Section
Sleep aids
The least regulated corner of the sleep market, and the most confidently marketed.
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Does magnesium help you sleep?
The best-selling sleep supplement in Britain has no authorised sleep claim on the GB register, and the entire trial base is four small studies.
How we cover this category
Sleep supplements are the least regulated corner of the sleep market and the most confidently marketed. The gap between the two is where most of the useful writing sits.
Two things shape how we approach it. First, the evidence: for most sleep supplements the randomised trial base is small, old, and conducted in people who were deficient to begin with — which is a different question from whether the supplement helps someone who is not. We report sample sizes so you can judge the weight of a finding yourself.
Second, the law. In Great Britain a supplement may only carry health claims that appear on the official Nutrition and Health Claims Register. For a great many popular sleep supplements, no sleep claim is on that register at all. Products work around this with moons, the word “night”, and an authorised claim about something adjacent like tiredness. Knowing that changes how the shelf reads.
Nothing here is medical advice, and no supplement sold in the UK is licensed to treat insomnia. Persistent sleep problems are worth taking to a GP — the intervention with by far the strongest evidence behind it is cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia, which NICE puts first in the treatment pathway, ahead of any medication.
Guides on melatonin, valerian and the herbal sleep aids are in preparation.