Melatonin, Sleep, and Sleep Disorders

Before the use of melatonin can be recommended based on solid scientific evidence, further studies, conducted with adequate methods, are needed. A specific melatonin receptor agonist, ramelteon, has recently been approved as hypnotic. Although positive effects have been reported, extensive use in clinical practice would be necessary to confirm whether the statistically significant improvements are clinically meaningful, since the changes sometimes were relatively small, and the samples studied were large or very large.