Carl Lanore:  Welcome back.  You are listening to Super Human Radio.  I am Carl Lanore. I get excited about a lot of show that I'm really excited about today’s show and I am excited about today's guest as well This is the subject that I’ve spent a lot of time learning about. 

We are going to be talking today about melatonin.  A lot of you think of it just as an over-the-counter sleep supplement but it's quite possibly the most important hormone produced by the human body. I think that after you listen to this show today you will realize that it maybe also one of the most viable weapons in the war against disease and age-related disease and aging in general that's available to you without a prescription.  In fact, pennies a day, you can begin your own age management program using this supplement. 

My guest today is Dr. Russell Reiter. Dr. Reiter received his degree in endocrinology from Bowman Gray School of Medicine at Wake Forest College in Winston-Salem, North Carolina in 1964 and in the subsequent years he has been either first author or made substantial contribution to more than 700 research articles in peer-reviewed journals like the Science, Nature and Lancet.   

He has written six professional books and edited 37 others but most importantly he has devoted 36 years of research to the pineal gland and its primary hormone—melatonin.  In fact, colleagues have labeled him the Godfather of Melatonin Research.  He is currently a professor at the University of Texas Health Science Center and he joins us today from his home in San Antonio.  Welcome to the show Dr. Reiter.

Dr. Russell Reiter: Thank you very much Carl, looking forward to it.

Carl Lanore:  So for those who have been living in the dark and if you’ve been living in the dark, you probably have more melatonin than you know about.  Explain what melatonin is?

Dr. Russell Reiter: Melatonin is a molecule, it is produced in your brain but it is exclusively produced during the night.  That brings up something very important; it is produced during the night during darkness. If you turn on the light during the middle of the night, your brain interprets that as  day and your melatonin levels go down. 

So in fact, excessive light pollution also compromises our ability to produce this very important molecule—melatonin.  But it is in fact and produced in the brain small gland—you mentioned pineal—released into the blood, as a consequence blood levels there are 10 to 15 times higher at night than during the day. And that's where it comes from and how it is released.

Carl Lanore:  Okay, now you raised an interesting point.  You said that they are 10 to 15 times higher during the night than the day and that's because it is triggered by darkness but does the body also produce melatonin throughout the day in some pulsatile fashion or is it just the residual unused melatonin and that is still circulating later on the day?

Dr. Russell Reiter: That is very important point Carl.  Certainly melatonin levels in the blood exhibits this mark rhythm.  Melatonin is taken out very quickly by tissues where it is used as needed. So in fact, tissue levels during the day may be higher than they are in the blood. 

You are also correct that there are other tissues that clearly produced melatonin for their own use.  Good example: the retina.  The retinal cells that are photoreceptors, they have access to melatonin produced in the retina. The skin produces melatonin exclusively for its own use and likewise the gastrointestinal tract.  In other words, that melatonin never gets into the blood in any appreciable amount so it doesn’t influence blood levels.   

Carl Lanore:  Which leads me to my next question—Is darkness, which is apparent to the eyes, adequate to trigger melatonin production or does the body have to be surrounded in darkness?  In other words, the skin sense light and stop producing melatonin?

Dr. Russell Reiter: It did.  Light perceived by the eye and it inhibits melatonin.  But interestingly it is not the classic photoreceptors, it is not the photoreceptors we use for vision.

Carl Lanore:  The rods and cones in other words.

Dr. Russell Reiter: In other words, the rods and cones.  There is a specialized cell called a “ganglion cell” which it has its own photo pigment that response to light and darkness and signals the pineal gland to produce melatonin. 

In reference to the skin, you asked an interesting question.  Does the skin respond to light and darkness because the entire body has to be surrounded by darkness to produce melatonin?  In the case of the skin… no.  In other words, that melatonin in those organs is produced regardless of light and darkness.  When we talk about light/dark regulation of the melatonin, we are talking about the pineal gland and blood levels because all melatonin in the blood—essentially all melatonin in the blood comes from the pineal gland.

Carl Lanore:  So what happens when people are shift workers and they’re working at night and they’re up in the daytime; do they produce a far less melatonin as a result?

