WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - A new large study has found that taking melatonin, a common sleep supplement, for a long time may be linked to a higher risk of heart failure or even death.
'Melatonin supplements are widely thought of as a safe and 'natural' option to support better sleep, so it was striking to see such consistent and significant increases in serious health outcomes, even after balancing for many other risk factors,' study author Ekenedilichukwu Nnadi commented.
Melatonin is a hormone that helps control the body's sleep-wake cycle. Many people take synthetic melatonin pills to treat insomnia or jet lag, and in several countries, including the US, it's available without a prescription.
To explore its possible risks, researchers looked at five years of health data from more than 130,000 adults with insomnia. Half of them had been taking melatonin for at least a year, while the others had never used it. The average age of participants was around 56.
The results showed that people who used melatonin for a year or more had nearly twice the risk of developing heart failure within five years compared to those who didn't take it.
However, the study didn't include details about how much melatonin people took, since that information wasn't always recorded in medical files.
'While the association we found raises safety concerns about the widely used supplement, our study cannot prove a direct cause-and-effect relationship,' Nnadi concluded. 'This means more research is needed to test melatonin's safety for the heart.'
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