Melatonin; from pineal gland to healthy foods Melatonin; pineal bezden sağlıklı yiyeceklere

Obviously, the human diet has become progressively more divergent from those of our ancestors. This maladaptive change became apparent with the Industrial Revolution and has been accelerating in recent decades. In conjunction with this discordance between our ancient, genetically determined biology and the nutritional pattern, in contemporary Western populations, many of the so-called diseases of civilization such as cardiovascular diseases, cancer, and diabetes have emerged. Despite remarkable pharmacological and technological advances, the pandemic of civilization-related diseases continues. Because of this situation, in the last three decades, functional foods, officinal plants are becoming of progressive public and scientific interest and a variety of biologically active compounds have been found in plants. One of them is melatonin; a ubiquitous molecule in nature including most of the edible plants with a variety of health benefits. This paper provides a brief outline about melatonin in functional foods and officinal plants.