Melatonin is a natural hormone as well as a synthetically produced supplement that people take for many reasons. It's especially helpful in rebalancing your sleep-wake cycles, which feed into the depression that many women experience during perimenopause. There's some evidence melatonin supplements help improve your mood and ease depression symptoms, but you should always talk to your doctor before taking any supplement to treat a disease. Your doctor may have different and more effective options for you.
Melatonin and Supplements
Melatonin is a natural hormone that your body makes. It's secreted by a gland in your brain and plays a role in your sleeping patterns. It's also an antioxidant that effects your immune system. In addition, melatonin controls the timing and release of female reproductive hormones, so it determines when and how long you menstruate as well as when you stop. Melatonin may also be related to aging, according to the University of Maryland Medical Center, because children have the most, and melatonin levels drop as you get older. As a supplement, melatonin comes as a pill and in forms that can be placed in your cheek or under your tongue so you can absorb it directly into your body. In addition to regulating your sleep, some women use melatonin supplements to cope with the effects of the menopause transition, also known as perimenopause.
Perimenopause and Depression
Perimenopause begins approximately eight to ten years before menopause. It happens when your ovaries start producing less estrogen. It ends at menopause, when your ovaries stop releasing eggs and your periods have stopped for at least 12 months. During the last 12 to 24 months of perimenopause, there is a more pronounced decrease in estrogen. At this point, many women begin to experience menopausal symptoms as well as depressive symptoms. You may automatically connect depression at perimenopause with changing hormone levels, but Harvard Medical School reports the connection is complex. For many women, depression comes as a result of a number of stressors common to that stage of life, and they are more significant than the estrogen decrease. Harvard maintains that sleep disruptions, current stress, experiencing hot flashes, negative life events, a history of postpartum depression and a family history of depression also play a role.
Melatonin as Treatment
In the Dec. 2005 issue of "Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences," Italian public health researchers found that treating perimenopausal and menopausal women with melatonin significantly improved depression. The women in the study took 3 mg of synthetic melatonin daily for six month. The treatment also restored their menstrual cycling and fertility. Their findings echoed previous research reported in the Feb. 2001 "Experimental Gerontology." In that study, most women treated with melatonin "reported a general improvement of mood and a significant mitigation of depression."
Caution
Perimenopausal women taking melatonin supplements should do so only for a short period of time, states the University of Maryland Medical Center. The center cautions that the long-term effects of taking melatonin are not known. The Mayo Clinic, however, reports that melatonin is generally regarded as safe at 5 mg daily for up to two years. Consult your healthcare provider about whether you should take melatonin at all and, if so, at what dose and for how long. Your doctor may recommend hormone replacement therapy instead. Melatonin raises the risk of blood-clotting problems and increases risk of seizure in some people. Common side effects include exhaustion and sleepiness, dizziness, headache and changes to your sleeping and waking patterns. Some people become disoriented, sleepwalk and have nightmares.
References
- University of Maryland Medical Center: Melatonin
- Cleveland Clinic: Perimenopause, Menopause, and Depression
- Harvard Medical School; Depression at Perimenopause: More Than Just Hormones; Aug. 2008
- "Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences"; Effects of Melatonin in Perimenopausal and Menopausal Women: Our Personal Experience; G. Bellipanni et al.; Dec. 2005
- "Experimental Gerontology"; Effects of Melatonin in Perimenopausal and Menopausal Women: A Randomized and Placebo Controlled Study; G. Bellipanni et al.; Feb.2001
- Mayo Clinic: Melatonin: Safety
