USAID also funded my research position studying global media literacy, which I’m sad about, but eliminating medical care to people who would die without it is infinitely and indescribably worse.

When you see alarming health headlines, always ask:
– Has the study been peer-reviewed?
– Was it observational or experimental?
– How big was the actual risk difference?

Science takes time, and context matters!

Bottom line:
✅ This study raises questions but doesn’t prove harm.
⚠️ The findings are preliminary, limited, and easy to misinterpret.
💡 More rigorous research is needed before drawing conclusions.

Finally, the absolute difference in risk was small!
Heart failure happened in 4.6% of long-term melatonin users versus 2.7% of non-users.
That’s a relative increase, but a small absolute difference.
Headlines saying “90% higher risk” make it sound far scarier than it is.

Even the authors said:
“our study cannot prove a direct cause-and-effect relationship.”
And it hasn’t been peer-reviewed yet.
It’s just a short conference abstract, not a published scientific paper.
So it’s more like a work in progress, not established evidence

The study also couldn’t measure:
– how bad people’s insomnia was,
– what doses they took,
– or whether they actually took melatonin regularly.
*People with worse insomnia, depression, or chronic illness may be more likely to use sleep aids and to have higher heart risk*

In fact, there are lots of reasons this study could be misleading:
• It only counted melatonin use if it was listed in medical records — so people buying it over the counter were counted as “non-users.”
• That means many melatonin users ended up in the “non-melatonin” group by mistake.

This study can’t prove that melatonin caused anything.
It’s an observational study, so the researchers just looked at existing medical records, no experiments, no control over who took melatonin or why.
People who take melatonin long-term may already have other health problems that raise heart risks

The study looked at electronic health records from about 130,000 adults with insomnia over five years.
It found that people who had used melatonin for at least a year were more likely to later be diagnosed with heart failure or die from any cause.
Sounds worrying, right? But here’s the catch 👇

Also check out this Bluesky thread from the lead author @nielsmede.bsky.social!
bsky.app/profile/niel...