91 | Should You Take Melatonin? - Seasonal Change

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Nice. Alright. Welcome back to another episode of the Real Health Podcast.

I am living up to the bet. And if you listened to last episode, Grant and I made a bet and the loser of Saturday night's game had to wear the opposing team's jersey. So if you wanna see it, go to our YouTube channel, and you'll see me wearing a white UT Vols Polo. And, you know, it's kinda it's kinda nice. It's a nice fit.

So thanks for picking out a good fit for me. Oh, well, so let's dive in. We're in the season of talking through circadian rhythm health. Fall season comes upon us, and so we're having this discussion on how to improve sleep and recovery and immune system health. Today is gonna be an amazing episode on melatonin.

Melatonin is one of the most misunderstood molecules when it comes to our American culture. Really, just culture in general have a lot of cultural myths. There's a lot of myths in regards to melatonin, and so we're gonna uncover some of that. We're gonna talk about what melatonin actually is and the effects, and we're gonna give you about 10 different roles of melatonin in regards to the body.

The first myth of Melatonin is if you take it, does it actually stop your body's ability to make it? And that is that is what we would call a negative feedback loop. So if you take testosterone for instance, it disrupts your body's ability to make testosterone by purely a feedback loop. When your system sees that your levels are in a certain range, it'll down regulate your production of it. Cortisol is another one, and so when we look at melatonin as a hormone, what we find is that when you take it, it does not stop your body's ability to keep making it. There is no negative feedback loop with melatonin, which is incredible.

You can take it and you will not have- you will not be dependent upon it, but my suggestion is that at the end of this podcast you'll hear everyone should be on melatonin. I think it is the most important molecule in terms of antiaging that you could be on, which we'll discover here in success, first myth.

The second isn't necessarily a myth, but it's it's more of a interesting dynamic melatonin. Most of the time people think it's made in the brain, which it is, it's made in the pineal gland in the brain, but actually research shows 2 to 400 times more melatonin is made in the digestive system, and so that's incredible. Also that every cell in the human body, the mitochondria, which are the powerhouse of the cell, actually make melatonin. Melatonin in and of itself acts more as an antioxidant than it does necessarily like a hormone. It has potent and powerful anti antioxidant effects on the body. Melatonin is a miracle molecule. It really is. They're using to treat cancer.

They're using it in the treatment of Alzheimer's, dementia, and we're gonna cover some of those things that it is it has a role in today. But when we look at it, from a culture standpoint, people are scared there of taking it. Like if, hey, if I take it, right, like, I'm gonna be dependent upon it. And so let's talk first through the disruptors of melatonin production and then we'll talk about the the effects of it and then we'll talk through how to supplement with it.

So first off, the reason why melatonin is on the decline is 1, naturally as we age, we make less melatonin. So that's the first thing. So when we look at natural age decline, we do need to, in my opinion, supplement melatonin as we age. So that's the first thing.

The second thing is we have a disrupted circadian biology. We look at blue lights too late, We don't get enough sunlight during the day, and so that's the number two reason why we see this dramatic reduction in melatonin production in humans today. We are not making it as much as we should.

Number 3, our diets are very poor so the plants and the nutrients that we're consuming don't allow us to make melatonin especially in the digestive system.

And then number 4, we're using a ton of melatonin. We're actually robbing our production of- So your body will actually differentially prefer to make melatonin. So your body will actually differentially prefer to make stress hormones over melatonin and so under stress, we naturally make less melatonin.

So those are some of the reasons why we're we're we're not making as much. So right, it just makes sense. Stop blue light exposure at night. Get daylight exposure during the day. Eat plants. Eat fermented foods. Improve your digestive health. All the things that we talk about on a day to day podcast episode, these need to be done in order for your bodies to make melatonin. But in and of itself, you know, we naturally just like collagen, we our body synthesize less collagen as we age, we eat less protein as we age. Melatonin is the same.

We synthesize less, we consume less, and we're gonna talk about the benefit of melatonin. Melatonin is such a powerful antioxidant. It's really interesting how it's absorbed. It's both, absorbed through water and and and fat, so it's it's fat absorption and water absorption which is which is really an interesting molecule. Like your fat soluble vitamins are, you know, vitamin a, d, e, k, your water soluble vitamins are like b vitamins and c.

Melatonin actually acts as both. It scavenges free radicals, so reduces oxidative stress. So it's such an amazing molecule. Let's talk about the first thing. Melatonin absolutely has a role in sleep, but it shouldn't be considered a sleep hormone by itself.

Now research does show that less melatonin production and release, released particularly through the pineal gland at night, does impact sleep. So melatonin can improve sleep, but just because you take melatonin doesn't mean you will sleep better. I'd say the biggest disruptor of sleep is dysglycemia or dysregulated blood sugar. So balance your blood sugar, you sleep better. Melatonin does help with sleep, but melatonin in of itself is not necessarily just considered a sleep hormone.

When we look at why we release less melatonin at night through the pineal gland, we talked about blue light exposure, we talked we talked about lack of sunlight exposure during the day, but because of particularly chlorine, chloride, and fluoride, our pineal gland is actually being calcified and hardened and because of that, we get less release of melatonin. So be mindful of the halogen family, we call them halogens, the chlorines and the fluoride that you put in your body, be mindful because those are being absorbed by the pineal gland and hardening or calcifying the pineal gland and disrupting that release of melatonin.

