Melatonin
Introduction
What is Melatonin?
Melatoninis a hormone, produced by the pineal gland among other locations, which regulates wakefulness.- Melatonin is Produced by
Pineal gland
History
Melatonin was first discovered in connection to the mechanism by which some amphibians and reptiles change the color of their skin. As early as 1917, Carey Pratt McCord and Floyd P. Allen discovered that feeding extract of the pineal glands of cows lightened tadpole skin by contracting the dark epidermal melanophores.
In 1958, dermatology professor Aaron B. Lerner and colleagues at Yale University, in the hope that a substance from the pineal might be useful in treating skin diseases, isolated the hormone from bovine pineal gland extracts and named it melatonin. In the mid-70s Lynch et al. demonstrated that the production of melatonin exhibits a circadian rhythm in human pineal glands.
The discovery that melatonin is an antioxidant was made in 1993. The first patent for its use as a low-dose sleep aid was granted to Richard Wurtman at MIT in 1995. Around the same time, the hormone got a lot of press as a possible treatment for many illnesses. The New England Journal of Medicine editorialized in 2000: “With these recent careful and precise observations in blind persons, the true potential of melatonin is becoming evident, and the importance of the timing of treatment is becoming clear.”
Function
Melatonin regulates wake/sleep patterns.
Medicine Use
Melatonin is often used as a type of medicine which stops people from awakening at night.This is because Melatonin controls people’s sleep patterns.People who stays awaken at night is loss of Melatonin.Medicine puts in Melatonin so it finally let you sleep.
Sleep Disorder
Positions on the benefits of melatonin for insomnia are mixed. An AHRQ review from 2015 stated that evidence of benefit in the general population was unclear. A review from 2017 found a modest effect on time until onset of sleep. Another review from 2017 put this decrease at 6 minutes to sleep onset but found no difference in total sleep time. Melatonin may also be useful in delayed sleep phase syndrome. Melatonin appears to work as well as ramelteon but costs less.
Disease
If too much melatonin is taken,Premature Puberty will be caused,which makes human develop sexual characteristics earlier and break the reproductive system.
Treatment
Premature Puberty can be treated by doing GnRHa until 12.