Yes, it takes very little effort to search for melatonin levels by age and find out that the vast majority of children shouldn’t need melatonin supplementation anyways. We older folks OTOH...I’ve taken 3mg most nights for a few years and sleep better without any known ill-effects from the supplement.
And here is a link to some very interesting research on, among other things, melatonin and covid.
If its use has skyrocketed during COVID one may assume that this could be partially due to anxiety from social isolation causing children to lose sleep, or it could be parents using it as a COVID prophylactic. That may at least explain the CDC's need to clamp down it in some regards.
But besides that, I think you are correct in that children already produce high levels of melatonin, and if they don't then there is likely to be factors at play to cause this issue such as constant stimuli and artificial light exposure disrupting natural circadian rhythms.
A three-month old child would still have a tongue thrust reflex which aids in nursing/taking a bottle as well as prevents accidental ingestion of solids. Of course, there would be absolutely no fine motor control to actually allow such a young infant to pinch a pill and/or place it in its mouth - they are still working on getting some neck muscles. I really hope someone is in jail after that. But yeah, it doesn't seem like something to be horribly concerned about ... yet the media finds another way to stoke fear in the hearts of mothers all across the country. 🤦🏻♀️
Considering that both of the deaths were infants I don't put much faith in the children began popping them because they were candy. It's weird that the NPR article never mentioned anything about the "intentional misuse", and how that probably means the baby didn't give the melatonin to his/herself.
I take Melatonin every night before bed. No problems.
There is a war on supplements taking shape now, because Big Pharma can’t make money on healthy people. They want to get rid of NAC too. I stocked up, just in case.
The NAC one is interesting mainly because I intend on writing about acetaminophen in the near future. I have the papers but it's one of those really long posts that would take quite a while so it's been sidetracked.
I've supplemented a bit during COVID, but I would like to look into it further to see if it is really necessary for someone my age. Instead if I can obtain it through less light exposure and proper sleep it may be the best avenue before supplementation. But for the elderly it's interesting because I believe the circadian rhythm has been linked to neurodegeneration.
Just found this post a bit late into summer. I am one who can't take melatonin and not the only one I know. It causes progressive weakness and palpitations after a few days at any dose though first had problems when taking taking five mg a night.
It's not an OTC med in France, because supplementing with it can knock your natural cycle of melatonin concentration out of whack. I think it needs to be handled very carefully.
That's interesting. It's certainly true many people respond differently to melatonin and for most people who get good sleep supplementation shouldn't be the first go to aid.
However, I wasn't able to find any actual studies on those circadian rhythm disruptions, although I know it gets mentioned often so I'm not sure how that information spread. Do you have any studies in regards to the melatonin? I saw this post in psychiatric times referencing the "darker side" of melatonin intake, but it makes reference to late meals influencing melatonin production and linking an association between metabolism and melatonin production. The study cited appears to suggest that melatonin is produced when in a fasted state.
So this wouldn't actually me an argument against exogenous melatonin, but an argument against late-night eating. But again I'm not sure if there are other studies out there suggesting something else with direct evidence.
It's a very lucid paper. If you search for information on side effects of melatonin using Scholar, most of the articles are touting it, and describing its benefits. This one article goes into some actual detail about natural cycles of melatonin (diurnal cycles) and I found it extremely helpful. The real danger with telling everyone how wonderful the stuff is, is that some people, and I don't think we're that rare, are going to have serious side effects but will never suspect it's the melatonin. Over the years I've learned to check the post-marketing side effects for any med I've been prescribed because I tend to have idiosyncratic side effects and some have been terrible. I'd put melatonin in the category of a toxic substance for me.
I just cannot understand how it can be given to children. It's not a lightweight supplement. I would never give this to my kids.
I think I've avoided Scholar because I never know where the links take me, and I've clicked on a few and taken to "unsafe" sites with the study. Maybe I'm using it wrong but it's hard to find certain studies out of all of the clicking needed. I generally use PubMed for free articles, and if not available I may use other ways to find the paper and access it.
The paper is interesting. I skimmed a bit of it but some of the toxicity (number 8) still has a bit of that issue in which a lot of the concerns were extrapolated based on things such as melatonin timing being an issue. Also the glucose argument also mentioned the possibility of late eating being an issue as well. I think the conclusion is interesting in which there was a comment about people with circadian rhythm issues actually suffering from adverse reactions, and so I wonder if that may have something to do with the inability to metabolize or process melatonin, and possibly that's why these people suffered from circadian rhythm issues.
I think the most important thing is taking care to note that it's not about getting the right number of hours, but also having a consistent sleep schedule. Even if you sleep 8 hours a night if it's scattered all about it's probably not doing you any good.
