ArticleAge (Dordrecht, Netherlands)2013
Tryptophan-enriched cereal intake improves nocturnal sleep, melatonin, serotonin, and total antioxidant capacity levels and mood in elderly humans.
Article in Age (Dordrecht, Netherlands), 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 79 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
79 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 189 citations in OpenAlex.
- Dietary Supplement Interventions and Sleep Quality Improvement: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Nutrients · 2025Pooled it
- Higher daytime intake of fruits and vegetables predicts less disrupted nighttime sleep in younger adults.Sleep health · 2025Trial
- Mulberry leaf extract combined with tryptophan improves sleep and post wake mood in adults with sleep complaints - A randomized cross-over study.European journal of nutrition · 2025Trial
- Collagen peptide supplementation before bedtime reduces sleep fragmentation and improves cognitive function in physically active males with sleep complaints.European journal of nutrition · 2024Trial
- Adults Who Are Overweight or Obese and Consuming an Energy-Restricted Healthy US-Style Eating Pattern at Either the Recommended or a Higher Protein Quantity Perceive a Shift from "Poor" to "Good" Sleep: A Randomized Controlled Trial.The Journal of nutrition · 2020Trial
- Psychological and Sleep Effects of Tryptophan and Magnesium-Enriched Mediterranean Diet in Women with Fibromyalgia.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2020Trial
- Higher-protein diets improve indexes of sleep in energy-restricted overweight and obese adults: results from 2 randomized controlled trials.The American journal of clinical nutrition · 2016Trial
- Article
- Effectiveness of Melatonin-Containing Foods on Promoting Sleep: A Scoping Review.Food science & nutrition · 2026Review
- Bidirectional effects of physical activity and sleep on health: evidence and future directions.Frontiers in sports and active living · 2026Review
- Rhythms of life: melatonin, nutrition, sleep, and antioxidant strategies for healthy aging.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2026Review
- Tryptophan modulates the impact of prolactin on insomnia in perimenopausal women: a cross-sectional study.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Article
- Harnessing Dietary Tryptophan: Bridging the Gap Between Neurobiology and Psychiatry in Depression Management.International journal of molecular sciences · 2026Review
- The Association of Unhealthy Eating Behaviors with Sleep Quality Outcomes Among University Students: A Cross-Sectional Study.Nutrients · 2025Article
- Association of cerebrospinal fluid FGF21 with sleep quality in Chinese adults.Sleep & breathing = Schlaf & Atmung · 2025Article
- The Association Between Skipping Breakfast and Anxiety and Depression in Adolescents-A Scoping Review.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Longan Flower Ethanol Extract,Biomedicines · 2025Article
- Improving Sleep Quality to Enhance Athletic Activity-The Role of Nutrition and Supplementation: A Mini-Short Review.Nutrients · 2025Review
- The Effect of Dietary Acid Load on Cardiometabolic Risk, Psychological Resilience and Sleep Quality in Adolescents with ObesityJournal of clinical research in pediatric endocrinology · 2025Article
- Egg consumption, sleep, and mental health status among women with type II diabetes.Scientific reports · 2025Article
19 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors at 4 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Melatonin and serotonin rhythms, which exhibit a close association with the endogenous circadian component of sleep, are attenuated with increasing age. This decrease seems to be linked to sleep alterations in the elderly. Chrononutrition is a field of chronobiology that establishes the principle of consuming foodstuffs at times of the day when they are more useful for health, improving, therefore, biorhythms and physical performance. Our aim was to analyze whether the consumption of cereals enriched with tryptophan, the precursor of both serotonin and melatonin, may help in the reconsolidation of the sleep/wake cycle and counteract depression and anxiety in 35 middle-aged/elderly (aged 55-75 year) volunteers in a simple blind assay. Data were collected for 3 weeks according to the following schedule: The control week participants consumed standard cereals (22.5 mg tryptophan in 30 g cereals per dose) at breakfast and dinner; for the treatment week, cereals enriched with a higher dose of tryptophan (60 mg tryptophan in 30 g cereals per dose) were eaten at both breakfast and dinner; the posttreatment week volunteers consumed their usual diet. Each participant wore a wrist actimeter that logged activity during the whole experiment. Urine was collected to analyze melatonin and serotonin urinary metabolites and to measure total antioxidant capacity. The consumption of cereals containing the higher dose in tryptophan increased sleep efficiency, actual sleep time, immobile time, and decreased total nocturnal activity, sleep fragmentation index, and sleep latency. Urinary 6-sulfatoxymelatonin, 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid levels, and urinary total antioxidant capacity also increased respectively after tryptophan-enriched cereal ingestion as well as improving anxiety and depression symptoms. Cereals enriched with tryptophan may be useful as a chrononutrition tool for alterations in the sleep/wake cycle due to age.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.