Melatonin improves body composition?

Can melatonin supplementation improve body composition?

Melatonin is a hormone that is mostly known for regulating sleep patterns. However, animal data suggests it may also have direct effects on energy metabolism. Supplementation of melatonin may, therefore, be beneficial for body composition.

This study investigated the effect of melatonin supplementation on body composition in 81 postmenopausal women with osteopenia. Subjects supplemented 0, 1, or 3 mg melatonin nightly for a year. Body composition was measured with DEXA. Data from the 1 and 3 mg melatonin groups were combined to compare to the control group.

Melatonin supplementation increased lean mass by 3.4%, while the control group lost 1.9%. In addition, melatonin supplementation decreased fat mass by 5.1%, while the control group gained 1.7%. This suggests that melatonin supplementation can indeed improve body composition.

While melatonin supplementation can improve sleep, this effect is relatively small and unlikely to (fully) explain the effects seen on body composition.

Strengths of the study include the large number of subjects and the long study duration. A Limitation is that it’s unclear what type of lean mass is gained (e.g. muscle or other organ mass?).

While the data of this study are exciting, we should not jump to strong conclusions yet. Some important questions to answer are: what the mechanism of action is, can the data be replicated, and what is the impact in other populations?

Study:
Amstrup et al. Reduced Fat Mass and Increased Lean Mass in Response to 1 Year of Melatonin Treatment in Postmenopausal Women: A Randomized Placebo-Controlled Trial. Clin Endocrinol (Oxf), 2016

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