Dr. Russell Reiter: They are very compromised in terms of their melatonin production.  And that is a significant question by virtue of the fact that it is well-known now based on epidemiological studies that individuals who work in night shift have certain diseases that are more common than those individuals who work for regular day and night schedule. 

Particularly more common is breast cancer in women, colorectal cancer in both men and women.  And we know melatonin has some capability of inhibiting tumor growth.  So it believed that the lack of melatonin in these people is responsible for their higher incidence of cancer. 

Carl Lanore:  We have about a minute and a half before the first break Dr. Reiter but I want to ask you about something else that may inhibit melatonin.  What about electromagnetic fields produced by traditional AC wire that runs to a house or a high tension power wires that run over a home. 

Dr. Russell Reiter: That's been a great interest to the US government by virtue of the fact that obviously electricity is widespread in countries like the United States.  A large amount of money was spent during the decade of the 1990s investigating the effects of what I referred to non-visual electromagnetic field as opposed to light in terms of melatonin suppression.  The evidence is not compelling albeit there may be some individuals in which melatonin is affected because of their unique sensitivity to electromagnetic fields.  This is still a raging question among scientists how relevant is EMF in terms of melatonin suppression. 

Carl Lanore:  When we come back Dr. Reiter, I want to start off discussing what the juvenile levels of melatonin and the rise and fall of melatonin through the lifecycle of the human being.  You are listening to Super Human Radio.  We are talking today with Dr. Russell Reiter about melatonin and you need to stay tuned for this show because this is the one that can change your life.  We’ll be right back.

Carl Lanore:  Welcome back.  You are listening to Super Human Radio.  We are talking today with Dr. Russell Reiter about melatonin.  So Dr. Reiter, what is the nature of melatonin production in the lifespan of a human being?

Dr. Russell Reiter: Certainly the amount of melatonin we produced changed dramatically with age family.  When you’re a child—not childish but when you’re a child—you produced a lot of melatonin relative to individuals in advanced age.  As we aged, like so many other things, the ability to produce melatonin wanes and the rhythm is severely dampened. 

And it is now thought that in fact a loss of melatonin contributes to your inability to resist disease and in fact to develop disease.  There is reasonably strong evidence now that if you can maintain a healthy melatonin rhythm for a longer period of time, you can defer or forestall certain types of diseases.

Carl Lanore:  Is there any evidence that the pineal gland becomes unable to produce melatonin as we aged or is there a precursor hormone or a trigger that—in other words, can you re-stimulate the pineal gland in an older person to produce juvenile levels of melatonin by giving them some sort of stimulatory hormone or therapy?

Dr. Russell Reiter: Probably not.  What happens as we aged is the pineal gland loses its receptors.  Certain receptors, nerves going to the pineal gland, they release a chemical called “norepinephrine” have excellent receptors that stimulates melatonin production.  As we aged individually, we lose our receptors.  So even if you give extra norepinephrine, the pineal gland cannot respond. 

There is probably another reason melatonin levels diminish with age; your brain deteriorates as you aged.  And of course the part of your brain that in fact influences melatonin production is the biological clock—the superchiasmatic nucleus.  It also weakens with aged so it signals to the pineal gland is weaker to produce melatonin every night and even when the signal gets there, the number of receptors on the pineal cells are less abundant so it can’t respond as well.  Those are probably are the two major reasons we lose our ability to produce it.

Carl Lanore:  Okay, so now we understand how it works and we understand the importance of sleep.  Before we talk about supplementation, I want people to understand the impact that either the lack of melatonin or the introduction melatonin has— What are the most important benefits to human physiology that melatonin provides?

Dr. Russell Reiter: Well, I think there are three things.  First of all, we all exhibit biological rhythm, we are physiologically different during the day and the night and these rhythms deteriorate as we aged in part because we lose our melatonin.  Melatonin signals these rhythms—strengths of these rhythms.  So when we lose our melatonin, those rhythms become weaker. 

The second issue is immune function.  Melatonin has very strong stimulatory effects on the immune system and of course when you lose that stimulus, your immune system becomes weaker and you become more vulnerable to certain diseases. 

Finally, melatonin is a very potent antioxidant.  It neutralizes something you produced in your body called “free radicals”.  Free radicals come, believe it or not, from oxygen.  And as a consequence when you lose this antioxidant protection, your tissues sustain more damage; certain organs more than others. 

