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Melatonin as a treatment for food waste

anthropocenemagazine.org

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Re: Melatonin as a treatment for food waste

#101

Post by mewpmewp2 »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #86
maltyr wrote: post #5

I'm not sure we should cover our food in melatonin. People would recoil at the thought of pretty much any other hormone being added to our food supply. It's strange to me how Melatonin is so uncontrolled in usage, dosage, etc., despite being a hormone. The article suggests it's safer than current food additives, but I find that statement questionable. We don't understand the full effect of Melatonin on the human body…

I think it was here, where I read that the optimal dosage for melatonin was 0.3 mg (300 micrograms). The smallest OTC dosage you can get, is 1mg, and they sell 10mg pills. When I switched from 10mg to 0.3mg, my sleep improved drastically . Also, I stopped getting those really weird dreams. But I don't like taking stuff, and ended up stopping completely, a long time ago.

Is there a source for the 0.3mg, because the most sleep supplements around here I've tried seem to have at least 0.5mg, or at least 1mg. They contain a mixture of other things as well, like magnesium, leonurus cadiaca, humulus lupulus.

Melatonin only supplements mostly seem to start at around 2mg. There may be few of them at 1mg.

I can't tell if I've personally had any effects from melatonin specifically though. Sometimes I may have sleep issues and those nights, I think none of those supplements do anything.

Re: Melatonin as a treatment for food waste

#102

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

mewpmewp2 wrote: post #101
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it was here, where I read that the optimal dosage for melatonin was 0.3 mg (300 micrograms). The smallest OTC dosage you can get, is 1mg, and they sell 10mg pills. When I switched from 10mg to 0.3mg, my sleep improved drastically . Also, I stopped getting those really weird dreams. But I don't like taking stuff, and ended up stopping completely, a long time ago.

Is there a source for the 0.3mg, because the most sleep supplements around here I've tried seem to have at least 0.5mg, or at least 1mg. They contain a mixture of other things as well, like magnesium, leonurus cadiaca, humulus lupulus. Melatonin only supplements mostly seem to start at around 2mg. There may be few of them at 1mg. I can't tell if I've personally had any effects from melatonin specifically though. Some…

I'll see if I can find the posting. It was a fairly exhaustive article. It was enough for me to give it a try.

EDIT: I think this was it. Looks like it's had a couple of turns here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17632668

Re: Melatonin as a treatment for food waste

#103

Post by kelnos »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #86
maltyr wrote: post #5

I'm not sure we should cover our food in melatonin. People would recoil at the thought of pretty much any other hormone being added to our food supply. It's strange to me how Melatonin is so uncontrolled in usage, dosage, etc., despite being a hormone. The article suggests it's safer than current food additives, but I find that statement questionable. We don't understand the full effect of Melatonin on the human body…

I think it was here, where I read that the optimal dosage for melatonin was 0.3 mg (300 micrograms). The smallest OTC dosage you can get, is 1mg, and they sell 10mg pills. When I switched from 10mg to 0.3mg, my sleep improved drastically . Also, I stopped getting those really weird dreams. But I don't like taking stuff, and ended up stopping completely, a long time ago.

I still use melatonin on occasion. When I first learned about it, I tried the 10mg version, and it never did anything for me. Years ago I read about 0.3mg being the correct dose, and gave that a try. I don't take it every night, but when I do, I sleep much better, and for longer without waking up.

The main annoying thing about it is that you really need to take it a few hours before you go to sleep. So it's not something where you can realize that you're having trouble falling asleep, and take it only when needed. I have heard of some people where it does make them sleepy immediately after taking it, but I don't think that's a common reaction.

Re: Melatonin as a treatment for food waste

#104

Post by ex3ndr »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #86
maltyr wrote: post #5

I'm not sure we should cover our food in melatonin. People would recoil at the thought of pretty much any other hormone being added to our food supply. It's strange to me how Melatonin is so uncontrolled in usage, dosage, etc., despite being a hormone. The article suggests it's safer than current food additives, but I find that statement questionable. We don't understand the full effect of Melatonin on the human body…

I think it was here, where I read that the optimal dosage for melatonin was 0.3 mg (300 micrograms). The smallest OTC dosage you can get, is 1mg, and they sell 10mg pills. When I switched from 10mg to 0.3mg, my sleep improved drastically . Also, I stopped getting those really weird dreams. But I don't like taking stuff, and ended up stopping completely, a long time ago.

I needed to cut small pills into 6 pieces to get optimal dosage, now i know why

Re: Melatonin as a treatment for food waste

#105

Post by scythe »

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #4

Didn't see anything in the article about how much melatonin a person would get from eating food treated this way. I sometimes take small doses of melatonin during the summer months when my sleep pattern tends to drift if I don't actively keep it under control but wonder if consuming it through diet would end up making lots of people groggy during the day.

