Why I Don’t Recommend Melatonin Supplemen... - Cure Parkinson's
Why I Don’t Recommend Melatonin Supplements Written By Michael Greger M.D. FACLM
Seems like your standard big pharma scare story. Ok so there is apparently a manufacturing risk that they produce the wrong thing. Um ok - well that would destroy the reputation Piping Rock and any of the others. I think the biggest problem with melatonin is that it is too good. Literally google any condition and melatonin and there is more than a 50% chance there is a study showing some benefit.
Here are just a few:
Osteosarcoma: (some guy posted that he had this on twitter, so I thought I would have a look) pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/317...
Age related macular degeneration:
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/163...
Kidney disease:
nature.com/articles/s41440-...
I could go on and on
Have been taking 20 mg melatonin for several years and haven't seen a doctor for anything but ear wax build up during that time.
good work alexask
The problem here is that he treats all melatonin products as though they were one/the same.
WHAT? "....in the early days, melatonin “was known as an anti-gonadal hormone,” with human-equivalent doses of just 1 or 2 mgs reducing the size of sex organs and impairing fertility in laboratory animals....." I take melatonin every night so I might need to measure my gonads for size loss or gain?
My husband has PD,and restless leg syndrome,which means 3 hours sleep a night if he is lucky.His PD nurse sympathised but offered no practical help.I researched melatonin,and phoned her to see if we could get a prescription for it ( inScotland it’s not available over the counter)She said she didn’t think it would help but would prescribe 2mg.per night.Unsurprisingly it had no effect so I doubled the dose and he has had the first 2 nights of 6 hour sleep for 2 years,Brilliant!
I live in Scotland. I asked for a referral to the sleep clinic. After a few weeks, I was seen and assessed overnight with all of the meters taped to my body and head. I was given a prescription for melatonin starting at 2 mg, but increasing in dosage as needed up to 12 mg a night. I'm still on that. Combined with cannabis oil and intranasal glutathione, melatonin really helps me get a better nights sleep. Lately it's been 6 or 6.5 hours, but that's better than 4 hours!
Dear Elliot,so pleased you got good help,I t seems you have to be reallyproactive to get any positive advice and action,my husband’s consultant to dose whatever we thought worked,but didn’t increase his prescription from 2 mg.Thank goodness for websites that give insights into lots of alternatives,although it’s frustrating that some of the most helpful ones aren’t available in this country.
Yeah, my GP was skeptical, but did put the referral through. I'm happy to get the 12 mg of sustained release melatonin. It might be worth asking again to see if you could increase the prescription.
Another option is ordering from Germany or the United States. I've ordered melatonin from the US, I could try to dig up the source I used for tablets and gummies.
I also ordered 25g of pure melatonin powder from Pure Bulk, another US company. I bought a scale and measure doses and dissolve it in vodka, if you want a higher dose still.
Does Melatonin helps with Tremors?
Thal,
Dr. Greger's main concerns seem to be disruption of the circadian rhythm and dosing that can vary significantly from brand to brand and within brand from the dose listed on the label.
If you take melatonin before bedtime then that is in line with normal melatonin production from the pineal gland and should not have a negative impact on the circadian rhythm. So I don't see that as a problem.
Regarding dosing, even if it does vary to the extent that he is saying it does, in studies, melatonin has been given at 300 mg/day for 2 years to people with ALS with no significant adverse events. This mainly represents the high safety profile of melatonin even at high dosing, but he left that relevant piece of information out of his article along with the hundreds of human studies showing benefit from melatonin in humans.
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/279...
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/349...
I would put a lot more weight in the hundreds of studies done by Dr. Reiter on the health benefits of melatonin over a period of more than 50 years than I would of a doctor who chooses to do a one sided piece on melatonin after performing how many studies himself? He completely ignores the human studies that show clear benefit from taking melatonin. It makes me wonder what his true agenda is because clearly it is not about trying to improve health.
Art
My husband with Parkinson's had sun downing. He would get up in the middle of the might and once ended up in the emergency room with hypothermia after wandering down a hill on our property. I found him face down in the dirt, incoherent .I started giving him 10 mg of melatonin at 4 pm and again between 9 and 10 pm. He never had sundowning again except for one evening when my son forgot to give it to him until 6pm.
This article was kind of a joke. Yes, dosing and impurities are both genuine concerns. That can be the case with all supplements, but that doesn't make me think we should take no supplements.
I have bought melatonin supplements from four providers. One of them produces a lower quality product, and I didn't buy from them again. The other three are fine.
I agree with the other commentor that this is a "big pharma scare story".
It doesn't address anything about melatonin as a treatment. It comes across as really uninformed scaremongering.
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