Melatonin Usage

Melatonin supplements may help insomnia sufferers because melatonin decreases sleep-onset latency or the length of time that it takes to fall asleep.

Your melatonin level normally increases at...

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As anxiety often prevents an individual from being able to rest and/or fall or stay asleep, melatonin is sometimes used as a treatment to help a person sleep.

Read more about Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Melatonin.

The combination of melatonin and light therapy (bright light exposure during daylight hours) has shown to improve both mood and quality of sleep, which can be significant part of[ Alzheimer's...

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Since those with anxiety disorders like panic disorder sometimes have a hard time calming down enough to sleep, melatonin has been tried as a treatment for reducing anxiety.

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There is a wide range of evidence that high doses of melatonin can help prevent melanoma, and also can help kill melanoma tumors and help stop them from spreading. See below for a...

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Reasonably good evidence tells us that melatonin can help people with jet lag adjust to a new schedule. ¹ Although it probably works in part by resetting the biological clock, it also appears to decrease or block wakefulness-promoting circuits in the nervous system ² and may have other direct sedative effects. Based on this, melatonin has been tried for insomnia of various types, but results have been inconsistent ³ .

Three small double-blind studies suggest that use of melatonin might reduce symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome . ⁴ It has been suggested that melatonin might work through effects on the nervous system in the digestive tract.

Four double-blind studies performed by Saudi researchers reported that melatonin was useful for reducing anxiety prior to surgery, presumably due to its sedative effects. ⁵ However, other researchers have been unable to confirm these results. ⁶ Three, small, double-blind, placebo-controlled studies found evidence that melatonin may slightly reduce nighttime blood pressure . ⁷ Two preliminary double-blind trials hint that use of melatonin at a dose of 10 mg/day may reduce symptoms of tardive dyskinesia . ⁸ A preliminary double-blind study suggests that melatonin may improve quality of life in children with epilepsy, perhaps by improving sleep and reducing medication side effects. ⁹ One surprising double-blind study suggests that topical application of melatonin may increase hair growth in women with thinning hair, for reasons that are entirely unclear. ¹⁰ Oral melatonin has shown some potential for treating seasonal affective disorder , cluster headaches , ¹¹ and irritable bowel syndrome .

Highly preliminary studies, including unblinded controlled trials, suggest that melatonin may enhance the effectiveness of standard therapy for breast cancer, prostate cancer, brain glioblastomas, non-small-cell lung cancer, and other forms of cancer. ¹² (For information on why such studies are unreliable, see Why Does This Database Rely on Double-blind Studies? ) Melatonin has also shown some promise in animal studies for reducing side effects (specifically, cardiac toxicity) of the chemotherapy drug doxorubicin ; however, the only human trials supporting this use fall considerably beneath modern scientific standards. ^{13 14 15 16 17 18 19} Weak evidence supports a role for melatonin in reducing nicotine withdrawal symptoms. ²⁰ On the basis of one uncontrolled trial, melatonin has been promoted as a treatment for fibromyalgia . ²¹ Based on theoretical reasoning and scant evidence, it has been suggested that melatonin can boost the immune system , prevent heart disease , and fight aging in general. ^{22 23 24} Some evidence suggests that melatonin is nothelpful for menopausal symptoms ²⁵ or chronic fatigue syndrome . ²⁶