History
Melatonin is related to the mechanism by which some amphibians and reptiles change the color of their skin and, indeed, it was in this connection the substance first was discovered. 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 rat urine 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: "The hype and the claims of the so-called miraculous powers of melatonin several years ago did a great disservice to a scientific field of real importance to human health. (...) Our 24-hour society, with its chaotic time cues and lack of natural light, may yet reap substantial benefits."
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