Comment · Mon, December 30, 2013 · Ceretropic
Are circa 1mg doses of melatonin too wimpy to protect/enhance brain mitochondria?
Original post in this thread
alan2102 · 21 points
"Both in vitro and in vivo, melatonin was effective to prevent
oxidative stress/nitrosative stress-induced mitochondrial
dysfunction seen in experimental models of AD, PD and HD.
These effects are seen at doses 2-3 orders of magnitude higher
than those required to affect sleep and circadian rhythms....
clinical trials employing melatonin in the range of
50-100mg/day are needed to assess its therapeutic validity in
neurodegenerative disorders."
Or, for prevention in (presumably) healthy people, maybe just 5-10 mg/day?
Just a crazy unjustified wild-ass guess.
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http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22391273
Horm Behav. 2012 Feb 25.
Melatonin and mitochondrial dysfunction in the central nervous
system.
Cardinali DP, Pagano ES, Scacchi Bernasconi PA, Reynoso R,
Scacchi P.
Cell death and survival are critical events for
neurodegeneration, mitochondria being increasingly seen as
important determinants of both. Mitochondrial dysfunction is
considered a major causative factor in Alzheimer's disease
(AD), Parkinson's disease (PD) and Huntington's disease (HD).
Increased free radical generation, enhanced mitochondrial
inducible nitric oxide (NO) synthase activity a…
What they were answering
shydominantdave · 1 points
Now that I think about it, it may make the most sense to take it in the morning. Taking it when levels are low and your body is not producing it should cause for less down-regulation and interference. This is complete conjecture, but might taking it during the day actually cause a sort of up-regulation to your body's response at night? I'm not familiar with how the melatonin receptors respond in these cases.
u/MisterYouAreSoDumb · Ceretropic
Well that would make you pretty tired throughout the day. It might be best for antioxidant purposes, but it would mess with your circadian rhythm pretty bad. It would also mess with your vitamin D levels, since melatonin and vitamin D disrupt each others actions. This would lead to mood and energy issues.
The best way is to take the functional groups in melatonin that lead to the potent antioxidant activities, and create a new analog that will not have the same interactions with your sleep wake cycle.