Sánchez-Barceló, E J, Mediavilla, M D, Tan, D X et al. · Current medicinal chemistry · 2010 · DOI
This review looked at 20 years of clinical trials testing whether melatonin (a natural hormone that regulates sleep) could help treat various diseases. The researchers found that melatonin appears to be safe and helpful for sleep problems and certain conditions, but more research is needed to confirm whether it helps with chronic fatigue syndrome and other illnesses.
ME/CFS is explicitly identified as a condition where melatonin's therapeutic potential warrants further investigation. This review is important because it systematically evaluates melatonin's safety profile (consistently low toxicity) and identifies which conditions have sufficient evidence to justify clinical use, providing a framework for determining whether ME/CFS meets that threshold and what additional research is needed.
This review does not establish that melatonin is effective for ME/CFS—the authors explicitly state that only preliminary data exist and more clinical studies are required. The review is a literature synthesis rather than a new clinical trial, so it cannot definitively prove efficacy in any condition; it can only summarize what existing trials have shown. Lack of reported aggravation does not prove safety in all populations or at all doses.
About the PEM badge: “PEM required” means post-exertional malaise was an explicit required diagnostic criterion for participant inclusion in this study — not that PEM was studied, observed, or discussed. Studies using criteria that do not require PEM (e.g. Fukuda, Oxford) are tagged “PEM not required”. How the atlas works →
The first block is for the primary paper and is the citation you should use in research work. The atlas-snapshot line only applies if you are specifically referring to this atlas’s reading of the paper on the date shown.
Primary citation
Sánchez-Barceló, E J, Mediavilla, M D, Tan, D X, & Reiter, R J (2010). Clinical uses of melatonin: evaluation of human trials.. Current medicinal chemistry. https://doi.org/10.2174/092986710791233689
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-snchez-barcel-2010-clinical-uses,
author = {Sánchez-Barceló, E J and Mediavilla, M D and Tan, D X and Reiter, R J},
title = {Clinical uses of melatonin: evaluation of human trials.},
journal = {Current medicinal chemistry},
year = {2010},
doi = {10.2174/092986710791233689},
note = {PubMed: 20423309},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/snchez-barcel-2010-clinical-uses},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-30. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/snchez-barcel-2010-clinical-uses
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