So those are the three individual things.  Loss of circadian rhythmicity, weakened immune system, and less protection against free radicals.

Carl Lanore:  Now let's talk about the antioxidant value.  First of all, melatonin—and correct me if I am wrong—melatonin is one of the few, if not, the only antioxidant that can actually cross the blood brain barrier.

Dr. Russell Reiter: It crosses the blood brain barrier very effectively.  I’m glad you mentioned that Carl.  Many people take vitamin E—and it's a very good antioxidant mind you—but it's efficacy in protecting the brain is very weak by virtue of the fact that it does not, as you mentioned, crossed that barrier; get into the brain very effectively. Melatonin is in there very readily within 10 minutes after you consumed a melatonin tablet; your brain levels are in fact very high. 

The same thing with Vitamin C; Vitamin C gets into the brain but in a very indirect manner and as a consequence, it is generally considered to be less protective than is melatonin.  And every comparative study that has been done when you pair melatonin against Vitamin E,  against Vitamin C in terms of protecting the brain in particular—melatonin is clearly superior.

Carl Lanore:  Now without getting into the chicken and egg question here—so melatonin protects the brain and the brain deterioration leads to reduce production of melatonin then supplementation should subsequently cause the brain not to lose some of the qualities that occur during age. 

And I think one of the studies that you—I don’t know if that you were directly involved—but there was one study where they actually took the pineal glands from young rats and put them in old rats and vice versa, and the young rats died at the schedule of the old rats, and the old rats lived to the schedule of young rats.  Was that—were you involved in that study? 

Dr. Russell Reiter: We were not.  That was done in Italy by a scientist that has—unfortunately, he loses some credibility—I say unfortunate.   In that particular study, it has been heavily criticized.  Personally, I am not saying it is incorrect but there's been no independent validation of that observation and in science that is very, very important.   

Now in lieu of pineal gland transplantation, certainly when you give melatonin to animals—humans are animals as well and animals lose their melatonin just like humans do—if you give animals melatonin throughout their life, they fare better in the long run in terms of health, in terms of longevity, in terms of deterioration; they do better with melatonin. 

Carl Lanore:  Now you did tell me about a study where mice that are genetically predisposed to senility were given melatonin and it held off the senility.  Is that correct?

Dr. Russell Reiter: That is correct.  What was done in that case is mice were given the gene—the human gene or something called “amyloid precursor protein”.  Amyloid precursor protein is what produces amyloid in your brain and that’s a prelude to Alzheimer's disease.  So when you put that gene into mice, they develop a type of Alzheimer’s disease which is brain deterioration. 

When those animals were supplemented with melatonin compared to those not given melatonin; those given melatonin develop Alzheimer's much more slowly and live very significantly longer.  The implication is again that melatonin was absorbed by the brain and it protected the brain against this Alzheimer’s type condition.

Carl Lanore:  Now we’re about to go into my second break so I don’t want to lead in with this but when I come back, what I want to talk to you about is exactly that protection that the brain receives and I want to talk about the oxidative stress of the brain, for whatever reason, and how melatonin actually wards that off. Obviously it's a powerful antioxidant and its value as antioxidant is probably very, very underestimated because people look at it strictly as a sleep aid.

 But I want to talk about its value as an antioxidant and also with some other functions as it relates to the thyroid. I believe that there has been some evidence that the melatonin actually can prevent hyperplasia of the thyroid and repair some hyperthyroid issues. So when we come back, I want to address those two issues. 

You are listening to Super Human Radio.  We are talking with Dr. Russell Reiter about melatonin.  Stay tuned, we’ll be right back.

Carl Lanore:  Welcome back.  We are talking today with Dr. Russell Reiter about melatonin. Dr. Reiter, let's talk about the relationship of melatonin and its effect on the thyroid because there are a lot of people out there that have thyroid issues nowadays or at least people have being told that.  How does it work with the thyroid?

Dr. Russell Reiter: Well, there are several things that it does in terms of thyroid.  What you said is valid namely that it can prevent overproduction of thyroid hormone.  And overproduction of thyroid hormone is kind of a serious situation; it causes cardiac hypertrophy, produces a lot of free radicals.  In fact there was this study showing that melatonin can prevent cardiac hypertrophy due to hyperthyroidism and it also improves the glucose uptake by the heart under those conditions. 