There probably is no real reason to provide it to kids, but my main argument is that the evidence here was lacking, and the two deaths associated with melatonin overdose appear to be nefarious in nature (no information on one, but the 3 month old having been intentionally given an overdose tells me something is at play). I think a lot more research should go into melatonin since a lot of the benefits cloud out any concerning information and results.
I'm sorry you suffered bad side effects. It is interesting and I wonder what mechanisms could have occurred to have caused that.
By the way, I do use magnesium glycinate at bedtime, one 665 mg capsule that delivers 60mg of magnesium. Can't take more than that because I'm groggy next day. It works but I'd tell anyone to be careful with it. Magnesium overdose is possible. I sweat like a pig so I lose a lot of electrolytes, and 60 mg seems safe. For now.
Because it's still a comparatively new drug I hate to say this but I don't think it should be OTC. It's not as if you can trust the pharma/FDA team to be fair, I know. I'm the first one to self prescribe and take measures to get what I want. But the potential for real harm is there. People should at least realize you can kill yourself with the stuff. It's what was happening to me, and it's happened to others I know. Americans in particular get the idea that if a thing is said to be beneficial by "experts", then we should go hog wild with it. It takes a dose of less than 1 mg/night for me to start going downhill. Who else out there is being injured but because of the endless hype will never connect the dots? People get as rigidly hysterical if you counter the pro melatonin verbiage as the vax fanatics if you tell them the shots are risky.
Late eating was not my problem, I'm not sure what is. Doctors acknowledge this can happen to people and now are telling me it's only safe for people to take 0.1 to 0.5 mg/night.
As for Google Scholar, it works fine. My anti mRNA/AAV vax campaign was fueled by some great papers I found using it over a year ago. Much of the time it leads to stuff on pubmed, but it's much broader than that. You never know what it will turn into though.
There's a paper I found by a French author that dates from around 1990. I found it using Google Scholar. I didn't know why I felt so awful, felt like I was dying, then the lightbulb went on that I'd been using melatonin, and I searched for information on it using Scholar. That's not the only paper exposing its dark side. And I know other people who had a bad experience with it. I think I downloaded it. I'll try to dig it up and post the link here.
Yes I've read several of them, and they all appeared to have popped up suddenly and lamented people's use of melatonin and how this is just parents trying to deal with their rowdy kids by forcing pills on them. That could be a possibility, but I wonder if there are other factors. If children are staying up at night because they think they'll kill their families if they get COVID, or begin to lose the social structures that have kept them grounded and provided a source of belonging which led them to developing parasocial relationships with Tik Tok influencers, and the only way for them to go to sleep at night is through melatonin supplementation then is it really the use of melatonin that's the problem here?
Ahhh, marketing. Everyone thinks about melatonin for sleep. Just like most things, folks don't look at it themselves. We're all addicted to marketing messages
I think it's mostly because that gets into a bit of technical details that just goes over people's heads. Instead of looking into some of that information people may want to just be told "x treats y. If you have y, try using x". It is rather interesting to find out that many Vitamin D3 supplements mention immune health and I never understood why originally.
At first I thought the claim that children are "downing melatonin pills" (per NPR) was absurd. But I do know that kids stay up in front of the light of their phones and computers which probably interferes with melatonin production. Perhaps parents are intervening because of that.
I have a hard time considering anything coming out of the CDC is for my health benefit. But I like your approach MD; just because the CDC claims something doesn't mean I should reject it outright. Some of it may be useful to consider. I do wonder if they are targeting supplements involved in treatment of covid or detoxing from the injection.
Thanks Nova, and yes I find it all strange. Even if teenagers are attempting to abuse melatonin for suicide attempts how is it the fault of the regular consumer? Children choke on bananas and grapes but I don't think we're going to start putting yellow tape over the produce section because of that.
Yes, my approach is to not engage in heuristic fallacies. It's one of the reasons I've started to not like those sayings like "just do the opposite of what the FDA/CDC/NIH says!" since it just seems far too simplistic. For this matter, it requires seeing if there is a legitimate concern about overuse of melatonin and if that were the case this appears to state otherwise. Thousands may sound like a lot, but if you spread it out over 10 years and limit it to those requiring hospitalization you can really put it into perspective. Include the 2 deaths that appear to have been intentionally done then we really should be skeptical of these types of reports.
I'm not sure why it was rolled out now. A very cynical side of me thinks that this may have come out before the child vaccines were approved to push parents away from supplements? But regardless it's one of those things where it feels like it wants to target the behavior rather than the cause of the behavior. I think that tends to happen far more often than it should.
Yes, it takes very little effort to search for melatonin levels by age and find out that the vast majority of children shouldn’t need melatonin supplementation anyways. We older folks OTOH...I’ve taken 3mg most nights for a few years and sleep better without any known ill-effects from the supplement.
