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Melatonin as a treatment for food waste

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Re: Melatonin as a treatment for food waste

#41

Post by vvpan »

mallomarmeasle wrote: post #33
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 abo…

I think that's super reasonable and I have no record or memory of dosage, sadly. Although nowadays I approach such things from a very different angle: why do I think I need to medicate at all? Why am I, a relatively young and healthy person, not sleeping well? Jet lag in my book is not a strong enough reason to self-medicate, just suck it up and learn to enjoy early mornings =)

I have been reading a book about biological effects of daylight and how little sun a modern person is exposed to on a daily basis. There has been more research on the topic, especially since a recent research on receptors in the eye responsible for detecting gradual changes in daylight (ipRGCs). Spending more time in the daylight might be a better way to self-medicate.

Re: Melatonin as a treatment for food waste

#43

Post by maksimur »

Void_ wrote: post #37
maltyr wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The point is taking it in the night if you're not able to get sleepy, especially if you fucked up your circadian rhythm. Taking it in the afternoon is going to fuck up the circadian rhythm if it wasn't already. For that you're better off taking chamomile and valerian.

Re: Melatonin as a treatment for food waste

#44

Post by qwerpy »

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).

That explains a lot. I have a bottle of 5mg pills and I found out I could still feel the effects when I would take a tiny “nibble” of the pill. So over the course of a bad sleep week I would slowly consume a single pill. This bottle is a lifetime supply, assuming it doesn’t degrade.

Re: Melatonin as a treatment for food waste

#45

Post by swozey »

teamonkey wrote: post #35
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.

> 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 because they'd sleep-walk hallucinate. I had one friend get arrested for sleeping in someones (random) attic on an ambien kick. A pilot, no less.

My mom gave me a bottle of it when I was in high school and it made me hallucinate in an unpleasant way. I do plenty of mycology stuff but the ambien was weird. I think I took it twice or three times and just stopped.

Re: Melatonin as a treatment for food waste

#46

Post by [deleted] »

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).

[deleted]

Re: Melatonin as a treatment for food waste

#47

Post by kbutler »

On a youth camping trip, one morning a boy found his (contraband) snacks had been raided. A raccoon (probably) had chewed through the tent, into his backpack, eaten various snacks, and opened his bottle of melatonin and eaten quite a few pills.

I wonder what the effects were of a massive overdose of melatonin on an animal the size of a raccoon...

Re: Melatonin as a treatment for food waste

#48

Post by swores »

speak_plainly wrote: post #18
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

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.

Nah, there are drugs that already exist in the body (such as the extremely strong psychedelic DMT, which naturally occurs in tiny amounts within human brains and within many other animals and plants).

There isn't a hard scientific boundary of what substances count as a "drug", and if a hormone is being taken as a pill to affect a human then it is being used as a drug.

Re: Melatonin as a treatment for food waste

#49

Post by amelius »

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…

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.

Re: Melatonin as a treatment for food waste

#50

Post by Palomides »

Void_ wrote: post #37
maltyr wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

many people misunderstand melatonin, it isn't a sleeping pill, it's a tool for adjusting your circadian rhythm, taking it before a nap is crazy
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