from the chaff of hype in the melatonin publicity.
Magazines were quick to jump on the melatonin band wagon. "It's the hot sleeping pill, natural and cheap," Newsweek said in an August 1995 article. However, Salon Magazine, in July 1997 article said, "The hottest new wonder drug since Prozac is not a drug at all, but a mere dietary supplement with absolutely no proven medical applications, according to U.S. Food and Drug Administration."
In an article entitled Melatonin Mania, Scientific American states some critics warn that the high doses of melatonin sometimes found in health food stores could be dangerous to some people. "Many researchers point out," the article continues, "that startling claims made for the substance are unsupported by studies on patients."
In Priorities, the magazine of the American Council on Science and Health, Dr. Victor Herbert and Dr. Ruth Kava call melatonin "the latest in a long series of alternative medicine miracles."