And here is a link to some very interesting research on, among other things, melatonin and covid.
https://www.evolutamente.it/author/doris/
If its use has skyrocketed during COVID one may assume that this could be partially due to anxiety from social isolation causing children to lose sleep, or it could be parents using it as a COVID prophylactic. That may at least explain the CDC's need to clamp down it in some regards.
But besides that, I think you are correct in that children already produce high levels of melatonin, and if they don't then there is likely to be factors at play to cause this issue such as constant stimuli and artificial light exposure disrupting natural circadian rhythms.
melatonin could be targeted, ala Ivermectin, because it is useful against covid infection (see research papers in my previous reply)
A three-month old child would still have a tongue thrust reflex which aids in nursing/taking a bottle as well as prevents accidental ingestion of solids. Of course, there would be absolutely no fine motor control to actually allow such a young infant to pinch a pill and/or place it in its mouth - they are still working on getting some neck muscles. I really hope someone is in jail after that. But yeah, it doesn't seem like something to be horribly concerned about ... yet the media finds another way to stoke fear in the hearts of mothers all across the country. 🤦🏻♀️
Considering that both of the deaths were infants I don't put much faith in the children began popping them because they were candy. It's weird that the NPR article never mentioned anything about the "intentional misuse", and how that probably means the baby didn't give the melatonin to his/herself.
I take Melatonin every night before bed. No problems.
There is a war on supplements taking shape now, because Big Pharma can’t make money on healthy people. They want to get rid of NAC too. I stocked up, just in case.
The NAC one is interesting mainly because I intend on writing about acetaminophen in the near future. I have the papers but it's one of those really long posts that would take quite a while so it's been sidetracked.
I take Melatonin every night (13mg). I have been taking it for YEARS.
I've supplemented a bit during COVID, but I would like to look into it further to see if it is really necessary for someone my age. Instead if I can obtain it through less light exposure and proper sleep it may be the best avenue before supplementation. But for the elderly it's interesting because I believe the circadian rhythm has been linked to neurodegeneration.
Just found this post a bit late into summer. I am one who can't take melatonin and not the only one I know. It causes progressive weakness and palpitations after a few days at any dose though first had problems when taking taking five mg a night.
It's not an OTC med in France, because supplementing with it can knock your natural cycle of melatonin concentration out of whack. I think it needs to be handled very carefully.
That's interesting. It's certainly true many people respond differently to melatonin and for most people who get good sleep supplementation shouldn't be the first go to aid.
However, I wasn't able to find any actual studies on those circadian rhythm disruptions, although I know it gets mentioned often so I'm not sure how that information spread. Do you have any studies in regards to the melatonin? I saw this post in psychiatric times referencing the "darker side" of melatonin intake, but it makes reference to late meals influencing melatonin production and linking an association between metabolism and melatonin production. The study cited appears to suggest that melatonin is produced when in a fasted state.
https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/melatonin-dark-side-hormone
So this wouldn't actually me an argument against exogenous melatonin, but an argument against late-night eating. But again I'm not sure if there are other studies out there suggesting something else with direct evidence.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/074873049701200627
This is an article from 1997 by Beatrice Guardiola-Lemaitre in Journal of Biological Rhythms.
Here's another link for it:
https://doi.org/10.1177/074873049701200627
It's a very lucid paper. If you search for information on side effects of melatonin using Scholar, most of the articles are touting it, and describing its benefits. This one article goes into some actual detail about natural cycles of melatonin (diurnal cycles) and I found it extremely helpful. The real danger with telling everyone how wonderful the stuff is, is that some people, and I don't think we're that rare, are going to have serious side effects but will never suspect it's the melatonin. Over the years I've learned to check the post-marketing side effects for any med I've been prescribed because I tend to have idiosyncratic side effects and some have been terrible. I'd put melatonin in the category of a toxic substance for me.
I just cannot understand how it can be given to children. It's not a lightweight supplement. I would never give this to my kids.
I think I've avoided Scholar because I never know where the links take me, and I've clicked on a few and taken to "unsafe" sites with the study. Maybe I'm using it wrong but it's hard to find certain studies out of all of the clicking needed. I generally use PubMed for free articles, and if not available I may use other ways to find the paper and access it.
The paper is interesting. I skimmed a bit of it but some of the toxicity (number 8) still has a bit of that issue in which a lot of the concerns were extrapolated based on things such as melatonin timing being an issue. Also the glucose argument also mentioned the possibility of late eating being an issue as well. I think the conclusion is interesting in which there was a comment about people with circadian rhythm issues actually suffering from adverse reactions, and so I wonder if that may have something to do with the inability to metabolize or process melatonin, and possibly that's why these people suffered from circadian rhythm issues.
I think the most important thing is taking care to note that it's not about getting the right number of hours, but also having a consistent sleep schedule. Even if you sleep 8 hours a night if it's scattered all about it's probably not doing you any good.