Hyperthyroidism compromises the glucose uptake by the heart which makes the heart work a lot harder than it has to be; it doesn't have the necessary energy.  So melatonin can improve the hyperthyroid situation imminently, pretty effectively.  What it does under conditions of hypothyroidism is another issue; that is not very well clarified and of course there are a lot of drugs for that situation. 

Carl Lanore:  Yeah and there is a lot of other things you can do for hypothyroidism between exercise and nutrition alone.  You can— How about melatonin and the pancreas? I've seen some issues about melatonin correcting pancreatitis caused by high L-arginine that you take in some studies.  What do you call that?  Necrotizing pancreatitis?

Dr. Russell Reiter: Yes, necrotizing pancreatitis.  Absolutely this can be a very serious situation.  Well inflammation in any organ is not beneficial to this function of that organ and certainly in the case of the pancreatitis that is also the case. 

Melatonin again prevents that inflammatory—I should be a little bit more cautious—“prevent” is a strong word—it reduces the likelihood of the pancreas becoming inflamed as the consequence of arginine or some other matters such as ischemia reperfusion—interruption of the blood supply-- and the pancreas—well pancreas, like many other organs, is very important for good health. 

The bottom line is melatonin seems to modulate the function of a number of organs to optimize their ability to do what they're supposed to do.  Now whether that is true for every organ, we do not know but what has been tested, that’s the general finding of what has been observed.  It optimizes the function of your organs, and again, you can realize how this may contribute to aging.  The lost of this factor could contribute to deterioration or the reduced efficiency of a lot of different organs. 

Carl Lanore:  Is there any evidence that melatonin's affect on the pancreas has any effect on or secondary effect on issues about diabetes?

Dr. Russell Reiter: Yes indeed!  I’ll give you one good example.  Again it relates to the antioxidant activity of melatonin.  Diabetes—Type II Diabetes—you have very high sugar levels in your blood and as a consequence these high sugar levels produced a lot of free radicals. It is very well known for example that a lot of people go blind when they have diabetes.  There is a lot of deterioration of limbs; you got gangrene and you have to amputate extremities.    

Carl Lanore:  Neuropathies—various neuropathies.

Dr. Russell Reiter: Yes, absolutely!  And that all relates to this large amount of sugar floating around in your blood that is generating free radical.  Again, an animal study that it is very easy to produce these models of diabetes and when you do and if you give them melatonin, the secondary consequences of that diabetic situation; namely the neuropathies, the loss or the deterioration of function of limbs and so forth is preserved because again melatonin goes there, scavenge the free radicals before they do the damage.  I would guess that melatonin would be particularly beneficial in individuals with diabetes.

Carl Lanore:  I agree with you.  I actually think that there is both intrinsic and extrinsic affect of melatonin.  The first that you just mentioned, which is clearly very important, which is the free radicals scavenging.  The second is that there's been lots of research done on people who get less than six hours of sleep and their inability to manage blood glucose levels.  Even in trained athletes who are sleep deprived persons as few as two days, they exhibited the same inability to manage blood glucose as people in their 60s and 70s. 

And so from the actions inside by getting better sleep or better sleep cycle or longer sleep periods—I would imagine that also has an effect of—I would imagine that diabetic—a Type II diabetic person would benefit greatly from melatonin supplementation.

Dr. Russell Reiter: Carl, I'm very happy that you’ve mentioned that. I think the first thing people should do is do what they can to preserve their own melatonin rhythm and that is avoiding light at night.  Once you go to bed at night, never turn on a light by virtue of the fact that that light will inhibit your melatonin.

Also, the longer you sleep—and that's the only time humans are in darkness when they sleep—the longer you sleep, the more melatonin you produced by virtue of the fact that melatonin—the amount you produced is proportional to the amount of the 24 hour period you are in darkness. If you only sleep in four hours a night, you have to produce all these very important chemicals within four hours and you don't get enough of it. 

We have to realize that we evolved in an environment where the sunset and the sun rose and that was light and dark.  Now once the sun goes down, every one of us turns on the light.  If we get up in the morning and it is dark, we turn on the light and that truncates, that limits our ability to produce a very, very important molecule.  And that is why I mentioned before; light pollution is becoming a greater and greater problem because it compromises our ability to produce a very important chemical.

