Nutraceutical products have been proposed as a treatment alternative for sleep disturbances. This study assessed the effect of a nutraceutical combination on objective and subjective sleep parameters during six weeks of intervention among adults with mildly impaired sleep. Our primary outcome, sleep efficiency, remained unchanged in the intervention group and improved in the placebo group, but the difference between groups was not statistically significant. For patient-reported outcomes like sleep quality (measured by PSQI) and health-related quality of life (measured by SF-36), there were improvements regardless of intervention group. On the other hand, other objective variables measured by actigraphy showed a slightly different result according to the intervention. In the active group the reduction in WASO was larger than in the placebo group, while total sleep time improved markedly in the placebo group. Salivary cortisol levels remained relatively stable in both groups.
In concordance with our results, a prior clinical trial of valerian extract among older women with insomnia found no significant effect on sleep efficiency, but a trend towards a benefit in WASO with the supplementary intervention [23]. Likewise, a randomised study of saffron against placebo in adults with mild to moderate sleep disorders and anxiety, found no between-groups difference in the change in sleep efficiency [24]. Concerning other components of the study intervention, there was a host of prior evidence suggesting a positive impact of lemon balm and green tea on sleep quality, but these studies had derived sleep efficiency from PSQI component 4, rather than directly measuring it [25, 26]. Interestingly, the small 3% increase in sleep efficiency in the placebo group reached within-group significance. This finding highlights the potential relevance of the placebo effect even on objective sleep measurements [27, 28].
One of the outcomes most related to sleep quality is WASO, the amount of time spent in the wake state after initially having fallen asleep. In our study, WASO decreased in both groups, but the change was not significant. Moreover, total sleep time increased in the placebo group by 13 minutes, but this change was also not statistically significant. A clinical trial in healthy young woman assessed the acute effect of green tea extract on sleep and polysomnographic variables, registering no difference in WASO and total sleep time between green tea extract and placebo [29].
PSQI summarizes in a single score the perceived quality of sleep and represents a true measure of the burden imposed by sleep disturbances. Participants in the active and placebo group started with a comparable PSQI, after six weeks of intervention both groups had a notable 3 point-improvement in their mean total score. A study of green tea extract among healthy Japanese adults found a substantial improvement in PSQI with the intervention, but like in our study, it was not significantly different from placebo [26]. Moreover, when the presumed active component of tea extract (L-theanine) was combined with magnesium, B-vitamins and Rhodiola in a single nutraceutical supplement, its effect on the PSQI among adults who scored high on a stress questionnaire was comparable to placebo [30]. Despite initially encouraging results among post-menopausal women [25], the evidence on the efficacy of lemon balm for sleep quality has yielded heterogeneous results. Haybar H et al., assessed the effect of lemon balm or placebo on the PSQI among patients with chronic stable angina, both groups had equally significant reductions in the PSQI [31]. Contrastingly, a study in patients with type 2 diabetes plus depression or anxiety symptoms found no significant modification in the PSQI after four weeks of lemon balm supplementation [32]. In patients with insomnia, a four-week study of a combination of lemon balm with the plant Nepeta menthoides evidenced a PSQI improvement significantly different from placebo [33]. A host of prior evidence suggested an effect of valerian on sleep quality. A meta-analysis of six studies comparing valerian mono-preparations to placebo indicated statistically significant placebo-subtracted reductions in the PSQI [34], albeit with a large between-trial heterogeneity (I2 = 93%). Unfortunately, such results were not replicated in our study.
We observed a very large improvement in the PSQI, regardless of intervention group. The magnitude of the placebo effect can be unusually high for sleep-related outcomes: A meta-analysis of 82 treatment groups from 32 clinical trials reported a mean placebo effect of 61% on subjective sleep parameters [27]. Hence, the inclusion of a placebo control is of utmost importance in studies that assess the efficacy of any intervention for sleep, nutraceuticals included. In parallel to the improvements in PSQI, participants from both groups increased their SF-36 scores. This is an anticipated result, as quality of sleep greatly influences health-related quality of life [35, 36].
Multiple factors can explain the results of our study, in which the intervention and placebo group experienced similar improvements in key sleep outcomes. Many effective interventions for sleep disturbances are behavioural in nature, including relaxation training, stimulus control therapy, sleep restriction therapy, sleep hygiene, paradoxical intention therapy, cognitive restructuring, and many others [37]. In our study, participants had to follow a pre-bed routine that included tasks like warming and drinking a beverage, which may have induced a particular disposition, more favourable to sleep. This implicit behavioural and cognitive influence may partially explain the positive effect in both groups, without evidence of an added benefit from the composition of the tested intervention. Some of the favourable changes may also reflect a plausible Hawthorne effect from feeling observed while wearing the actigraphy device [38].
The proportion of adverse events was low and very similar between groups, and we found no evidence of renal or hepatic impairment.
Strengths of our study include its randomised design, careful collection and control of study variables, provision of the study intervention and close monitoring of adherence. Also, the combination of objective and subjective outcome measures of sleep quality provided a more holistic assessment of sleep. We assessed not only sleep itself, but variables closely related to it and with clinical or biological relevance, such as health-related quality of life or salivary cortisol, information that is not always collected in studies of non-pharmacological interventions for sleep. Concerning the intervention, the simultaneous assessment of various nutraceutical products with prior indications of positive effects on sleep, increased the probability of evidencing a beneficial effect, if it was present. The central limitations of our study are its duration of only six weeks, although most evidence shows that sleep-related variables can be substantially modified in such timespan [39], and its relatively modest sample size. Another phenomenon that we cannot rule out is the existence of antagonism among the components of the nutraceutical intervention, so that one component may partially antagonize the effects of another, we had no mechanism for testing this hypothesis. Lastly, it is also possible that participants communicated among them leading to some degree of unmasking, but there was no way for the participants to tell the particular organoleptic characteristics of each intervention.
Future research efforts should focus on the use of nutraceuticals as part of a broader behavioural strategy aimed at patients with sleep disorders. In this context, the inclusion of an appropriate comparator will be of extreme relevance. Formal evaluations of the effect of nutraceuticals are needed in order to inform evidence-based recommendations about products from this growing market.
In conclusion, in this clinical trial among adults with mildly impaired sleep, a nutraceutical combination improved sleep to the same extent as a placebo infusion. This result may be explained by the influence of behavioural and cognitive factors.