Tart cherry
mL/day juice
Montmorency tart cherry juice or concentrate, often about 240 mL twice a day. It is the juice, not a melatonin tablet.
Trials use juice or concentrate for one to four weeks and watch sleep or recovery scores. The fruit carries melatonin and anthocyanins. A melatonin tablet or a cherry-plus-blueberry blend is a different product.
Also called Montmorency cherry, Prunus cerasus, tart cherry juice.
Connected relationships
Randomized trial · Contested
Tart cherry→Sleep duration and regularity
Higher Tart cherry moves Sleep duration and regularity only in some conditions. Read the mechanism.
Losso 2018 found that 240 mL of Montmorency tart cherry juice twice a day for two weeks added 84 minutes of laboratory sleep time versus placebo in eight adults over 50 with insomnia. Howatson 2013 saw a similar direction in twenty healthy adults; Hillman found no sleep difference in forty-four healthy adults over thirty days.
Sources
- JN Losso et al. (2018). Pilot Study of the Tart Cherry Juice for the Treatment of Insomnia and Investigation of Mechanisms.
- G Howatson et al. (2013). Effect of tart cherry juice (Prunus cerasus) on melatonin levels and enhanced sleep quality.
- WR Pigeon et al. (2010). Effects of a tart cherry juice beverage on the sleep of older adults with insomnia: a pilot study.
- AR Hillman et al. (2026). Montmorency tart cherry supplementation does not impact sleep, body composition, cellular health, or blood pressure in healthy adults.