German company patents ‘night milk’ that improves sleep
By ANIMonday, October 18, 2010
MELBOURNE - A German company has patented its product -’night milk’ taken from cows, which helps improve sleep.
Munich-based firm Milchkristalle said that it says contains high levels of ’sleep hormone’ melatonin, national Sunday newspaper Welt am Sonntag reported.
Melatonin helps regulate the sleep-wake cycle by causing drowsiness and lowing the body temperature. The product can only be obtained with a doctor’s prescription as it is classified as a medicine, reports News.com.au.
Cows are milked between 2:00am and 4:00am, which the company claims produces up to 25 times the normal levels of melatonin.
Although the company tested the milk on 40 people who found it improved their sleep patterns, the product has been criticized by many; some have said that it was “nothing more than expensive placebos.”
The scientists said non-milk based melatonin pills were ineffective and contained two milligrams more melatonin than the “night milk.”
“In order to get the same amount of melatonin in the form of night milk crystals, one would have to swallow two million portions,” the authors of the magazine Gute Pillen-Schlechte Pillen - or Good Pills, Bad Pills wrote. (ANI)