Carl Lanore:  For those of you who are listening to this show and you are in a—you have a spouse or a significant other and they like to stay up late at night, you can always turn to the eye covers to block the light from your vision, you can turn to earplugs and so on.  I just want to mention that because sometimes we don't have the control on our environment as we did when were single where we could turn the lights out, turn the TV off, and go to sleep.  So that's something that I just want to throw in there. 

Dr. Russell Reiter: I want to mention Carl, you are absolutely right.  Interestingly, we could produce light bulbs that eliminate the wavelengths that inhibit melatonin—not all visible light.  Very specific wavelengths but to produce those light bulbs would be very expensive because it is expensive to reduce specific wavelength.

Carl Lanore:  So what wavelength is it? What wavelength are we talking about here?

Dr. Russell Reiter: It is what is referred to as bluegreen wavelength in the area of 470 to 475 nanometer—right in that wavelength.  It is right at the edge of bluegreen light.  In other words, red light is enhanced if it is not too bright or yellow light.  In the case of a night light, it should be something other than bluegreen.

Also one thing I want to mention is people who have children—sometimes children are intimidated by darkness and they want to sleep with the lights on.  That should never, never be allowed.  That should be prohibited. They want—darkness is very, very important for good health.

Carl Lanore:  Which leads me to my next question?  In light to the fact that our teenagers today are staying up later, they are on the computer to 3 o'clock in the morning IM’ing and I know that puberty begins after the first decade of life when the melatonin levels just start to dip.  So what does it do for a child who is pre-pubertal and they are staying up late and not getting—their melatonin levels are starting to dip because of the effects of the light that they're exposed to.  Do they start puberty earlier?

Dr. Russell Reiter: Well, that is a major question in medicine.  Certainly puberty is becoming earlier and earlier in a well developed countries in the world. Is it related to nutrition?   Certainly that is part of it.  Is it related to excess of light exposure?  That is certainly part of it.  There are maybe other reasons as well but I think that it is a potential consequence of excessive light exposure.

Carl Lanore:  What about for those of us that are strength athletes who are into fitnesses on?  You had that melatonin has a direct effect on ATP stores in the body which obviously contribute to energy, can you explain that?

Dr. Russell Reiter: Absolutely!  Melatonin has very powerful effects at the level of mitochondria.  Mitochondria are small organs within your cells that generate, produce ATP.  We now know that melatonin increases the efficiency of that ATP production.  In other words, increases the efficiency of energy generation. 

What this means is when the cells have more energy, they can resist disease better, they can heal more rapidly, all of their functions are improved because they have the necessary ATP to do those improvements and melatonin clearly now we know has stimulatory effects on ATP.  

Again, this may relate to aging.  As you aged, you become more lethargic; you have less energy.  Is it in part related to the loss of melatonin?   The evidence is not definitive but it is so suggestive that you begin to think that while maybe if we maintain to that good melatonin rhythm we be healthier. 

Carl Lanore:  Interesting! Melatonin's effect on the brain we talked about earlier, I read one study where it helps resolves strokes faster; what about that and Parkinson's disease?  There seems to be some issue that the melatonin may possess a value for those people who have certain neurological issues like Parkinson's disease?

Dr. Russell Reiter: Absolutely!  Parkinson's disease is the loss of dopaminergic neurons in the part of the brain called “substantia nigra” and those neurons are often loss via free radical based mechanism.  Melatonin gets into the brain—

I’ll give you a specific example.  The way what has happened in 1970s, people were producing heroin or what they thought was heroin, and in fact they were producing a drug called MPTP.  And these 25-year-olds were taking what they thought was heroin but they were developing Parkinsonism when they were 25 years old.  So scientists ask a question what in fact are these individuals really taking? 

And it turned out to be this drug MPTP; not heroin.  That has been unfortunate but a valuable discovery because we can give that drug to animals now and they develop Parkinson's like disease just like the human.  If you give melatonin you can prevent the loss of those dopaminergic neurons that is due to that drug that we know causes Parkinsonism in humans. 

