SleepCheck helps you safely assess your body's natural safeguard for healthy sleep, mood, and cell function. Low levels of Melatonin have been linked with depression, and poor cardiovascular health. Evaluation requires a single saliva sample.

• Easy Saliva Collection
• Assess Melatonin levels--your body's natural safeguard for healthy sleep

Price: $60.00

Low Melatonin May Be Keeping You up at Night

A good night's sleep helps keep your body in rhythm, allowing you to feel your best. Without it, your body doesn't function as well as effectively.

Ever have a stretch of time when you're not sleeping well? Maybe it's caused by stress, shift work, a general lack of time. All you know is that you are not sleeping very well and in turn, you're not thinking as clearly and sharply as you did before. Physically, you're drained, unmotivated to do anything other than getting through the day.

A hormone called melatonin may have something to do with it.

SleepCheck by BodyBalance measures the level of melatonin in your system. Although it plays a role in many other areas of your body, such as cardiovascular function, female reproductive hormones, and as an antioxidant, melatonin's primary contribution is to your body's ability for quality sleep and the regulation of your circadian rhythm. Circadian rhythm is the 24-hour cycle of sleeping and waking our body experiences based on the patterns of light and dark. Normal melatonin levels are highest during the night, when you're sleeping, because there is less light. Exposure to light decreases melatonin secretion, explaining why you are not as sleepy during the day as you are at night. Without proper melatonin secretion, your circadian rhythm is off-balance, preventing you from getting a healthy, productive night's sleep.

What is Melatonin?

Melatonin is a hormone your body produces in the pineal gland to help you sleep. Your body functions upon a 24-hour cycle of light and dark, called your circadian rhythm, that regulates melatonin secretion in your body. During the day, your pineal gland is inactive and melatonin secretion is at a minimum. At night, however, as you're ready to fall asleep, your pineal gland is just starting to wake up, increasing your melatonin levels and helping your body relax and fall asleep. In fact, your melatonin levels peak at around 2 a.m., when you are likely in your deepest sleep of the night.

Have you ever noticed that you become tired more easily in the winter? In winter, there is less light than in summer, which disrupts the pattern of your melatonin secretion. Since melatonin secretion is dependent upon light, this causes you to become sleepier, and occasionally even depressed, during these months. This disruption in melatonin secretion is known as Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), just one of the many effects melatonin can have on your body.

Melatonin imbalances are linked to insomnia, jet lag, and delayed sleep phase syndrome. Besides promoting a healthy sleep pattern, melatonin has been shown to be one of the most potent antioxidants in nature, protecting your body from the free radical damage that can accompany premature aging. Low levels of melatonin can increase the risk of developing cardiovascular disease, while high levels can inhibit ovulation in women trying to become pregnant.

Because melatonin plays a vital role throughout your entire body, having a proper level of melatonin is essential for healthy sleep and optimal overall well being. If you are not sleeping well, feeling the "winter blues", or just want to ensure your body has enough of this regenerative hormone, SleepCheck is an accurate way to determine your melatonin levels. A simple saliva sample is all it takes.

Sleep Check can be the first step toward getting your body back in balance, helping you get the sleep you need to feel your personal best.

What We Can Do For You...
SleepCheck is a safe, easy-to-use, and reliable health screen that uses a saliva sample to measure the level of melatonin in your body. This noninvasive and inexpensive health screen provides the accuracy of a laboratory analysis without you having to leave the comfort of your own home. When you order your health screen, we'll send a complete kit to you. You collect the required saliva sample and send it back to us in the prepaid return mailer provided. Within 7-10 working days of receiving your sample, we'll send your results to you.

What You Can Do For Yourself...
Getting a good night's sleep is important. Doing everything you can to ensure that you get the rest you need is essential. With the information you'll receive from your SleepCheck health screen, you'll know how your melatonin level compares to normal, reference range levels and how that affects you. If your results show that your melatonin levels are unbalanced, you can then work with your health care provider to develop a safe and productive plan for getting your melatonin level back to its proper state. The goal of SleepCheck is to provide you with valuable information you can use to help you get a good night's sleep and back to better health, information that puts you in control.

What To Do Now...
Ordering is as simple as our health screens. In fact, you can order your health screens right here on our website. Your health screens will be delivered to you within a few days, helping you on your way to getting a good night's sleep and optimal health.

References:

Arendt J. Melatonin--a new probe in psychiatric investigation? Br J Psychiatry 1989; 155: 585-590.

Brown RP, Kocsis JH, Caroff S, Amsterdam J, Winokur A, Stokes P, Frazer A. Depressed mood and reality disturbance correlate with decreased nocturnal melatonin in depressed patients. Acta Psychiatry Scand 1987; 76(3): 272-275.

Bullen BA, Skrinar GS, McArthur JW, Carr DB. Exercise effect upon plasma melatonin levels in women: possible physiological significance. Can J Appl Sport Sci 1982; 7(2): 90-97.

Danforth DN Jr, Tamarkin L, Mulvihill JJ, Bagley CS, Lippman ME. Plasma melatonin and the hormone-dependency of human breast cancer. J Clin Oncol 1985; 3(7): 940-948.

Lissoni P, et al. Modulation of cancer endocrine therapy by melatonin: a phase two study of tamoxifen plus melatonin in metastic breast cancer patients progressing under tamoxifen alone. Br J Cancer 1995; 71: 854-856.

McIntyre IM, Judd FK, Marriott PM, Burrows GD, Norman TR. Int J Clin Pharmacol Res 1989; 9(2): 159-164.

Shida CS, Castrucci AML, Lamy-Freund MT. High melatonin solubility in aqueous medium. J Pineal Res 1994; 16: 198-201.

Silman RE. Melatonin: a contraceptive for the nineties. Eur J Obstet Gynecol Reprod Biol 1993; 49(1-2): 3-9.

Vakkuri O. Diurnal rhythm of melatonin in human saliva. Acta Physiol Scand 1985; 124(3): 409-412.

Waldhauser F, Erhart B, Forster E. Clinical aspects of the melatonin action: impact of development, aging, and puberty, involvement of melatonin in psychiatric disease and importance of neuroimmunoendocrine interactions. Experentia 1993; 49:671-681.

Zhdanova IV, et al. Sleep-inducing effects of low doses of melatonin ingested in the evening. Clin Pharmacology and Therapeutics 1995; 57: 552-558.