More Americans Are Using Melatonin to Sleep, But How Safe Is It?

More Americans Are Using Melatonin to Sleep, But How Safe Is It?

More Americans , Are Using Melatonin to Sleep, But How Safe Is It?.

More Americans , Are Using Melatonin to Sleep, But How Safe Is It?.

CNN reports a rising amount of Americans struggling to sleep have turned to taking over-the-counter melatonin.

A new study finds that many Americans may be using the sleep aid in dangerously high amounts.

The study, published Jan.

1 in the medical journal 'JAMA,' found that by the year 2018, .

Americans were consuming melatonin twice as often as they had ten years earlier.

Experts worry that the population's over-reliance on sleeping aids may indicate ill health effects in the future.

Taking sleep aids has been linked in prospective studies with the development of dementia and early mortality.

, Rebecca Robbins, instructor of sleep medicine at Harvard Medical School, via CNN.

According to CNN, long-term melatonin use could result in headaches, nausea, drowsiness, depression and abnormally low blood pressure.

According to CNN, long-term melatonin use could result in headaches, nausea, drowsiness, depression and abnormally low blood pressure.

According to the National Institutes of Health, short-term use of melatonin is considered safe, but long-term safety is still unknown.

Many look at melatonin as a safe, all-natural alternative to other sleeping aids.

Melatonin is a naturally-occurring hormone secreted by the pineal gland deep within the brain.

It is released into the bloodstream to help regulate the body's sleep cycles.

There is a view that if it's natural, then it can't hurt.

, Rebecca Robbins, instructor of sleep medicine at Harvard Medical School, via CNN.

The truth is, we just really don't know the implications of melatonin in the longer term, for adults or kids.

, Rebecca Robbins, instructor of sleep medicine at Harvard Medical School, via CNN