A study questions melatonin use and heart health but don’t lose sleep over it
Global News
WASHINGTON (AP) — Don't lose sleep over headlines linking melatonin to heart failure.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Don’t lose sleep over headlines linking melatonin to heart failure.
That’s the message after some scary-sounding reports about a preliminary study involving the sleep-related supplement. It raised questions about the safety of long term use of melatonin for insomnia.
Doctors have long known that too little or interrupted sleep raises the risk of heart disease. But heart experts say this kind of so-called observational study can’t prove that melatonin use plays any role — instead of the insomnia patients were trying to treat.
“We should not raise the alarm and tell patients to stop taking all their melatonin,” said Dr. Pratik Sandesara, an interventional cardiologist at Emory Healthcare who wasn’t involved with the research.
Our bodies naturally produce melatonin, a hormone that regulates our sleep cycles. Levels normally increase as it gets darker in the evening, triggering drowsiness.
People may take lab-produced melatonin to help them fall asleep or to adjust for jet lag or time changes.
The new study used international electronic health records, tracking adults diagnosed with insomnia who had a melatonin prescription that suggested they used the supplement for at least a year.
Over five years, 4.6% of the chronic melatonin users developed heart failure compared to 2.7% of insomnia patients whose charts showed no melatonin use, the researchers found. The study is being presented at an American Heart Association meeting but hasn’t undergone peer review.
