User:Hordaland/Nicolai

Melatonin needs work. Some comments from Talk, Archive 3:

When this article someday is reorganized, which I think it needs, I'd suggest adding a History section. Some research into the media hysteria about this miracle drug, starting about early-1990s, would be appropriate. A brief timeline telling what was known, when, about melatonin would be interesting. I'm parking a couple of facts and links here.

Newsweek's cover on melatonin, 1995, might be a good illustration.

Melatonin was named by its "discoverer" in 1958; before that it was referred to as "(bovine) pineal gland extracts". Here is a link (PDF) to Dr. Aaron Bunson Lerner's first paper about it where the word melatonin is used. Dr. Lerner was then the (first) director of Yale's Department of Dermatology. Here is Lerner's NYT obit from February 2007; he died at age 86. (UPI's obit contains an error, as Lerner's work was on the pigmentation of frog skin, not human skin.)

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If taken several hours before bedtime according to the phase response curve (PRC) for melatonin, it merely advances the phase of melatonin production. If taken 30 to 90 minutes before bedtime, it advances the period of melatonin's presence in the blood. 91.132.224.196 (talk) 09:08, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, yeah, it's true. Definitely could be phrased/explained better. In the opposite order related to the above:

1.Timed right and taken an hour or so before bedtime, melatonin is put into the blood earlier than the brain's own production and acts as a mild hypnotic. That's the easier-to-understand portion of the above, and it works for many people with or without a circadian rhythm disorder.

2.The human PRC for melatonin is, I think, more difficult to understand. It's been shown that a very small dose earlier in the evening/afternoon does not make one sleepy but does advance the phase slightly and is additive to the effect of using light therapy upon awakening. Light therapy may advance the phase about one to two-and-a-half hours and a small oral dose melatonin, timed correctly some hours before bedtime, can add about 30 minutes to the advance achieved with light therapy.

The text you cite is from the section Safety of supplementation (with a {citation needed} tag at the end of the paragraph), while the explanation of the function(s) is/should be in the section Current and potential medical indications: Treatment of circadian rhythm disorders. Both need some reworking, which I'll get at and I'll find the missing citation (to Phyllis Zee et al, if I remember correctly).

Potentially good reference

PDF: Melatonin in paedatric sleep disorders Six pages + references. London New Drugs Group, January 2008. Found through a search at: NHS Evidence. "Systematic reviews and meta-analyses" etc. - Hordaland (talk) 09:23, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Unbalanced drug ad?

Unlike numerous articles on the subject, this article was leaning very strongly (suspiciously) towards only selling the over the counter drug. The article suggested that there is nothing you can eat that will significantly increase melatonin levels. (This has been debated and the article should have revealed this). Nor did it explicitly suggest anything else people can do (other than swallow medication) to affect levels such as sunlight upon waking or explicitly stating that simply darkening a room may do the trick. Not that there was not some great information here; it is just that it all led to "the fact" that the only thing we can rationally do is "buy now!" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.233.128.12 (talk) 10:49, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

That's an interesting objection, 71.233.128.12. Are you planning to add sources to improve balance? For example, it's not enough to point out that there is debate about whether one can get significant melatonin from foodstuffs; a source (reference) is needed.

I agree that the article could use some work. Among else, I feel that the lead is too detailed. If I get 'round to working on it, I'll keep your objection in mind. But, as suggested, you may work on the article, too. - Hordaland (talk) 12:49, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Shiftwork and Cancer - Melatonin link possible

The International Agency for Research on Cancer, announced through a press release in December 2007 that shiftwork that involves circadian disruption is “probably carcinogenic to humans”.

They reviewed epidemiological studies of long-term female night shiftworkers and noted a higher risk of breast cancer risk than those who did not work at night. These studies have involved mainly nurses and flight attendants. Animal studies had similar results where light at night significantly increased tumours. This relates to melatonin in that studies reducing levels of this hormone at night increased the tumours.

The IARC committee head noted that nearly 20% of the working population in Europe and North America are engaged in shiftwork, with many workers in health-care and transportation fiels as well as in industrial, communications, and hospitality sectors. Studies focussed on breast cancer in nurses and flight attendants.

70.51.93.236 (talk) 00:16, 24 February 2008 (UTC)Lorraine Davison70.51.93.236 (talk) 00:16, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Another interesting review on detrimental effects of light at night, including but not limited to general light pollution, on wild animals as well as humans:

Navara, Kristen J.; Nelson, Randy J. (2007). "The dark side of light at night: physiological, epidemiological, and ecological consequences" (Review, PDF: full text). J. Pineal Res. 43 (3): 215–224. doi:10.1111/j.1600-079X.2007.00473.x. PMID 17803517. Retrieved 2008-05-07.

--Hordaland (talk) 04:16, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

BARNSTAR given DocJames 13 Jan 2014

File:Babel Barnstar by paul klenk.jpg

| style="border: 1px solid gray; background-color: #fdffe7;" |rowspan="2" valign="middle" | |rowspan="2" | |style="font-size: x-large; padding: 0; vertical-align: middle; height: 1.1em;" | Babel Barnstar |- |style="vertical-align: middle; border-top: 1px solid gray;" | First barnstar I've ever given, and so well-deserved. On top of all your other great work for Wikipedia, the translation project is monumental. Kudos!

Hordaland (talk) 05:34, 13 January 2014 (UTC) |

• Add { } before and after, and this works.