Share this:

Image by SewPixie via Flickr

Image via Wikipedia

Picture on the right is a rat on melatonin over time.

Ok, so everyone know what melatonin is?  It’s a byproduct of stress in your head.  If you take it after flying, it can help with jet lag.  Good stuff.  But is it safe?

What are the side effects of melatonin?  What evil thing does it do to you?  Why – it lengthens your life if you have cancer.  No, really.  That’s the side effect.  It increases your response to other drugs, is totally safe to take along with your poison mustard-gas injection of nastiness they have the huevos to call a therapy, and helps you fall asleep.

No, you say.  There’s a catch.  There’s more that you aren’t telling me.  Yes, I’ll fess up.  It also reduced “asthenia, leucopenia, nausea and vomiting, hypotension, and thrombocytopenia.”  These are big words for not-so-nice things.  Oh, wait, that wouldn’t be a side effect, that would be a bonus, because you’d feel better.

Ok, so what are the side effects of melatonin’s competitor?  Ambien.  We all know it as mother’s little helper, the modern version.  It’s only been approved for “short periods” but everyone is on it forever.  I won’t go into the side effects, because they take up a page.  Here they are.

Can you imagine for one moment what the makers of Ambien would do if they had melatonin’s “side effect” picture?  After they finished doing the happy dance and throwing fistfuls of dollars in the air they’d be flooding the airwaves with “magic cancer cure!”

But we’re talking about an over-the-counter supplement.  So look for the follow-up to be absolutely nothing.  Ho hum.  Another magic cure from the non-patentable aisle.

Oh, time for a little venting about the state of cancer treatment today:

Quick, smoke and mirrors, smoke and mirrors.  None of that works!  You NEED us!  The only good medicine is the stuff we sell.  You’re sicker?  That has nothing to do with what you’re taking, take some more.

Oh look, the skeptics are marching.  Stop the melatonin madness!  You’re wasting your money!  Look, we’ll do a study that shows melatonin doesn’t work because we use too little of it from a bad batch we got from China.  See?  All that stuff is nonsense.

Don’t look at your fifteen-thousand dollar palliative chemo treatment and realize that you could spend your last days in luxury in Rio instead.  That’s worthwhile medicine even though it won’t save you and your oncologist can’t look you in the eyes.  Spend your last days vomiting like a sick dog in some dimly-lit hospital corridor.  It’s the American way.

And for goodness sake, don’t try diet or supplements or clean air and sunshine or any of that nonsense.  It might make you feel well enough you take the nasty tube out of your arm and go home to die with some dignity.

Ok, I feel better.

Related articles

• Natural melatonin extracted from the pineal gland of cows may contain germs (microphone-film.net)
• Using melatonin may worsen any disease that you are currently enduring so it is best to talk to your physician (microphone-film.net)
• Shift work may have less health risks than long night stints: Study (canada.com)
• Melatonin – When Good Sleep Really Matters! (getfitanna.wordpress.com)
• turn off the lights for beauty. (christleon.wordpress.com)
• Research Review: Melatonin and Sleep (appliedbehavioralstrategies.wordpress.com)
• Melatonin: Restful Sleep & Immune Support – Now $1 Off! (getfitanna.wordpress.com)
• Modern Shift Work Patterns May Be Less Harmful to Health (nlm.nih.gov)
• A Great Compounding Pharmacy in the Canton Michigan area just for you (clarkpharmacy.wordpress.com)

Advertisement