Carl Lanore:  That's amazing!  And two minutes before the break, what about melatonin's effects on sex steroids such as estrogen and testosterone?  Minimal?  Is there any effect at all?

Dr. Russell Reiter: Minimal.  So far as we can tell, I supposed it is in partly related to the dose, its timing of administration, and so forth.  But no one has ever been compromised in terms of fertility so far as we know by taking melatonin.  Albeit, typically melatonin is not usually taken before in the active reproductive period because you’re producing plenty of melatonin at that time. 

That alone signifies that during the reproductive fertility years, you are producing ample melatonin.  So only after you get to a certain age that melatonin wanes and then you become reproductively compromised.  So it appears that melatonin has relatively modest or little of that on reproductive physiology.

Carl Lanore:  Gotcha.  Yes, of course there must be—there has to be a link between maybe perhaps melatonin and some of the hormone that—because I know I've seen some studies that show that men who were hyper gonadal had the highest—no, the lowest levels of nocturnal melatonin levels versus those who had the highest levels but we are talking about older man; we are talking about men in their 40s and 50s as opposed to—because obviously pubertal men and also into their 20s have high levels of melatonin as you pointed out. And they have no consequences related to hypogonadism or anything like that. 

Dr. Russell Reiter: Typically not.

Carl Lanore:  Right.  Yeah, most of us at least but anyway, okay… so we understand that.  When I come back Dr. Reiter, I want to talk about supplementation and also foods that possess melatonin.  Okay?

Dr. Russell Reiter: Okay.

Carl Lanore:  Alright, we will be right back with you. You are listening to Super Human Radio.  Stay tuned. 

Carl Lanore:  Thank you for that dreamy music Kevin O’neal, my producer.   We are talking today with Dr. Russell Reiter about melatonin.   Okay Dr. Reiter, here is the importance stuff;  now we understand how important melatonin is for so we understand that our bodies just don’t produce enough of it as we age.  So let's talk first about are there certain foods that possess melatonin?

Dr. Russell Reiter: There surely are.  There is probably a lot of foods that possess melatonin.  Some of the best known sources of melatonin in food stuff are tart cherries, cherries such as in cherry pie, cherry juice concentrate; cherries going in the state of Michigan—upstate Michigan—they happen to be a good source of melatonin.

Carl Lanore:  Really?

Dr. Russell Reiter: Yes, they are very good.  And the other one is one is walnuts.  Walnuts have a significant amount of melatonin and there is a large amount of research on both of these products now in terms of their melatonin content and in terms of their health benefits.  Not only because they contain melatonin, they contain other helpful ingredients too. 

Then there is something called “purslane”.  Purslane we call a weed in the United States but it is eaten as a salad ingredient around the Mediterranean area.  It has significant amounts of melatonin also.

Carl Lanore:  Okay, so we can get melatonin from our diet from eating certain foods but the best alternative to supplement melatonin is just go to your local grocery store or health food store or pharmacy and buy a bottle of melatonin.

Dr. Russell Reiter: Certainly that is the easiest way to do it.  And we have various products; you have slow release, you have fast release.  And when melatonin is taken, it is typically taken at bedtime by virtue of the fact that melatonin levels are normally higher at night and it has some sleep promoting qualities.  It is not what we call as “soporific”, it doesn't cause sleep but it puts your body in the right frame to enter sleep, it opens the sleep gate as we described it. So yes, melatonin is taken by millions of people—millions of people on a regular basis.

Carl Lanore:  Now some of us including myself, when I take melatonin it usually works for a period of time of about four hours and then I noticed that I will wake up and so I would probably be a better candidate for a time released version.  Would you agree with that?

Dr. Russell Reiter: I would agree. I think that has been mentioned to me before namely that I take melatonin, I go to sleep very well but I awakened in the middle of the night.  What happens when you take a fast release tablet, melatonin levels go up in the blood and it is metabolize, they are taken up by cells quite readily and begins the fall by the middle of the night.  And the fall of melatonin is believed to be a single for wakening in the morning because that is what is normally happening.  So when you take a fast release tablet that may be a consequence waking in the middle of the night.

