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09.04.2025

This dose of melatonin may increase your growth hormone levels by a factor of 5

Taking a not-so-terribly high dose of melatonin before bed may increase your growth hormone and IGF-1 levels by a factor of 5 or 6. This is the conclusion we, the ever-industrious compilers of this free web magazine, draw from a case study published in JCEM Case Reports by Italian endocrinologists from the University Hospital of Padova.

Case study
The main character in the case study that this web article is about is a healthy 34-year-old woman. Because she had trouble sleeping, she had been taking 2 milligrams of melatonin every day for three months just before going to bed.

As a result of the supplementation, the woman started to blush, which is why she contacted a doctor. The doctor took a blood sample - and a lab found an increased concentration of growth hormone and IGF-1. These abnormal values ​​are shown in the text fragment below.

No tumor
When the woman stopped taking melatonin at her doctor's request, her values ​​were back to normal a month later.

To rule out that the woman had a tumor in her brain that produced an excess of growth hormone, the doctors administered the woman a large amount of glucose. In healthy people, this reduces the concentration of growth hormone.

In the figure below you can see that this was also the case for the woman.

Mechanism
The researchers do not understand how melatonin can have this effect. In most human studies, melatonin supplementation does not increase growth hormone release. In those studies, subjects did receive melatonin in particularly high doses.

Source:
JCEM Case Rep. 2025 Jan 28;3(2):luaf006.

More:
Dash of melatonin boosts post-training growth hormone 09.03.2012
Melatonin before cardio raises growth hormone release 29.05.2009

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