Melatonin is a savior to some. It’s a “natural” way to shut your brain off and get your wired asked to sleep. It’s obscenely inexpensive and available in such a wide variety of stores that it’s actually more unusual not to find melatonin somewhere.
I can buy an out-of-season button-up shirt at TJ Maxx, and pick up some melatonin in the massive checkout line on the way out. Melatonin is a bit of a miracle, just as long as you don’t overdo it, because it might make your heart explode.
Not that you really need to worry too much about that.
Melatonin Might Mess With Your Heart—But Don’t Panic Yet
A massive study reviewing the health records of over 130,000 adults with chronic insomnia found that people prescribed melatonin for more than a year were more likely to develop heart failure, be hospitalized for it, and die from any cause over five years than those who didn’t take the supplement.
The study, which is still preliminary and not yet peer-reviewed—which is important to note—was unveiled by the American Heart Association. Lots of folks in the scientific community are intrigued by the findings and caution that you shouldn’t take the findings to, uh, heart just yet.
The keyword here is association. Researchers aren’t saying that there is a direct, incontrovertible, undeniable link between melatonin and heart failure. They are suggesting that people who use it long-term tend to have worse outcomes. It’s an observation of a pattern, not a stone-cold verdict.
On top of all that, the study comes with a boatload of caveats. For instance, it relied on medical records, didn’t include over-the-counter use, and didn’t control for how much melatonin people took or whether it helped them get to sleep.
This is where the beauty of the scientific process comes into play. Now that this research is out and in the wild, it will be peer-reviewed, and meeting other scientists will tear apart the research methodology and the mathematical calculations behind it all.
Maybe other research teams will conduct similar studies to see if they get similar results. Over time, as more people contribute their own work on the subject, a consensus will form, which may lead to people taking melatonin without a care in the world or to some rather lucrative class-action lawsuits.
Here’s another matter that complicates the issue that needs more examination: chronic insomnia itself is linked to heart problems. So, it’s possible that people with stubborn sleep issues were already at higher risk.
A common refrain already being echoed by experts is that you shouldn’t panic about any of this at all yet, possibly ever. Low doses of melatonin used occasionally are still considered safe. Using it every night for years is another matter that has not been thoroughly researched. We still don’t fully understand the long-term effects of melatonin, especially long-term heavy use.
That’s all, especially dubious considering that melatonin is sold as a dietary supplement in the United States and isn’t regulated like a prescription drug. It falls into the wild West category of vaguely medicinal stuff that provides short-term benefits, and we hope doesn’t have any long-term negative consequences.
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