Why doesn't the government require warnings on Melatonin, a so-called "natural" sleep aid?

Continued use of melatonin can result in boughts of deep mental depressioin yet due to it not being a "drug" few people are aware of this.

Why no warning labels?

LMHP (below) A few years ago while contracting around the country, a nutritionist recommended Melatonin to help me sleep. It worked. After a while I noticed that life's problems that I would normally tackle head on seemed larger than life (over whelming. Like being in the bottom of a well with no way to climb out. That was weird and never occurred before).

Anyway, I told a lady I began dating about Melatonin (not the probems). She researched it and told me the possible side effects. I stopped taking the stuff and a week or two later I began feeling that I could handle problems again. I have always been a fighter when it comes to obstacles. I later told her about it and thanked her for being concerned enough to research it.

coz him and his mamma tried it for better sleep, only to discover feeling blue and punching one anutters lights out.
the gov. wasn't too happy.

Its probably not regulated by the FDA. How did you know about it?

The good thing is that the info is not hidden, if you were able to find it online. I think this is a less common side-effect. Again, if it's not regulated by the FDA, they can put whatever they want on it and since it's not regulated, you take it at your own risk.

Poor Chi Guy...don't take hormones of any kind anymore! Vitamins and herbs are good--hormones, bad! Those hormones are only ok if you're older and are truly lacking in them, otherwise you're risking lowering your body's natural production of that hormone and messing up your other hormones.

Unfortunately, in the case of OTC dietary supplements, we are left to our own best research.

Meaning research everything you put in your body.

YOU are definitely worth it.

Please post your scientific references for this claim. I have been searching Pubmed and I have NOT found any articles on Melatonin that suggest any significant adverse effects or risk of toxicity. So????

LEGAL medical marijuana has very little negative side effects

best sleep aid if you ask me (and about 28.2 million other US citizens)

Oh wow, I had no idea. My two friends take Melatonin. Yikes.

Melatonin is a natural hormone that is produced by the pineal gland in the brain that helps you sleep. I would say that when you started taking it to help you sleep it was maybe too much in combination with what your body was already producing. That is why you had the depression.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pineal_glan...

It is the same with other things such as potassium. Potassium is also produced by your body according to what you eat. However, too little or too much can have some pretty nasty consequences.

Because officially, melatonin is a dietary supplement, which are not regulated by the FDA. To qualify as a dietary supplement, a product must contain an herb, vitamin, mineral, amino acid, extract, or concentrate and have the word "dietary supplement" somewhere on the label. So yeah, almost any product can claim to be a dietary supplement, as long as it does not contain a substance that has already been classified as a drug by the FDA.

Dietary supplements are completely unregulated by the government (and therefore have no warning labels). Obviously, the manufacturers won't take the initiative to put warning labels on their own products because it will hurt sales. The FDA won't step in unless major public problems arise, and even then, they act very slowly. For instance, ephedra was a dietary supplement that actually killed people and was finally banned by the FDA in 2004 (seven years after the first reports of major adverse side effects, include stroke, heart attack, and death).