Melatonin secretion by the pineal gland is impaired by a class of blood pressure medications called beta blockers. Common beta blockers include bispropolol, metoprolol, and propranolol.
It’s hard to make the argument that melatonin is not the most important hormone secreted by the human body as most of us know melatonin is secreted by the pineal gland at night we know about its benefits with sleep but there are a myriad of additional benefits that come from a healthy secretion of this hormone today’s quick tip was inspired by a couple patients this
Quick tip was meant to be that were both describing difficulty with sleep after starting a beta-blocker if you are a blood pressure patient and you are taking a class of medications known as beta blockers it is decreasing your body’s ability to produce optimal levels of melatonin before we get into some of the solutions to this let’s just take some time and go through
All the benefits of that melatonin offers the body so as we know melatonin regulates our sleep/wake cycle it has a profound effect on our sleep architecture but what many people may not know is that it has dozens of additional benefits let’s take a moment and and go through those right now number one like we talked about it regulates sleep number two the evidence
Is robust it dramatically lowers cardiovascular risk in many people melatonin will benefit menopausal symptoms specifically it slows the rate of bone loss post menopausal ii it’s really really an important piece in breast and prostate cancer prevention it helps with preventing chronic pain treating ibs symptoms it lowers levels of inflammation systemically it has
Been found to slow the rate at which the brain ages bonus it’s really really an important treatment for depression and that is because melatonin acts as a precursor to serotonin and then lastly it increases fat burning all right so there’s a quick list of some of the benefits that you can expect with melatonin it’s one of my favorite supplements for this reason it
There’s not a system that melatonin will not benefit so there are a ton of things that we can look at each one of us to ensure that we’re optimally secreting this hormone obviously blue light before bed a regular sleep wake cycle but i’m really not going to focus in on that i’ll save that for another video today this message is just for high blood pressure patients
That are taking a beta blocker i really want to encourage you to seek another class of meds ace inhibitors calcium channel blockers diuretics these are all alternatives to help lower your blood pressure if you do need a pharmaceutical intervention choose these over beta blockers the evidence is clear beta blockers will decrease melatonin secretion i hope you see
Why that’s important today i’ll see you guys on the next quick tip
Transcribed from video
Melatonin, Beta Blockers, & Insomnia | quick tip 20 By Dr. Benjamin Snider