#147 - Melatonin: The Best Antioxidant In The World?
There’s been a lot of anti-melatonin talk this past year - primarily because of a study that came out that was titled:
Pediatric Melatonin Ingestions - United States, 2012-2021
The study was conducted by researchers working in pediatrics and emergency medicine.
What they did was to crunch data of phone calls made to the National Poison Data System in the USA.
The big finding was that phone calls made about “melatonin ingestions” from 2012 to 2021 increased by 530%.
The study showed of all phone calls made in 2012, less than 1 % were made about melatonin. But in 2021, the percentage skyrocketed to 4.9% (or 1 in 20 phone calls).
Not only did I read the original study at the time, but I also tracked down the dataset that was used. What was bittersweet was that the same dataset showed the number of phone calls made about kids ingesting their parents’ cosmetics was more than melatonin across these years!
But the media missed this little cosmetic gem - and instead went with titles like these:
Now keep in mind - the researchers are scientists. They used the phrases and words like “phone calls made” and “ingestions”.
Anytime they used the word '“poison”, it was usually followed by the words “control center”.
That is, they didn’t have compelling data on whether kids were poisoned by melatonin.
Nevertheless, journalists like to get quotes to support their stories - and naturally a bunch of experts provided quotes - but probably the best expert of all was the lead study author - who said:
I agree with Dr Karima Lelak - a lot of people think of melatonin as the equivalent of a vitamin.
But it is not.
And thus is the motivation for this week’s blog.
I’m going to prove to you that melatonin is better than some vitamins …
“The World’s Best Antioxidant?”
When Dr Lemak’s study came out - as well as the subsequent news stories - as well as the relentless f#ckin social media posts … I was skeptical.
About 10 or so years ago, I was seeing a client in our Child & Adolescent Sleep Clinic. The family was concerned about how their 13-month old was sleeping.
They’d done their research and tried almost everything.
Then a thought crossed my mind - how young can a child have melatonin?
I had previously recommended melatonin for a 2-year old and it was a game-changer.
So my clinic placement student at the time - Dr Gorica Micic - went to research the answer.
She came back to me with an incredibly surprising answer …
1-day old children.
Gorica showed me that there was study after study evaluating the use of melatonin for premature infants in the first 24 hours after being born.
And the doses within the first 24 hours were higher than that suggested for adults.
All because of a biological phenomenon called …
Oxidative Stress
I imagine you think that antioxidants are a good thing, right?
Now ask yourself, what does an antioxidant do in your body?
Being born takes an incredible toll on the human body - especially if your body has not fully developed yet.
In simple terms, this process increases the levels of toxins in the human body - something termed “oxidative stress”.
This means that the elevated toxins can damage the cells of your body. And it’s not just premature babies that experience oxidative stress.
You, as an adult reading this blog, can also undergo oxidative stress during high stress situations, such as:
intense exercise
prolonged sun exposure
heat exhaustion
panic attacks
difficulty breathing during sleep (eg, snoring, sleep apnea)
What an antioxidant does is to scoop up the toxins that cause oxidative stress and ‘shows them the door’.
So What Actually Is The World’s Best Antioxidant?
According to Google, the answer is in a bottle that will only cost me 40 or more dollars.
Scroll down a bit further and the answer seems to be ‘Blueberries’.
This would lead many to suggest that the high concentration of Vitamin C in blueberries is the reason for their antioxidant effects.
It’s not - but we’ll continue along this popular string of arguments …
So if melatonin is given in high doses - in the most vulnerable human beings - to counter oxidative stress, how does melatonin compare to Vitamin C’s antioxidant effects?
Well, I stumbled onto a scientific paper this week that explained it better than I could …
What Is The Worst Antioxidant?
Many people are learning that I’ve been on a number of health challenges over the past few years.
For example, when I looked into what ethanol (ie, alcohol) could do to my body, I went on a 30-day challenge. That is, not drink for 30 consecutive days.
After that, I pushed it to 365-consecutive days.
I failed.
But then, I succeeded, and I haven’t put ethanol into my body since October(fest) 2018.
My way of saying #fuckcancer
Nonetheless, the amount of times I’m hearing people validate their consumption of alcohol with the phrase “It’s got lots of antioxidants” - well, it’s a cheap and unimaginative joke.
It’s also B.S.
For example - beer, white wine and red wine all contain a good antioxidant. It’s called resveratol.
You can also get resveratol in other foods, like peanuts, chocolates … so I guess chocolate-coated peanuts … and obviously, grapes.
In order to get the antioxidant effects from resveratol, we need to consume only a single gram in a day.
Red wine is actually the best source of resveratol.
And here’s the catch …
At best, you need to drink 500 Litres of red wine in a single day to receive the antioxidant benefits. The best way to store that much wine is in a rainwater tank by the way.
Just know that the Guinness World Record for the greatest amount of wine consumed was …
For those who use the metric system, Mr Dionsio Sanchez drank about 22 litres in an hour.
If the average human sleeps for around 7 hours, then this suggests they’re awake for 17 hours.
22 litres per hour x 17 hours = 374 Litres.
Call me a ‘Killjoy’, but I would hypothesise that even Mr Dionsio Sanchez wouldn’t be able to drink that many litres of wine in a day - and thus proving the line “Apparently, wine has a lot of antioxidants in it” is B.S.
Conclusions?
As a reminder, we started this blog covering how poisonous melatonin is - and we ended it without saying how poisonous ethanol is.
But it is pretty safe to conclude that melatonin is a better antioxidant than alcohol.
And we didn’t even address the science showing how ethanol reduces one’s ability to scoop up toxins - nor ethanol’s ability to produce toxins.
Even though the amount of melatonin reported on bottles has been shown to be wobbly (Cohen et al., 2023; Erland & Saxena, 2017), perhaps the next time you’re in the supermarket, you will realise that bottle of melatonin does potentially way more good for you than that those colourful bottles of ethanol.
I’m not saying you have to do a 30-day or even a 365-day challenge like me. But if you’re a WINK subscriber, or better yet a WINK member - then I care about you learning facts vs cheap jokes.
I turned 50 since the last WINK blog, and I’m pretty sure I won’t be around in 50 years time from now. So I want to pass on what knowledge I can.
The question is - what will you do with that knowledge?
Prof MG