The second thing melatonin does besides aid in sleep is it has a role in aging. It's actually anti aging. There are studies that show melatonin activates anti aging genes in the body. And when we look at aging subjects, people that are older in cellular age than they are in biological age, we see consistently less melatonin production and release.

Number 3, it helps with eye health. So melatonin has been shown to decrease age related damage to the eye, to the retina particularly, so so even like macular degeneration, we see melatonin as it minimizes the severity and the incidence of even retinopathy and eye diseases.

Number 4, it actually helps regulate blood sugar. So melatonin protects against diabetes risks. It helps your body efficiently utilize blood sugar better and be creates more insulin sensitivity.

Number 5, it protects against Alzheimer's and neurodegenerative conditions. It is an antioxidant. Research even shows that it helps heal or repair the blood brain barrier which is essential at preventing toxins, infections, and certain, modules from getting across to the brain. So it's very important and it is a scavenger, we talked about this before, of free radicals which reduces oxidative stress which is one of the number one reasons behind neurodegenerative conditions.

Number 6, it protects against cancer. Research shows that it helps your body naturally fight cancer cells by stimulating t cells. T cells are one of your primary cancer fighters in the body and melatonin actually stimulates t cancers, killer t cells, which also help with infections and immune system health as well.

There's been studies to show that number 7 that it actually helps reduce symptoms of tinnitus or ringing the ears and so we saw that 61 adults with tinnitus took almost 3 milligrams, roughly 3 milligrams melatonin for going to bed for 30 days and it helped reduce the effects of tinnitus and significantly improve sleep sleep quality. So it has an effect even on if you're dealing with, like, a tinnitus or ringing the ears, talk to your doctor about melatonin as an option.

Now there was there was a, like a podcast, I think maybe maybe Huberman put out and talked about a mouse study where they took melatonin and they potentially saw a reduction in the size of testicles. And so does it reduce the size of testes? Does it reduce testosterone production? And actually that is- that was a a total misunderstanding and it's wrong. Melatonin has actually been shown to improve sexuality and reproduction and reproductive health. It has been studied many times to show an improvement in the regulation of reproductive processes in the human body. And so we see clinical trials of melatonin prevent age related deterioration of sexual organs.

So it's quite the opposite of what a myth was put out there. I don't even know how long ago. It's been shown to improve growth hormone levels that aid in repair and recovery, and, of course, it's gonna help with any type of, like, seasonal affective disorder, depression, anxiety that's related to poor, high stress production and poor melatonin production at night. When we think about melatonin as a whole, there are so many benefits, but I would say the most the the most vital benefit is the antioxidant, anticancer, and oxidative stress reducer it has in the body every single day. So I take melatonin I take melatonin at very high doses.

When you look at dosing, the physiological dose of melatonin is 0.3 milligrams, that's all it requires to have an effect, 0.3 milligrams. And so we have these little bars of like melatonin chocolates, we just break off a little corner and that's what we use to, at night for bed. But I'll also go through seasons where I dose it very high up to, you know, a couple 100 milligrams. And there's reasons I do that. And I would say, you know, if you're if you're interested in high dose melatonin, you can look at some literature there and work with a practitioner. But for the for a rule of thumb, most people are gonna benefit at minimum.

You have to consume 0.3 milligrams. And what we see is about 3 milligrams is a great dosing for most people, 3 milligrams of of melatonin seems to be the the right dose, but there are there's plenty of clinical evidence to show that there it can be dosed at a very high level with no toxicity at all to the human body. So the great thing is there's pretty much all benefit, no toxicity, no harm that can happen. When we look at form, there's a few different forms to take. You gotta just be mindful of the source of melatonin because there is the potential for different sourcing to create to have, you know, heavy metals or certain chemicals in the manufacturing melatonin.

So, be mindful of the company that you're using. I don't have necessarily any, I don't have affiliation with any particular, you know, melatonin supplement provider. I just use a pure encapsulations one just because of the, the relationship I have with them from a physician brand, and they make a good quality one. But there's plenty of good quality melatonin products out there. So at the end of today's podcast, I think you should walk away with this.

If you're not supplementing if let's just say you're an adult, you're not supplementing melatonin, I would highly encourage you to talk to your provider about supplementing with melatonin. It is a very inexpensive supplement to take and the effects are so wide ranging that it makes it just makes sense to be on. And for how long? For the rest of your life. There's no reason why you shouldn't be on it.

Unfortunately, we can't get enough from our food supply. You'd have to eat like 2,000 cherries to get like the the physiological dose of melatonin, so it's just not practical. So when we look at melatonin, this is one thing that has to be supplemented. The timing of consumption, right around dark. So as soon as it starts turning dark is right when I start taking my dose of melatonin before bed.

I make a little cocktail of melatonin, magnesium, little bit of fish oil, little bit of glutathione, and I'm- and I'm off to bed. So I hope today enlightened you, helped you understand a little bit more about melatonin and the crazy benefit of this powerful molecule. Unfortunately, I will have to retire this shirt till maybe another 20 years because it takes that long for the Vols to beat the Gators. So signing off for the Real Health Podcast.