A good night's sleep makes a big difference to our mental and physical health. Without quality sleep, we're less productive. Grumpy. It can even affect our hearts. Meanwhile, more and more people are having problems falling and staying asleep, including kids. So some parents are turning to a supplement called melatonin as a potential solution. But some experts worry that there isn't enough research about how regularly taking melatonin affects kids in the long term. Today on the show, we explore the research with Michael Schulson, who recently wrote about the topic for Undark. Want to hear more stories about human health? Email us and let us know at [email protected] to every episode of Short Wave sponsor-free and support our work at NPR by signing up for Short Wave+ at plus.npr.org/shortwave.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
Chapter 1: Who is discussing melatonin and why is sleep important for kids?
Hey, Shore Wavers, Emily Kwong here. Okay, so possibly my favorite thing in the entire world is a good night's sleep. I mean, nothing makes a bigger difference to my mental and physical health. Without quality sleep, we're less productive, grumpy. It can even affect our hearts. And for kids, sleep is crucial for physical, mental, and emotional development.
But there are a lot of things keeping us awake these days. Screens, electronics, stress. Researchers say that, like adults, kids are having problems falling asleep and staying asleep. So more and more parents are turning to a supplement called melatonin as a possible solution.
It's like so many parents dream, which is like, is this the answer? Is there this one gummy or this one thing that can help me get through this part of the day that can be really, really hard for parents and families?
Chapter 2: What is melatonin and how does it work in the body?
Michael Scholzen is a contributing editor at Undark Magazine, where he writes and edits stories about science. And he recently looked into why more and more people are using sleep supplements, especially with their kids. Melatonin is a hormone, and it's one that our bodies produce naturally.
It's part of the way that the body regulates its sleep cycles and gets you toward bedtime.
Every night, the pineal gland in our brain releases a bit of melatonin.
So when people take synthetic melatonin in the form of a pill or a gummy... It also can have that experience of helping people feel a little bit more tired, a little bit sleepy, in ways that a lot of people find helpful for getting to sleep.
Melatonin is widely considered safe for adults in low doses and for kids with certain neurological and neurodevelopmental conditions that get in the way of a good night's sleep.
I think it's really important to understand that when families are seeking to help their children get a better night's sleep, it's not just like an abstract health goal that they're trying to solve. They're often really speaking into very real challenges and very real problems that are affecting all parts of a family and are also really affecting their kids flourishing.
But some experts worry that we don't know enough about how regularly taking melatonin affects kids in the long term. So today on the show, melatonin and kids. What the research says, how melatonin is being used, and how to navigate obstacles for getting kids enough Cs. I'm Emily Kwong, and you're listening to Shortwave, the science podcast from NPR.
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Okay, so Michael, we are talking today about melatonin. It is a hormone that the human body naturally produces. But I want to hear more about the history of this supplement. This is synthetic melatonin that a lot of people have started taking, and some people are giving it to their kids. When did people start taking melatonin?
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Chapter 3: When did melatonin start being used as a supplement and how has its use evolved?
Yeah. A lot of melatonin packaging is just very friendly looking. I mean, it's like these big bottles and the melatonin supplements come in sometimes very yummy flavors. Sometimes they're gummies. So is it really being marketed to kids in a very deliberate way?
I would say it's being marketed to parents in a very deliberate way. Yes. And it's the bottles. It's a lot of the language around saying melatonin is safe and drug free and non-habit forming. Right. These are all terms that you hear coming up again and again in this marketing.
Yeah. And I want to add here. A key distinction you make throughout this reporting is that melatonin is not a vitamin. It is a hormone. Why is that distinction so important?
So melatonin falls into this really weird in-between space, right, where I think it's regulated as a supplement. And a lot of people think about it as being harmless and natural. And it's also something that's a prescription drug in a lot of the world, right, and is very much a drug. a drug. Legally, it is classed as a supplement. And so it's legal to say that it's not a drug.
But I think that that can create this weird thing where people think about it as being maybe a little different than what how researchers and physicians describe it, which is they're like, it's a hormone. It's a hormone you take in order to change something in your sort of create a change in your body.
Yeah.
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Chapter 4: How has melatonin use among children changed over time?
Let's talk about the research. So obviously there's not enough, but for what is available, what do sleep scientists have to say about kids taking melatonin?
Sure. So as you just said, one thing they always say is, there's not enough, which people say in almost every field it feels like.
It's true. We don't really know.
We'd love to know more. But I think that this really is an area where, and this is something I heard again and again in interviews, where there is a sense that there is very little research, especially on long-term effects of melatonin. There's kind of two ways to break down melatonin. what the science says, right? What does the science say about whether it works?
And then what does the science say about whether it's safe? And in both cases, there's some uncertainty. In terms of what the science says about whether it works, the evidence that exists definitely suggests that, yes, it can help kids fall asleep a little bit earlier. Maybe not dramatically earlier, but something kind of on the order of around 20 minutes, maybe a little bit more on average.
And of course, that tracks with a lot of anecdotal evidence from parents who say, it works, it helps, um... There's also a question of whether children are actually better rested the next day. Again, there's actually some limited evidence. There's not really that much evidence either way showing that children are actually better rested when they have taken melatonin versus they have not.
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Chapter 5: Is melatonin marketed specifically to kids or their parents?
Now, melatonin is considered fairly safe and benign in terms of overdose potential. But if there are side effects to melatonin, what are they?
This is, again, like such a big question to unpack, right? But there are reasons to say, okay, it's fairly safe. I want to be careful not to generalize that. But one of the big questions is about short-term and long-term side effects. Okay. In terms of short-term side effects, they could definitely be there. The ones that are typically recorded in the scientific research tend to be pretty mild.
But some researchers feel like that research hasn't been that comprehensive or rigorous and that it's possible that there are kind of immediate or short-term side effects that people just haven't really done a good job of tracking. And then in terms of the long-term effects, right?
Chapter 6: Why is it important to know that melatonin is a hormone and not a vitamin?
right, of children who are taking melatonin maybe four or five or six or seven times a week for years on end, that's a really big open question. And I think some scientists look at that evidence and say, we see that it's helpful for families. We don't see obvious signs of concern. And again, it can be really helpful for people and it's worth doing.
Chapter 7: What are the concerns about melatonin regulation and perception?
It's worth, you know, in many cases, it's still worthwhile, right? And then I think there are a lot of researchers who look at this and say, based on that unknown, we should be cautious. And the way that it's being used right now is many things, but it's not cautious. And that's a problem.
Was melatonin ever supposed to be taken long term? Because it seems like it was originally designed to be a sleep aid for a short term situation. Yeah.
Yeah, so I think we should kind of divvy this up for children in different situations, right?
So I think for children with some neurodevelopmental differences that can significantly affect their ability to sleep, autism in particular, certain manifestations of ADHD, I think there has been more of a willingness to say, look, these are children who are having, in some cases, a tremendous difficulty falling asleep. Not sleeping or not sleeping well can be...
can have some really negative long-term effects. And it makes sense to perhaps use melatonin regularly in order to do that, in order to be helpful.
It might be beneficial to them.
It might be beneficial. I think that the way that melatonin is used often right now, which is... used regularly, often for neurotypical children who are perhaps sometimes taking the hormone a few times a week or every night with very little sort of supervision or input from a medical professional is something that very few people intend.
And even the supplement makers themselves will often include language to that effect on their bottles. But there's a real disjunct between kind of where that consensus is and how I think a lot of people are actually using melatonin.
Okay. For all the desperate parents hanging on your every word, what do experts suggest for kids who have trouble sleeping but they want to try other solutions first?
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