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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

#61

Post by scotty79 »

burnished wrote: post #52
kbutler wrote: post #47

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...

It probably took a nap? I'm not sure about raccoon biology but in humans melatonin is one of the least hazardous things. I'm not sure you can overdose on it practically speaking

Not even that. Melatonin works best as a sleep aid in small doses. Larger one have less effect.

Re: Melatonin as a treatment for food waste

#62

Post by 14 »

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.

Here in Canada it is not controlled either and one can freely buy it at places like Walmart or anywhere with a pharmacy section.

Re: Melatonin as a treatment for food waste

#63

Post by vidarh »

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…

10-25mg seems really high. UK NHS advice is 2mg for sleep, 3mg for jet lag, w/advice it can be increased to up to 10mg if you don't get the desired.effect at lower doses.

For my part, 3mg leaves me totally ruined (exhausted, lethargic, worse than being ill) the following day. 1mg seems to improve my sleep, but I can totally believe less would work too. I will certainly not go higher.

UK is weird with this - I can order all kinds of stuff from abroad that I can't buy OTC here, but there's also another recent "workaround": online pharmacies here can sell you a variety of prescription drugs provided they ask you the appropriate questions and have a prescription issued as part of the sales process. Got my last melatonin that way.

Re: Melatonin as a treatment for food waste

#64

Post by swozey »

amelius wrote: post #49
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…

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.

> Dr John Lieurance is a Chiropractic Neurologist and Naturopathic Physician

I had never heard of a Chiropractic Neurologist. Interesting.

Welp reading about him was a wild ride. To save people a click -

> After becoming severely ill with Lyme, EBV and Mold illness, Dr John Lieurance began to explore ways to improve health at the deepest cellular level. His journey brought him to discover Melatonin as the core anti-oxidant that supports all systems in the body. His book on Melatonin takes a deep dive into healing naturally and using high dose melatonin, along with various other practical healing methods to heal the body and live a longer and more vital life.

His life focus is on vitality, longevity and enhanced consciousness. His interest is in connecting what he calls, "The 3 legs of a stool": Vitality of the body, Mind Mastery & a Direct experience of God. Using science and ancient wisdom, he aims to connect these dots in his own journey to becoming the best version of himself in this life. Diving deeply into many healing methods, to discover the deepest and most profound means to activate cellular energy, such as with Melatonin, Methylene Blue, NAD+, as well as fasting with various nutrients to activate responses. Dr. John explores many new paths in the health care world, with his unique & fresh ideas using various delivery systems, such as suppositories and nasal sprays and various protocols he has created. He attended Parker College of Chiropractic & received his Naturopathic degree in 2001 from St. Luke's School of Medicine. He has practiced Functional Neurology, Naturopathic medicine and Regenerative Medicine, using stem cell therapy in Sarasota for 25 years. Founder of the Advanced Rejuvenation Center in Sarasota, Florida, and founder of Functional Cranial Release – which is an Endo-Nasal Cranial Treatment with the ability to unlock the spinal fluid to allow profound healing of the nervous system. See his next book "It's All in Your Head: Endo-Nasal Cranial Therapy". He has been involved in multiple clinical trials, including investigation into the use of stem cells for Parkinson's Disease, COPD, OA of the knee and hip from 2012-2014. He has a clinical focus on mold illness, Lyme disease and chronic viral infections.

Re: Melatonin as a treatment for food waste

#65

Post by danielbln »

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.

In Germany freely available OTC.

Re: Melatonin as a treatment for food waste

#66

Post by wpietri »

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…

> 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.

I think you're correct. But electric light also screws with your circadian rhythm, and that's a concern almost nobody takes seriously. Years back I built my own automated lighting system [1] and the biggest thing I learned from it is that I'm not a responsible lightswitch user. My sleep schedule used to be very chaotic. But once I set up my screens and my house to dim and redshift in line with a regular day-night cycle, I not only started sleeping very regularly, but my mood and focus improved.

When electric lighting was introduced it notably changed sleep schedules. [2] But we got used to that and just kinda went with it, even though surveys show massive problems with sleep. For me now it's a cautionary tale about how little we understand the impact of technologies we adopt.

[1] https://github.com/wpietri/sunrise

[2] E.g., the "'Til Morning is Nigh" segement here: https://backstoryradio.org/shows/on-the-clock-4/

Re: Melatonin as a treatment for food waste

#67

Post by vidarh »

vvpan wrote: post #36
ac29 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It seems to be particularly bad with Melatonin, because a lot of people do really badly with big doses. A 3mg dose makes me more exhausted than I've ever felt before melatonin. I tried A couple of times. Never again. I wrote it off until someone pointed out this isn't unusual with doses that high. 1mg dose is fine. I can't image how I'd have felt with a higher dose.

Re: Melatonin as a treatment for food waste

#68

Post by r00fus »

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…

At lower dosages it acts to nudge your body to feel drowsy.

At higher doses it has a soporific effect similar to other more powerful sleep medications.

I and my family use it to help with long jetlag but just for the first few days.

Re: Melatonin as a treatment for food waste

#70

Post by Cthulhu_ »

danielbln wrote: post #65
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.

In Germany freely available OTC.

NL as well, a whole section of drug stores (that also sell things like shampoos, hair dyes, makeup, toys, ramen noodles, candy... they diversified) dedicated to melatonin, CBD oils and products, probably some others too.

I want to believe it's because they've been thoroughly tested to not be harmful, since they don't even have the leaflet that's mandatory with drugs / medication listing all the side effects and whatnot.

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