Taking melatonin used to be the habit of the jet-lagged traveller as a way to shortcut the weary bewilderment of a confused body clock. Then it was discovered by parents. “Pretty much all the kids I see, by the time they get to me, they’ve used melatonin,” says Dr Chris Seton, a paediatric sleep physician at the Woolcock Institute and the children’s hospital at Westmead in Sydney.
Melatonin is a hormone produced by the brain’s pineal gland in response to darkness; its nickname is the hormone of darkness. Levels increase at night, which helps precipitate sleepiness through its interactions with the central clock and circadian rhythm, then decrease towards dawn, precipitating wakefulness.
