Have you ever wondered if there are more natural ways to lower your high blood pressure,

guard against Alzheimer's, loose weight, feel better?

Well, it turns out there is.

Welcome to the Nutrition Facts podcast.

I'm your host, Dr. Michael Greger.

Did you know the secretion of melatonin appears to progressively decline with age,

dropping as much as 70 percent to a middle age and older age?

Here's our first story.

Some experts recommend melatonin as a first-line agent to treat insomnia in older adults.

The world's sleep society disagrees due to its low efficacy.

Subjectively, people report better sleep, though objectively, a meta-analysis of studies

found that melatonin only helped people get to sleep four minutes faster and extended

overall sleep duration by about 13 minutes.

If you do want to try melatonin to help with sleep, older adults are advised to use

the smallest effective dose, an hour before bedtime, starting perhaps at 0.3 milligrams.

The 12 milligrams supplements in the market could produce levels in the bloodstream that

can be 200 times higher than normal nightly levels,

which raises safety concerns.

After all, melatonin used to be known as the anti-gonad hormone,

with humanocleven doses of just a milligram or two,

reducing the size of sex organs and impairing fertility in laboratory animals.

Furthermore, due to poor regulation of dietary supplements,

...