Originally Posted by koz2000
I talked to a MD that said if you take too many mg that it is not as effective as a lower dose. His recommendation was 3-5mg. The ones I bought were 30mg so I break them up. The other rec is to take it 45min-1hr before you want to sleep.
Years ago I read some of the clinical publications on trials using Melatonin as a sleep aid, the doses are in the PICO-gram range not milligram. I recall that higher doses were not any more effective than the .9 mg doses used in the trials (your MD has been reading scientific lit. cool!).
The other thing is that the OTC remedy is sold as a supplement and not as medicine, there is no way to know what you're getting and what the dosage really is (not regulated by the FDA).
Finally, there was some concern about the long term effects of a hormone that crosses the blood/brain barrier that caused researchers to suggest additional studies (don't they always). One thing they did note is that the supplements caused the pineal gland to stop producing melatonin naturally.