Among more than 130,000 adults across multiple countries, those who were prescribed melatonin long-term had an 89 percent higher risk of heart failure over five years, and were twice as likely to die from any cause, compared with those not prescribed melatonin.
Bravo for de-clickbaiting the headline!
Correlation is not causation. People who take melatonin could have trouble sleeping because of sleep apnea and myriad other (possibly undiagnosed) sleep issues which can also cause heart problems over time.
It’s not clear from this snippet if they controlled for that sort of thing: “A secondary analysis found that those who took melatonin for over a year were almost 3.5 times as likely to be hospitalized for heart failure when compared to those not taking melatonin.”
I don’t take melatonin. And I’m not saying it’s definitely not the melatonin causing the increased risk. Always read articles about medical studies with a large dose of skepticism.
We queried the TriNetX Global Research Network for adults ≥ 18 years with an insomnia diagnosis (ICD-10 F51.0). The exposed cohort required ≥ 1 melatonin prescription and ≥ 365 exposure-days; controls had no melatonin exposure.
I interpret that to mean that both the study and control cohorts had insomnia diagnoses, but the cohorts weren’t randomized and no other variables were controlled for.
Stopped reading at “Not yet been peer reviewed”
Bingo… This shouldn’t touch mainstream news until it’s been reviewed and reproduced.
bUt It’S nAtURaL …
About as “natural” as lying in “scientific” journalism, yep.
