Some melatonin and CBD gummies have 450 TIMES more of the drugs than label says 

Some melatonin and CBD gummies may contain more dangerous amounts of the drugs than listed on the label, a study warns.

Lab tests of common store-bought supplements found that nine out of 10 were labeled inaccurately.

One melatonin supplement contained 347 percent more — 4.5 times — of the hormone than listed, while another contained no melatonin at all and was made from CBD instead.

Taking too much melatonin can lead to vomiting, diarrhea and even seizures, especially in young children with low tolerance. CBD can interact with other medications a child is taking and they can also become tolerant to them and have worse sleep problems when they stop taking them.

It comes after a report found that the number of children who overdosed on melatonin increased by 530 percent between 2012 and 2022.

Over-the-counter sleeping gums are concerning because parents can give them to children, Dr. Cora Collette Breuner, a professor of pediatrics at Seattle Children’s Hospital at the University of Washington, told CNN.

The supplement industry is thriving in the US, making $45.3 billion a year and growing.

It is not subject to the same regulations as medicines because the products are classified as ‘dietary supplements’.

Researchers at the University of Mississippi sent 25 products labeled melatonin gummies to a lab for testing.

The products were included in the National Institutes of Health database, the most comprehensive database of nutritional supplements sold in America.

Study co-author Dr. Pieter Cohen, associate professor of medicine at the Cambridge Health Alliance in Somerville, Massachusetts, told CNN: ‘The regulatory framework for supplements has been broken.

“The manufacturers don’t follow the law and the FDA doesn’t enforce the law. That means that we have a lot of poor quality products.’

About 88 percent of the gummies tested were inaccurately labeled. The rest had levels of melatonin that were within 10 percent of the amount, the study found.

Five of the products said CBD was an ingredient in the gummies, with the amount ranging from 10.6mg to 31.3mg per serving.

The actual amount of CBD was found to be between 104 percent and 118 percent of what was stated on the label.

The U.S. Food and Drugs Administration said on its website, “It is currently illegal to market CBD by adding it to food or labeling it as a dietary supplement.”

Over-the-counter sleeping gummies are concerning because parents can give them to children, Dr. Cora Collette Breuner, a professor of pediatrics at Seattle Children’s Hospital at the University of Washington told CNN.

She said: ‘There is no data to support the use of CBD in children. It is currently only recommended for very specific use in children older than one year with intractable epilepsy.’

She added that taking gummies with extremely high levels of melatonin — much higher than the 0.5 to 1 milligram per night that has been shown to promote sleep in children — is dangerous.

Melatonin in children can cause agitation, headache, drowsiness and more frequent bedwetting.

Children may also react badly to the medication or have an allergic reactionsaid the National Institutes of Health.

There may be effects on hormonal development. The agency said: ‘Because melatonin is a hormone, it’s possible that melatonin supplements could affect puberty, menstrual cycles and overproduction of the hormone prolactin.’

However, many of the tested products clearly advertised CBD on their packaging.

A Canadian study found much the same: 16 melatonin brands actually contained a dose of melatonin between 17 percent and 478 percent of the labeled amount.

Melatonin is a hormone critical to the body’s sleep-wake cycle, with levels rising in the evening as the sun goes down, signaling it’s time for bed, and falling to near zero during the day.

Supplements of the hormone have been available over the counter in the US since the mid-1990s and are available at most pharmacies and health stores for about 12 cents a pill.

More than four million American adults now take the supplements regularly; estimates show – a fivefold increase from two decades ago.