Cited by 362Circadian rhythm and melatoninPhytochemicals and Antioxidant Activitiesmelanin and skin pigmentation

Dietary Sources and Bioactivities of Melatonin

Open access
Meng, Xiao, Li, Ya, Li, Sha, Zhou, Yue, Gan, Ren-You, Xu, Dong-Ping, Li, Hua-Bin·2017·Nutrients

Abstract

Insomnia is a serious worldwide health threat, affecting nearly one third of the general population. Melatonin has been reported to improve sleep efficiency and it was found that eating melatonin-rich foods could assist sleep. During the last decades, melatonin has been widely identified and qualified in various foods from fungi to animals and plants. Eggs and fish are higher melatonin-containing food groups in animal foods, whereas in plant foods, nuts are with the highest content of melatonin. Some kinds of mushrooms, cereals and germinated legumes or seeds are also good dietary sources of melatonin. It has been proved that the melatonin concentration in human serum could significantly increase after the consumption of melatonin containing food. Furthermore, studies show that melatonin exhibits many bioactivities, such as antioxidant activity, anti-inflammatory characteristics, boosting immunity, anticancer activity, cardiovascular protection, anti-diabetic, anti-obese, neuroprotective and anti-aging activity. This review summaries the dietary sources and bioactivities of melatonin, with special attention paid to the mechanisms of action.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.3390/nu9040367

Cites

337 of 337 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Meng, X., Li, Y., Li, S., Zhou, Y., Gan, R.-Y., Xu, D.-P., & Li, H.-B.
Affiliations
  • Sun Yat-sen University (CN)
  • University of Hong Kong (HK)
Corresponding author
  • Li, Sha
  • Li, Hua-Bin
Venue
Nutrients
Publisher
MDPI AG
Published
2017-04-07
Volume
9
Issue
4
Pages
367
ISSN
2072-6643 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W2604956152
Cited by
362
References
336
Citations by year
2026: 27 · 2025: 50 · 2024: 48 · 2023: 53 · 2022: 40 · 2021: 45 · 2020: 40 · 2019: 34 · 2018: 18 · 2017: 4 · 2014: 1
FWCI
3.20
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Nutrients (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
Funders
  • National Natural Science Foundation of China (2014B020205002, 81372976)
  • Sun Yat-sen University (81372976, 2014B020205002)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Endocrine and Autonomic Systems › Circadian rhythm and melatonin
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Biochemistry › Phytochemicals and Antioxidant Activities
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Cell Biology › melanin and skin pigmentation
Keywords
melatonin, insomnia, sleep, eggs, fish, nuts, mushrooms, cereals, serum melatonin, antioxidant activity, anti-inflammatory activity, immune enhancement, anticancer activity, cardioprotection, antidiabetic activity, anti-obesity, neuroprotection, anti-aging effects, mechanism of action
MeSH terms
Biological Availability, Circadian Rhythm, Diet, Humans, Melatonin, Sleep Deprivation, Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic, Nutrition Policy

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review