Carl Lanore:  In fact, I read one study many years ago that show that there some sort of a reciprocal relationship between melatonin and DHEA.  And DHEA levels tend to rise in the morning or your certain adrenal hormones rise in the morning to beckon you to wake up and there maybe that reciprocal effect maybe occurring too early in the middle of the night when the melatonin wears off.

Dr. Russell Reiter: That is absolutely correct.  In fact the adrenal hormones are highest early in the morning in [unintelligible] species and that is a signal for awakening. That is a very good point.

Carl Lanore:  Okay, so if someone is taking a time release melatonin or a fast release melatonin, whichever one works best for them,  what's recommended dose or is there recommended dose?  Is it a trial and error you have to find own homeostasis with it or something?

Dr. Russell Reiter: That is the $64,000 question Carl?  Usually the set(?) that are available are 2 to 3 mg.  That's a very, very small amount of melatonin relative to some other product that we normally take.   Aspirin for example is around 300 to 325mg.  So when you take melatonin you’re taking a small amount but that amount even causes higher blood levels than you normally experienced. 

Is that bad?  There is no evidence that that is bad.  How much should you take?  That has not been totally defined albeit as I say most people take 2 to 3 mg.   I would guess a recommendation—a general recommendation would be as you aged, you increase that dose or as you experience or think you are experiencing certain diseases or your physician is telling you’re developing certain diseases, you may want to up that dose somewhat.

Carl Lanore:  Which leads me to the question… let's say someone was using melatonin in a therapeutic approach and they wanted to elevate melatonin levels to let's say the levels they were in their 20s and 30s, so is there any correlation between an oral melatonin dose and the actual rise in plasma levels?  So let us say in your 20s and 30s you got 80 pg/mL of melatonin in your 50s and 60s you’ve got 8 pg/mL and you want them to raise to 80 pg/mL again.  You take 12 mg or is it depended on per kilogram?  How do you ratio it?

Dr. Russell Reiter: Yes, it depends partially obviously on your body weight clearly because the amount of blood is determined by your total body weight but actually it has to take much less than 12 mg.  Very small amounts of melatonin will get your blood levels up.  The question: Will that be enough to forestall some of the changes of aging?  Like I say, a generic recommendation would be 3 mg maintenance—and I don't know if that's the correct dose Carl.

Carl Lanore:  Right!  No one really knows at this point in time.

Dr. Russell Reiter: At this point nobody really knows but if you have or are developing a certain age-related diseases and are aging, which we all are, then a gradual rise to the amount of melatonin you take, I do not think it is unreasonable and certainly as very few—if any side effects. I’ll give you specific example, 700 people die from aspirin toxicity every year because of hemorrhage to the stomach.  No one has ever died from melatonin. 

Carl Lanore:  Right!  What about—and we just have a moment here—is there a synergistic relationship between serotonin and melatonin?  So if I was going to used two supplements; melatonin at night and L-tryptophan, will I take the L-tryptophan in the morning?

Dr. Russell Reiter: Surely.  L-tryptophan has been heavily criticized—I'm sure you know that—a number of years ago it has a contaminant and it cause some eosinophilia myalgia.  But tryptophan is an essential amino acid; it interestingly is the precursor of melatonin.  Tryptophan is converted to serotonin, serotonin is converted to melatonin.  So they are all in the same sequence of synthesis and tryptophan is an important obviously amino acid.  It is an essential amino acid; we don't produce it, so taking L-tryptophan is commonplace.

Carl Lanore:  Okay and you will take the L-tryptophan in the morning and the melatonin the evening.

Dr. Russell Reiter: That would be satisfactory.

Carl Lanore:  Okay, we are coming to the end of the show.  First, I would like to thank you very, very much for taking time out of your day to come on the show and talk about this very, very important subject and I hope that those of you who are listening will heed this advice.  You really need to think about adding melatonin to your supplement regimen.  It's very, very viable, it's a myriad hormone, it has so many benefits, too many to even talk about in this simple show here.  Would you agree?

Dr. Russell Reiter: I would.  Thank you very much Carl.  You take care.

Carl Lanore:  Thank you.  Have a great day.

Dr. Russell Reiter: Bye.

Carl Lanore:  Well, there you have it.  Get yourself a bottle of melatonin.  I want to thank my producer today, Kevin O'Neal, for the special attention on the music.   You are listening to Super Human Radio.  We will see you next week.