Does Melatonin Burn Fat?

Now, James, there is some evidence to support what is going on here, but this is a really, really tricky area.

I think Christine's concern is there are lots of young men taking stuff for all sorts of reasons.

This is the peptide world and the bodybuilding world and the gym world.

to try and change their body shape and their body metabolism in what they see as productive ways.

So melatonin is a complex compound we mainly discuss in terms of its sleep and brain effects, but it also does have important metabolic effects.

The extent to which it interferes with insulin and its effect on sugars So this relates to why it's a bad time to eat meals in the evening when melatonin comes on because it interferes with the capacity for insulin to shift your glucose out of your blood elsewhere.

However, it does also affect fat metabolism, lipid metabolism.

And there is this literature about shifting the expenditure of energy from fat by shifting the composition from white fat to brown fat and the utilization of fat.

So what kids have cottoned onto somewhere along this metabolic line is that idea that melatonin might help to further shift fat.

So if you want to have muscle, not fat.

That's what they've really tapped into.

Now, this is anything but simple.

So what's being investigated metabolically doesn't then translate to right into the gym, take a stack of external melatonin and you'll suddenly lose a lot of weight.

So that bit doesn't really translate, but there is a science behind this increasingly investigated about the interaction between natural melatonin release across the course of the day and the night and how that affects metabolism, mainly sugar metabolism, but also fat metabolism in the way of burning more fat.

Right.

So I guess the...

If one is considering, like, I mean, how would it work, taking a melatonin supplement before you go to the gym or after the gym or something, how would it work and is it a good idea?

So is it a good idea? No.

So let's go to the other side of the coin.

Is this a good idea? No, it's a bad idea.

Melatonin has this normal cycle across the 24-hour day.

So when the light comes on in the morning, it strongly suppresses internal melatonin.

And then when darkness comes on in the evening, melatonin goes on, released by the pineal gland in your brain to tell you it's got dark.

And in a few hours time, it'd be a good time to go to sleep.

It'd also be a good time to stop eating and and be thinking about resting up and saving your energy for the next day.