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Melatonin as a treatment for food waste

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Re: Melatonin as a treatment for food waste

#31

Post by vvpan »

savanaly wrote: post #23
vvpan wrote: post #8

Melatonin is very interesting because it is believed that all living things (bacteria, fungi, etc) have it [1]. Calling it a "sleep aid" is somewhat off because in humans and other animals it is compound heavily involved in modulating circadian rhythms. It is not a "drug". And a little personal anecdote about it: I have gone through a period of bad sleep and depression and was taking melotonin to help with sleep. On…

Just taking melatonin vs not taking it isn't the only decision space. There's a lot that goes into taking it to make it work. I've never done so but I understand this to be the case from reading this [0]. [0] https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/07/10/melatonin-much-more-th...

I believe it. I guess my takeaways are:

* Be cautious, effects of taking a hormone are complex and it can be more potent than might be evident at first.

* If you have sleep issues they might have a root cause. In my case I think it was circumstantial anxiety.

* Jetlag is not that big of a deal.

Re: Melatonin as a treatment for food waste

#32

Post by cjrp »

matthewaveryusa wrote: post #30
cjrp wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The dosage of melatonin you can buy over-the-counter in the US always surprises me. In the UK I believe it’s only 2mg with a prescription, but I was seeing 5mg+ just in a grocery store.

Behold the new target market: children at 1mg [1]. The US markets melatonin as a vitamin. I really have no clue on the long term adverse effects, but having used 5mg as a sleeping aid for a bit, one thing is for sure: melatonin is really not for OTC child use. I'm shocked that this is legal! [1] https://www.target.com/s/kids+melatonin+gummies

My friend, a children’s psychiatric nurse, said they offer something like 0.2mg doses for kids in their care. 1mg is huge!

Re: Melatonin as a treatment for food waste

#33

Post by mallomarmeasle »

vvpan wrote: post #8

Melatonin is very interesting because it is believed that all living things (bacteria, fungi, etc) have it [1]. Calling it a "sleep aid" is somewhat off because in humans and other animals it is compound heavily involved in modulating circadian rhythms. It is not a "drug". And a little personal anecdote about it: I have gone through a period of bad sleep and depression and was taking melotonin to help with sleep. On…

I wonder about the dosage you might’ve been taking. Many, many people take much more than needed, and higher doses are more likely to have adverse effects. 250-300 µg is an appropriate dosage for most adults. Note that common over-the-counter dosages are 10 to 25 mg. There is a Cochran collaboration meta-analysis supporting this.

I work in a pharmacy school in the US. One of my colleagues told me a funny anecdote about traveling in Great Britain. He had forgotten his melatonin, so went to a pharmacy to get some. The pharmacist told him that it was only available with a prescription, being a neurohormone. But here’s some promethazine OTC. That’s Rx only in the US.

Re: Melatonin as a treatment for food waste

#34

Post by 89vision »

tanjtanjtanj wrote: post #9
Arrath wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forget groggy, melatonin generally works as a sleep aid for me but also gives me wildly trippy and fucked up dreams. I stopped using it specifically because of that.

Your dosage was likely too high. I had the same issue using the smallest dose I could find at the pharmacy (5mg) and it was totally fixed by going to a pill one fifteenth of the dosage that I procured online.

I bite off tiny pieces of 5mg pills. One pill lasts me about a week and a half

Re: Melatonin as a treatment for food waste

#35

Post by teamonkey »

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 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.

Re: Melatonin as a treatment for food waste

#36

Post by vvpan »

ac29 wrote: post #26
vvpan wrote: post #8

Melatonin is very interesting because it is believed that all living things (bacteria, fungi, etc) have it [1]. Calling it a "sleep aid" is somewhat off because in humans and other animals it is compound heavily involved in modulating circadian rhythms. It is not a "drug". And a little personal anecdote about it: I have gone through a period of bad sleep and depression and was taking melotonin to help with sleep. On…

Melatonin in the US is frequently found in 5 or 10 mg doses, which is a huge amount and can cause adverse reactions in people. A better dose is 0.3mg (300 mcg) or 0.5mg (500 mcg).

General problem with "supplements" I imagine.

Re: Melatonin as a treatment for food waste

#37

Post by Void_ »

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…

Once I took melatonin to get a better afternoon nap.

I never felt so groggy in my life. Completely screwed up my internal clock.

I’m very careful with it since then.

Taking it at night time doesn’t quite show how powerful it is - since you’re sleepy anyway.

Re: Melatonin as a treatment for food waste

#38

Post by mechhacker »

bestcoder69 wrote: post #17
tanjtanjtanj wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your dosage was likely too high. I had the same issue using the smallest dose I could find at the pharmacy (5mg) and it was totally fixed by going to a pill one fifteenth of the dosage that I procured online.

0.3mg is the dose you want, apparently https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/07/10/melatonin-much-more-th...

Thank you. Man, that explains a lot of my easy to sleep but wake up early in the morning issues.

Re: Melatonin as a treatment for food waste

#39

Post by hombre_fatal »

clumsysmurf wrote: post #12

If you have IBD / Chrohn's be careful with melatonin https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/melatonin-used-to-...

One of the publications they cite says melatonin is good for IBD: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03009...

Too lazy to see if that's backed by a study on actual human health outcomes instead of rat models like the thrust of your article.

Re: Melatonin as a treatment for food waste

#40

Post by loeg »

cjrp wrote: post #25
vvpan wrote: post #8

Melatonin is very interesting because it is believed that all living things (bacteria, fungi, etc) have it [1]. Calling it a "sleep aid" is somewhat off because in humans and other animals it is compound heavily involved in modulating circadian rhythms. It is not a "drug". And a little personal anecdote about it: I have gone through a period of bad sleep and depression and was taking melotonin to help with sleep. On…

The dosage of melatonin you can buy over-the-counter in the US always surprises me. In the UK I believe it’s only 2mg with a prescription, but I was seeing 5mg+ just in a grocery store.

Part of the problem historically (into the 2010s) was that MIT had a patent on doses of melatonin under 1mg[1]. So manufacturers could only avoid the patent by selling larger doses. That patent is expired but to some extent customers probably still think more is better.

Personally, I use a fairly large dose of melatonin daily without ill effect; and it works better for me than smaller doses.

[1]: https://patents.google.com/patent/US5641801A/en

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