German night milk may aid insomniacs

Forget counting sheep: milking cows at night may hold the key to helping insomniacs fall asleep. A German company has patented "nocturnal milk", which it claims contains levels of the sleep hormone melatonin that are 25 times higher than that found in normal milk. Scientific studies have shown that milk taken from cows at night contains much higher levels of melatonin than milk produced during the day. Melatonin helps to regulate the biorhythm of all mammals: at night it enters the bloodstream and, in the case of cows, their milk; when it becomes light, melatonin production stops.

But it had not been possible to farm such milk, largely because the industrialised agriculture system is geared to milking cows by day. Even on the occasions when cows are milked at night the milk is normally mixed with milk produced during the daytime, diluting the melatonin in the end product. Now Munich's Milchkristalle GmbH has started milking its animals in night-time conditions between the hours of two and 4am. It claims to have found the answer to improving the sleep of the one in three people who suffer from some degree of insomnia.



"Conditions for the cows have to be just right – light in the day and very low light conditions at night," said a company manager, Tony Gnann. Attempts to extract milk from confused cows result in extremely low levels of melatonin, he said. The best results have been obtained by bathing the cows in warm, soft-hued lights that calm them down. The animals are also fed large amounts of clover, containing high levels of protein and the amino acid tryptophan – the key ingredient needed by the body to create melatonin. Milchkristalle has produced a powder from the milk which it says can be added to other drinks or yoghurt before bedtime.

Defending its milking method, particularly from claims it is further exploitation of cows, Heiko Dustmann, an agricultural engineer involved in the night milk research, said: "The animals even benefit from the new product with light during the day, soft lighting at night, which helps them to sleep better and enables them to produce more milk." Sceptics of the product, which is due to go on sale in chemist shops, have questioned the company's claims saying the milk powder would have to be drunk in huge quantities to have a real effect, and recommended drinking a normal glass of milk instead.