The perception that beer improves sleep onset might be a motivation for some to drink heavily. Is it only melatonin that matters? Reply to Dr. Molfino

Abstract

I amwritingin response to Dr.Molfino’sletter to you, regardingmy paper which was published in Clinical Nutrition 2009, 28:188–191.1 In first place, I would like to thank to the team of Dr. Molfino his vigilance and interest in our work. (1) With regard to his comments,2 I report that we have not done measurements on beer, melatonin and sleep. Neither in the literature, have we found works that study specifically the role of melatonin in beer on the sleep. For this reason, we can not maintain the scientific explanation, in a similar manner to its antioxidant properties studied in our work. But basing on our experience about functions and melatonin action mechanisms, we can theorize and to speculate on his question: Sleep-inducing effect of beer: a melatonin - or alcohol-mediated effect?