Live data from Hacker News

Melatonin as a treatment for food waste

anthropocenemagazine.org

201–210 of 212 posts

Re: Melatonin as a treatment for food waste

#201
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.

About 0.1mg was the sweet spot for me.

Re: Melatonin as a treatment for food waste

#202

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.

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.

I found the dreams were really weird (Like Salvador Dali weird), but not nightmares.

Re: Melatonin as a treatment for food waste

#203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your proposed cure is far worse than the disease. It would have a profound chilling effect on free speech.

Eh? "and stores should be required to post disclaimers when the product doesn't pass muster." What about this is restrictive of free speech? If anything, YOU want to restrict the speech of the store to not allow them to say things they sell might be nonsense. I think for medical things, oversight and general blurbs are fine. Its also fine if the store in question wants to post a blurb where they disagree with the "ve…

It creates a huge transaction cost on content "that advocates a particular approach to health, nutrition, or medicine". First, some unspecified actor will need to make sure that such content is vetted by experts, however that status is to be determined. Secondly, stores will need to make sure that each item containing such content provides a suitable disclaimer. Thirdly, some bureaucracy will be tasked with enforcing these rules.

It would simply be much easier to not produce any content "that advocates a particular approach to health, nutrition, or medicine."

Re: Melatonin as a treatment for food waste

#204
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.

Good luck finding it at less than 3mg actually. What you need to do is to find an edible version, like those strips, and cut them into 1/8ths (it’s easy to create 1/8ths, annoying to make accurate 1/10ths)

Re: Melatonin as a treatment for food waste

#205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Melatonin appears nearly harmless. Does it? We really haven't done enough science on it. > Melatonin has been linked to headaches, dizziness, nausea, stomach cramps, drowsiness, confusion or disorientation, irritability and mild anxiety, depression and tremors as well as abnormally low blood pressure. It can also interact with common medications and trigger allergies. [1] [1] https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/01/health/m…

I don’t mean to be flippant but aren’t those all symptoms of sleep deprivation? I’m wary of phrasing like “linked to” in science reporting because it falls short of asserting causality.

Like I mention not enough science has been done on this. However I felt better almost immediately after I stopped taking it.

Re: Melatonin as a treatment for food waste

#206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Melatonin appears nearly harmless. Does it? We really haven't done enough science on it. > Melatonin has been linked to headaches, dizziness, nausea, stomach cramps, drowsiness, confusion or disorientation, irritability and mild anxiety, depression and tremors as well as abnormally low blood pressure. It can also interact with common medications and trigger allergies. [1] [1] https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/01/health/m…

Commenting on HN has been linked to most of these symptoms yet it’s not regulated either.

If posting on HN is triggering allergies, stomach cramps or low blood pressure you should see a doctor and get off of HN.

Re: Melatonin as a treatment for food waste

#207
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> Yes, the absolute mind boggling horror of free people being able to decide for themselves what to ingest. Absolute horror that people ingest things based on a lie. It's on level of this powder doesn't contain asbestos. Just because he isn't a big corp doesn't mean he is free to lie and profit on his lies.

To me that’s less of a horror and more of needing not to believe everything you read.

Re: Melatonin as a treatment for food waste

#208
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…

isnt Melatonin responsible for body development like puperty etc

Melatonin synchronizes the circadian rhythm and the day-night sleep cycle by being released in the absence of light.

The release of other hormones such as cortisol, growth hormone and sex hormones are all synchronized to this day-night cycle.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5372003/

Re: Melatonin as a treatment for food waste

#209
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, the absolute mind boggling horror of free people being able to decide for themselves what to ingest. Absolute horror that people ingest things based on a lie. It's on level of this powder doesn't contain asbestos. Just because he isn't a big corp doesn't mean he is free to lie and profit on his lies.

To me that’s less of a horror and more of needing not to believe everything you read.

And how I'm supposed to decide what to believe? Because I don't have infinite amount of time to become expert at everything.

Re: Melatonin as a treatment for food waste

#210

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

I’m no doctor but I think the difference between a drug and a hormone is that a drug is a foreign substance you take to affect the way your body functions while a hormone is something produced endogenously to regulate various processes in the body. People need to understand that melatonin is a hormone and that comes with different risks and issues than a drug.

They are not mutually exclusive. A drug may be a hormone and hormones may be endogenous or exogenous. For example, oral contraceptives are drugs which are exogenous hormones.

One may think of the neuroendocrine system as the body's event system. Hormones are the event signals. Where they're emitted from doesn't particularly matter, the key is they're flowing and circulating to places and producing observable effects on any tissue with the appropriate interfaces which range from cell membrane receptors to nuclear receptors.

Post reply on HN