Good question. The paper says 0.1 mmol per liter, i.e. fruit is sprayed with a solution containing about 23 milligrams per liter of melatonin.

It's possible that the amount retained would be less than a few milliliters of solution equivalent — less than 100 micrograms under practical consumption patterns — so having little activity. But if the melatonin is absorbed by the fruit, the effect could be significant and particularly problematic since people often eat fruit in the morning.

In any case, I think that a more likely goal of this research (vs actually spraying commercial fruit with melatonin) might be to identify compounds able to produce the same beneficial effect on fruit without causing any adverse effects in humans.

Re: Melatonin as a treatment for food waste

#106

Post by lancesells »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #86
maltyr wrote: post #5

I'm not sure we should cover our food in melatonin. People would recoil at the thought of pretty much any other hormone being added to our food supply. It's strange to me how Melatonin is so uncontrolled in usage, dosage, etc., despite being a hormone. The article suggests it's safer than current food additives, but I find that statement questionable. We don't understand the full effect of Melatonin on the human body…

I think it was here, where I read that the optimal dosage for melatonin was 0.3 mg (300 micrograms). The smallest OTC dosage you can get, is 1mg, and they sell 10mg pills. When I switched from 10mg to 0.3mg, my sleep improved drastically . Also, I stopped getting those really weird dreams. But I don't like taking stuff, and ended up stopping completely, a long time ago.

I'll never take it again because of the dreams. If they were fun dreams I would maybe consider it but no. And it's crazy the dosages they sell.

Re: Melatonin as a treatment for food waste

#107

Post by 99_00 »

maltyr wrote: post #5

I'm not sure we should cover our food in melatonin. People would recoil at the thought of pretty much any other hormone being added to our food supply. It's strange to me how Melatonin is so uncontrolled in usage, dosage, etc., despite being a hormone. The article suggests it's safer than current food additives, but I find that statement questionable. We don't understand the full effect of Melatonin on the human body…

> The article suggests it's safer than current food additives, but I find that statement questionable. We don't understand the full effect of Melatonin on the human body, so I don't know how you can make that conclusion.

Only allowing substances for which we understand the full effect on the human body is not a mainstream criteria or standard used by any agency in the world. I'm not aware of any substance for which we have a full understanding of the effect on the human body.

Re: Melatonin as a treatment for food waste

#108

Post by sottol »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #102
mewpmewp2 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a source for the 0.3mg, because the most sleep supplements around here I've tried seem to have at least 0.5mg, or at least 1mg. They contain a mixture of other things as well, like magnesium, leonurus cadiaca, humulus lupulus. Melatonin only supplements mostly seem to start at around 2mg. There may be few of them at 1mg. I can't tell if I've personally had any effects from melatonin specifically though. Some…

I'll see if I can find the posting. It was a fairly exhaustive article. It was enough for me to give it a try. EDIT: I think this was it. Looks like it's had a couple of turns here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17632668

Yes, I think that's the post. I was also just going to post that.

What I ended up doing is buy smallest dose of melatonin gummy-bears (3mg afair) and they were easier to cut into smaller pieces/lower doses than pills.

I occasionally use these to adjust my circadian rhythm. Naturally I go to bed around 2-4am but I have kids that wake us up at the crack of dawn.

Re: Melatonin as a treatment for food waste

#109

Post by mewpmewp2 »

scotty79 wrote: post #58
circuit10 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t a drug just anything that affects how your body functions? It doesn’t have to be something that your body wouldn’t have in it anyway

Sugar affects how your body functions too.

So homeopathy pills are drugs!

Re: Melatonin as a treatment for food waste

#110

Post by kelnos »

swozey wrote: post #45
teamonkey wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may be uncontrolled in the US but not everywhere. It’s not allowed to be sold without a prescription where I live, and even then it’s only prescribed for chronic sleep disorders. I always ask anyone travelling to the US to bring back a bottle.

> chronic sleep disorders Wow. It's been a long time but I've definitely taken melatonin and if I felt any effects at all they definitely weren't strong if even noticable. Here (USA) Ambien is prescribed often for chronic sleep issues and that drug absolutely terrifies me. I've had friends addicted to it who wound up in a lot of criminal trouble for trespassing and wandering around beaches naked and things like that…

Interesting; I didn't realize Ambien was addictive. It was prescribed to me years ago after laser eye surgery (but only a week or so of pills). It was great for the first two or three days (I generally do have trouble sleeping and staying asleep, and Ambien knocked me right out and kept me that way for a solid 8 hours), but then I guess I developed a tolerance and it stopped being effective.

I wonder if that's why people get addicted? Maybe the normal dose is fine, but many some start developing a tolerance, and then self-raise their dosage in order to get it to work again, but a higher dose triggers addiction?

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