There probably is no real reason to provide it to kids, but my main argument is that the evidence here was lacking, and the two deaths associated with melatonin overdose appear to be nefarious in nature (no information on one, but the 3 month old having been intentionally given an overdose tells me something is at play). I think a lot more research should go into melatonin since a lot of the benefits cloud out any concerning information and results.
I'm sorry you suffered bad side effects. It is interesting and I wonder what mechanisms could have occurred to have caused that.
By the way, I do use magnesium glycinate at bedtime, one 665 mg capsule that delivers 60mg of magnesium. Can't take more than that because I'm groggy next day. It works but I'd tell anyone to be careful with it. Magnesium overdose is possible. I sweat like a pig so I lose a lot of electrolytes, and 60 mg seems safe. For now.
Because it's still a comparatively new drug I hate to say this but I don't think it should be OTC. It's not as if you can trust the pharma/FDA team to be fair, I know. I'm the first one to self prescribe and take measures to get what I want. But the potential for real harm is there. People should at least realize you can kill yourself with the stuff. It's what was happening to me, and it's happened to others I know. Americans in particular get the idea that if a thing is said to be beneficial by "experts", then we should go hog wild with it. It takes a dose of less than 1 mg/night for me to start going downhill. Who else out there is being injured but because of the endless hype will never connect the dots? People get as rigidly hysterical if you counter the pro melatonin verbiage as the vax fanatics if you tell them the shots are risky.
Late eating was not my problem, I'm not sure what is. Doctors acknowledge this can happen to people and now are telling me it's only safe for people to take 0.1 to 0.5 mg/night.
As for Google Scholar, it works fine. My anti mRNA/AAV vax campaign was fueled by some great papers I found using it over a year ago. Much of the time it leads to stuff on pubmed, but it's much broader than that. You never know what it will turn into though.
There's a paper I found by a French author that dates from around 1990. I found it using Google Scholar. I didn't know why I felt so awful, felt like I was dying, then the lightbulb went on that I'd been using melatonin, and I searched for information on it using Scholar. That's not the only paper exposing its dark side. And I know other people who had a bad experience with it. I think I downloaded it. I'll try to dig it up and post the link here.
See? There's a reason I don't read MSM any longer.
Plus this is such a great overview of melatonin that I'll share with a few folks.
Thanks Paul!
Yes I've read several of them, and they all appeared to have popped up suddenly and lamented people's use of melatonin and how this is just parents trying to deal with their rowdy kids by forcing pills on them. That could be a possibility, but I wonder if there are other factors. If children are staying up at night because they think they'll kill their families if they get COVID, or begin to lose the social structures that have kept them grounded and provided a source of belonging which led them to developing parasocial relationships with Tik Tok influencers, and the only way for them to go to sleep at night is through melatonin supplementation then is it really the use of melatonin that's the problem here?
Ahhh, marketing. Everyone thinks about melatonin for sleep. Just like most things, folks don't look at it themselves. We're all addicted to marketing messages
I think it's mostly because that gets into a bit of technical details that just goes over people's heads. Instead of looking into some of that information people may want to just be told "x treats y. If you have y, try using x". It is rather interesting to find out that many Vitamin D3 supplements mention immune health and I never understood why originally.
At first I thought the claim that children are "downing melatonin pills" (per NPR) was absurd. But I do know that kids stay up in front of the light of their phones and computers which probably interferes with melatonin production. Perhaps parents are intervening because of that.
I have a hard time considering anything coming out of the CDC is for my health benefit. But I like your approach MD; just because the CDC claims something doesn't mean I should reject it outright. Some of it may be useful to consider. I do wonder if they are targeting supplements involved in treatment of covid or detoxing from the injection.
Thanks Nova, and yes I find it all strange. Even if teenagers are attempting to abuse melatonin for suicide attempts how is it the fault of the regular consumer? Children choke on bananas and grapes but I don't think we're going to start putting yellow tape over the produce section because of that.
Yes, my approach is to not engage in heuristic fallacies. It's one of the reasons I've started to not like those sayings like "just do the opposite of what the FDA/CDC/NIH says!" since it just seems far too simplistic. For this matter, it requires seeing if there is a legitimate concern about overuse of melatonin and if that were the case this appears to state otherwise. Thousands may sound like a lot, but if you spread it out over 10 years and limit it to those requiring hospitalization you can really put it into perspective. Include the 2 deaths that appear to have been intentionally done then we really should be skeptical of these types of reports.
I'm not sure why it was rolled out now. A very cynical side of me thinks that this may have come out before the child vaccines were approved to push parents away from supplements? But regardless it's one of those things where it feels like it wants to target the behavior rather than the cause of the behavior. I think that tends to happen far more often than it should.
"So why make such a stink about something that appears to be nothing but a nothing burger?"
My guess: It Works.
They've lied about everything else, why not this, too?