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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

#111

Post by swozey »

kevinh456 wrote: post #96
swozey wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Ambien makes me wake up screaming at the top of my lungs. Every time. I never remember but it scares the shit out of my wife. No Ambien for me. Lol

Are you waking up from a nightmare? Do you have any recollection?

Re: Melatonin as a treatment for food waste

#112

Post by mewpmewp2 »

sottol wrote: post #108
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Interesting. Are you certain that in those gummy-bears the melatonin would be spread around the gummy bear equally as opposed to being injected or similar into a single place? I'm not sure how they are combined with melatonin.

Edit: looking around a bit, it does seem like melatonin or supplement ingredients are added and mixed before they are molded, so at least in theory it should be spread around fairly evenly.

Re: Melatonin as a treatment for food waste

#113

Post by kelnos »

baggy_trough wrote: post #56
amelius wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what to think of this book, where the author literally persuades people to megadose on the hormone: https://www.amazon.com/Melatonin-Transform-Melatonin-resilie... It's mindboggling that this is freely available.

Yes, the absolute mind boggling horror of free people being able to decide for themselves what to ingest.

The problem is that capitalism drives people to push lies as fact, and manipulate people into believing those lies. "Well maybe people just shouldn't be so gullible" clearly isn't a solution, or the problem would be solved already.

I don't think that's an excuse to start banning books (and other media), but products like this -- especially anything that advocates a particular approach to health, nutrition, or medicine -- should be vetted by actual experts (more than one), and stores should be required to post disclaimers when the product doesn't pass muster.

Yes, there's the potential for abuse and shady dealings there, but I'd like to believe that the end result would still be better than what we have now.

Now, some people are just raised to believe in complete nonsense, so you're not going to save everyone by trying to educate them. But I think it'd help many people not get drawn in by (potentially dangerous) pseudoscience.

Re: Melatonin as a treatment for food waste

#114

Post by maltyr »

wnevets wrote: post #93
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…

> It's strange to me how Melatonin is so uncontrolled in usage, dosage, etc., despite being a hormone. You can thank Mel Gibson and industry lobbying [1][2]. [1] https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/documentary/supplements-a... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IV2olDA0w8U

Other hormones don't get the same treatment. I'm not sure why only melatonin is treated as a dietary supplement when the other hormones are not.

For example, you can't get testosterone or epinephrine, over the counter. Maybe the only other hormones that are as readily available as melatonin are birth control pills, but those are considered pharmaceuticals, and regulated as such.

Re: Melatonin as a treatment for food waste

#115

Post by zigboppityslick »

orev wrote: post #87
RyJones wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I asked a pharmacy in Reykjavik if they sold it, or Tylenol PM, and the pharmacist reacted like I'd asked to buy a brick of cocaine.

Never take Tylenol PM to sleep, unless you also have a reason to need a painkiller (acetaminophen). Acetaminophen is toxic to the liver and can cause liver failure if overdosed. A regular diphenhydramine (Benadryl) is the just the PM part without the extra risk (except that has its own risks).

Perhaps never is a bit extreme here? You make a good point but if it's all you've got and you haven't been drinking it isn't going to hurt you. It's got a normal dose of acetaminophen last I checked.

This is all assuming it isn't being used for some kind of chronic sleep issue.

Re: Melatonin as a treatment for food waste

#116

Post by skybrian »

orev wrote: post #85
jrockway wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that melatonin has an inverse correlation between dosage and effect. 10mg won't make you as sleepy as 1mg. I take 1mg of melatonin every night, and it does immediately make me sleepy. I used to buy 10mg at the drugstore and it just makes me feel like shit for the next day.

The optimal dose is 0.3mg, so I would cut the 1mg tablet in half to get close. You’re still doing better than most people who are essentially taking a horse-sized dose at 10mg. The 10mg makes you feel bad because it’s still in your system the next day. At the recommended (lower) doses, your body fully clears it out by morning, so you feel alert and also have much lower risk of long term effects.

Huh, I had somehow remembered it as 0.9. I expect it varies per person, though.

https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/07/10/melatonin-much-more-th...

Re: Melatonin as a treatment for food waste

#118

Post by hombre_fatal »

maltyr wrote: post #114
wnevets wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's strange to me how Melatonin is so uncontrolled in usage, dosage, etc., despite being a hormone. You can thank Mel Gibson and industry lobbying [1][2]. [1] https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/documentary/supplements-a... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IV2olDA0w8U

Other hormones don't get the same treatment. I'm not sure why only melatonin is treated as a dietary supplement when the other hormones are not. For example, you can't get testosterone or epinephrine, over the counter. Maybe the only other hormones that are as readily available as melatonin are birth control pills, but those are considered pharmaceuticals, and regulated as such.

Well, what are the risks and downsides of testosterone and epinephrine vs. melatonin?

Melatonin is so harmless I’m still not sure if it’s a placebo half the time I take it.

Re: Melatonin as a treatment for food waste

#119

Post by kelnos »

maltyr wrote: post #10
rat9988 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many many studies on melatonin, it's not like we know nothing.

And those studies suggest that melatonin plays a critical part in your circadian rhythm, which kind of implies that adding it to your food would also screw with your circadian rhythm. That alone seems like a good enough reason to caution against adding it into the food supply. Additionally, there are receptors for melatonin in a number of systems in the body, and we don't have much knowledge on what those receptors d…

Then again, my circadian rhythm has been pretty broken since I was a child. Not only does my body drift toward a 28-hour day (20 awake, 8 asleep) if I'm not careful, but I tend not to get tired enough to sleep until 3am or 4am.

Melatonin supplements fix my circadian rhythm. I don't take it every night, but when I do, I get tired and fall asleep within 3-5 hours, sleep for a solid 8 or 9, and then feel pretty good for the next day. And if I take it again that night at the appropriate time, I can keep myself much closer to a 24-hour wake/sleep cycle.

Re: Melatonin as a treatment for food waste

#120

Post by mtlmtlmtlmtl »

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…

Dunno about the US, but in Norway there a prescription version that's 2mg total in an extended release formulation. It's a fairly optimal dosage repeated throughout the night. It's technically meant for elderly people who can't stay asleep very well, but it's been pretty easy to get it off-label(doctors will basically be thrilled to be "drug-seeked" for just melatonin instead of benzos or Z-drugs for once, IME), and the price is reasonable, especially now there's a generic version.

Did absolute wonders for my overall sleep quality anyway. And I struggle with both insomnia and frequent awakenings.

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