TY - JOUR T1 - Clinical update: melatonin and sleep disorders JF - Clinical Medicine JO - Clin Med SP - 381 LP - 383 DO - 10.7861/clinmedicine.8-4-381 VL - 8 IS - 4 AU - Josephine Arendt AU - Eus JW Van Someren AU - Richard Appleton AU - Debra J Skene AU - Torbjorn Akerstedt Y1 - 2008/08/01 UR - http://www.rcpjournals.org/content/8/4/381.abstract N2 - The hormone melatonin is increasingly used for the treatment of certain sleep disorders, particularly those related to disturbed biological rhythms. This article summarises current knowledge of its mechanism of action and identifies situations where there is good evidence for its efficacy. The authors provide advice, based on their own experience and consistent published data, concerning the dose range of melatonin to be used and the critically important question of the timing of treatment. Anecdotal evidence for the use of melatonin needs to be replaced by data from well-controlled, preferably multi-centre, randomised clinical trials. ER -