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 on 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,

in the U.S., you never know what you're going to be getting.

An analysis of 31 different brands of melatonin supplements found that the actual melatonin

content varied up to nearly 500% compared to what was listed on the bottle.

Even within a single brand, different lots of the same product suffered similar variability.

Given that there's no guarantee of the strength or purity of melatonin supplements,

many countries have banned over-the-counter melatonin,

making it prescription only so authenticity could be ensured.

U.S. citizens can get certified melatonin by sending a prescription to an online Canadian

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