Long term Melatonin use

Medical Q&A [Moderated]
1

Hello,
Was just wondering if there were any potential harms of supplementing with melatonin on a continual bases like either daily or anything greater than 3-4 times a week.
I personally only take melatonin on sunday night going into monday and then again on the next night before I train to make sure that I get a decent amount of sleep at night, but try to limit it to maximum, two nights in seven days.

I normally wouldn’t think that there’d be harm from taking it, but I was wondering because when asked the same question, my A&P professor said that it could lead to reduced production of your own melatonin from the pineal gland. I currently take a 5mg ER tablet, this up to date article would suggest that 0.3-0.5 mg may be enough. One other thing that I heard on the stronger by science podcast, Greg mentioned taking melatonin at like 6-7pm in the evening so you more “naturally” go to sleep around 9 or so.

One other side question would be if melatonin could alter the way oral contraceptives work in the body, I’m particularly interested in if it could decrease the effectiveness of the birth control.
https://www.uptodate.com/contents/physiology-and-available-preparations-of-melatonin?search=melatonin%20and%20birth%20control&topicRef=1392&source=see_link#H722735623

2

Did your professor provide any evidence for that?

In general, I do not have concerns about long term melatonin use.

There do appear to be some interactions between melatonin and the reproductive endocrine system, however I am not aware of evidence suggesting higher rates of contraceptive failure from supplemental melatonin.

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Additionally, melatonin doesn’t really work that well for insomnia- maybe decreasing sleep latency by a few minutes for a few weeks compared to placebo. For sleep phase disorders it can be useful, but in either case, dosing should be pretty low 1mg or less. Sometimes there’s a paradoxical response to melatonin.

For sleep phase disorders when melatonin is used, it’s typically dosed 30-60 min prior to desired bed time. Again, I wouldn’t use this for insomnia- not because it’s risky per se (save for supplement contamination), but because it doesn’t do anything.

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Not really, but then again back then I didn’t have the BBM balls to question everything lol.

@Jordan I usually just use it for the purpose to fall asleep quicker rather than staying asleep, I find that falling asleep is the hardest part for me, especially if I stay up on Saturday night, makes it a bit harder for me to fall asleep Sunday night, also I get up relatively early to go to the gym, gotta get my sleep in.