Clinical Depression Symptoms. Does melatonin make depression worse ?
Q.I am so glad to see this thread here!! I keep reading very authoritative *sounding* reports that it increases depression. Where is this "increasing depression" stuff coming from? Can anyone cite any studies? I am very interested.
A.start with 1/2 of a 1 mg tablet and work your way up... great difference between individual needs... too high of a dose can lead to insomnia, can lead to feeling groggy in the morning... since lack of melatonin and serotonin are both due to lack of tryptophan or pathway to convert/get it into the brain/ overbreakdown of serotonin. Lack of serotonin is a major cause of depression... Ingrid i've been avoiding the entire melatonin thing b/c it irks me that someone would make this stuff and sell it in supermarkets, but one of the things that i've read is that our bodies make melatonin in relatively small amounts--.1 or .01 mg. (forgive me--my brain's not fully functional. i didn't *want* to be up at this hour). so it seems rather odd that people would take 1 mg. _or more_ of the hormone. according to my biopsych book from last semester, "Hormones are very potent, so it takes very little of them to do the job." theoretically, taking such large doses of mel. should cause a major up-regulation of hormone receptors. in terms of depression, my friend--who was taking melatonin--was instructed by her psychiatrist to stop taking it when she began prozac. i'm trying to figure out why this might be, and the best that i can come up with at the moment (see aapology above)--oh wait. here we go. on p.176 it says "within the pineal gland, the [neuro]transmitter serotonin [remember that prozac blocks reuptake of 5-HT (serotonin)] is converted into the hormone melatonin." Also, serotonin is very much involved with sleep regulation--lesioning the dorsal raphe nuclei, where serotonin is produced, can really screw up normal sleep cycles, especially REM sleep. since 5-HT circuits are of a single-source/divergent pattern, the 5-HT neurons extend their axons throughout the brain, thus giving 5-HT the capacity to affect many behaviors (like sleep). apparently it's not good to mix elephant-sized doses of melatonin with meds that are designed to increase the amount of 5-HT available. This is *very* interesting because I told the doctor who gave me my Paxil Rx both at the initial visit and 2 follow-ups that I'm taking Melatonin. She didn't really respond to that at all so I figured it was ok because she went on a big trip about my skipping my usual bedtime beer. I informed the MD who was prescribing my Prozac when I started taking Melatonin, and she said that wouldn't be a problem. It wasn't. I suspect the occasional cases where depression is increased are just rarities or are really due to something else.
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