The bottle in the bedside drawer

There is a tub of melatonin gummies in a lot of bedside drawers, brought back from the States or ordered in after a bad fortnight. Half the internet says it will shut down your own production. The other half says it will fix your sleep. Neither holds up, and one of them costs you money.

The fear doesn't hold up well. In a long-term study, people took prolonged-release melatonin for six to twelve months. When they stopped there was no rebound insomnia and no withdrawal, and in the fifteen whose own overnight output was measured a fortnight later, it looked normal for their age. The study was paid for by the tablet's maker, so it supports the point rather than settling it.

Now the hope, which is the costlier error. Across nineteen trials, melatonin helped people fall asleep about seven minutes sooner. It is a clock signal, the body's way of announcing nightfall, rather than a sedative, which is why it rarely feels like it is doing much. Its place is narrow: jet lag, shift work, a genuinely delayed body clock, at a low dose, timed a few hours before bed and well away from food.

Two facts sit underneath. In the US, where it sells over the counter, one analysis found twenty-two of twenty-five gummy products mislabelled, holding between 74 and 347 per cent of the stated dose. In the UK it is a prescription-only medicine, and much of Europe restricts it too, a regulator's judgement rather than a marketing one.

Strong EvidenceRead the entry: Melatonin, a clock signal worth skipping for most people→

---

We do not sell supplements and we run no affiliate links, so telling you a popular one is worth about seven minutes earns us nothing.

If melatonin has genuinely helped you, or your doctor has you on it for a reason, I would like to hear how that has gone. Write to me and it comes straight to me.

General information, not medical advice. Melatonin interacts with common medications, including the antidepressant fluvoxamine, warfarin and other anticoagulants, some blood pressure drugs, sedatives and diabetes medication. If you are pregnant or breastfeeding, considering it for a child, or already taking it most nights, speak to your GP or pharmacist before changing anything.

Martin