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It seems as though every time we turn around there is a new health fad, be it a drug, herb or diet. Within the past 10 years the drug melatonin has hit the market and seems to have made quite a splash with the public and the media. At a time when an estimated thirty to forty million Americans suffer from serious sleep disorders that interfere with their sleep quality and health, many are desperate for an easy solution (Sleep Foundation 1). The media claims that this “wonder drug” melatonin is the answer to these sleep disorders and also can prevent several illnesses. But is melatonin really safe enough for the public to experiment with? How much is known about what it does and its side effects? These are many of the questions that scientists are currently trying to answer. Listening to claims from the media and consumers it is tough to get the real story about the research scientists are conducting on melatonin. Melatonin is an effective drug in aiding in sleep disorders.

Melatonin was discovered in 1963 by dermatologist Aaron Lerner at Yale University. Lerner found skin lightning properties from the aggregation of organelles containing pigment (melanin) in the skin cells of amphibians. These collections of organelles are called melanosomes.2 His findings were published in the Journal of American Chemistry Society in a paper on melatonin entitled “Isolation of Melatonin, the Pineal Gland Factor that Lightens Melanocytes.”3

Melatonin is only one of the many hormones produced by our bodies. This specific hormone is produced in the pineal gland, a small pea sized gland located at the base of the brain. To a lesser extent, melatonin is also produced in the retina.4 The pineal gland begins its production and secretion of melatonin at dusk and ceases at dawn. The pineal gland is not solely responsible for the release of melatonin, it receives instructions from the hypothalamus telling it when to begin...