The week after the clocks go back, we think about sleep a lot. We don’t know about you, but everything feels off. With the light being “not quite right” for the time of the day, and our sleep schedule being off kilter, we just feel out of sorts. That’s why we have a second blog about sleep this week.
Melatonin is a natural hormone that regulates the sleep-wake cycle. While it is already in the body, people often use melatonin supplements to aid sleep and fight insomnia. A study found that long-term use of melatonin supplements was linked to a higher risk of heart failure, hospitalization for heart failure and death related to insomnia.
In the body, melatonin naturally decreases during daylight hours and increases at night. Supplements can increase the amount in the system quickly and help people fall asleep when struggling with insomnia or jet lag. The study looked at people who took melatonin for over a year vs. people who had never taken it.
Many people take it daily, as melatonin is marketed as being safe. But there hasn’t been any research on the long-term cardiovascular impacts of the supplement. Heart failure happens when the heart can’t pump enough oxygenated blood to the organs. The researchers wanted to know if melatonin heightened the risk. The melatonin group was 90 percent more likely to have heart failure, they were 3.5 times more likely to be hospitalized and they were almost 50 percent likely to die from any cause.
“Melatonin supplements may not be as harmless as commonly assumed. If our study is confirmed, this could affect how doctors counsel patients about sleep aids,” said Dr. Ekenedilichukwu Nnadi, lead author of the study and chief resident in internal medicine at SUNY Downstate and Kings County Primary Care in Brooklyn.
The study doesn’t prove that melatonin causes heart problems. The researchers say more work is needed to understand it.
The study has limitations; not only is it observational, but it’s also based on medical records. As melatonin is a supplement and not a prescription, it might not have been in some people’s charts, and they might have wrongly been included in the non-user group.
We also think it’s important to use some logic. People who don’t take melatonin may not struggle with sleep. People who take melatonin every day may struggle with chronic insomnia. It could be insomnia that takes a toll on heart health, and not the supplement people are taking to help with the insomnia. That hasn’t been addressed in any of the articles we have read about the research. But, on the other hand, melatonin isn’t meant to be taken daily; it is supposed to be an occasional supplement. Reading labels is essential for health.
“People should be aware that it should not be taken chronically without a proper indication,” Marie-Pierre St-Onge, chair of the American Heart Association’s writing group on sleep health and a professor at Columbia Univ.
