Melatonin Osteoporosis Prevention Study

Osteoporosis is one of the most common skeletal disorders. Today in the United States, 10 million individuals have osteoporosis and 34 million more have low bone mass or osteopenia, which places them at an increased risk of some day developing osteoporosis. Of the people affected by this problem, 68% are women.The current thinking on the development of osteoporosis is that the changes in bone turnover that occur with aging play a major factor. Many modalities of treatment are used to prevent the bone loss and increased fracture risk associated with osteoporosis and osteopenia. Melatonin supplementation may be another treatment modality that lowers risk of hip fracture in perimenopausal women. Melatonin can remodel bone in animal models and in culture. Melatonin works through melatonin receptors to form osteoblasts from human mesenchymal stem cells and has been shown to inhibit osteoclast activity in rodents. Melatonin levels have been correlated with modulating bone markers; low nocturnal levels of melatonin correlate with in an increase in bone marker metabolism and osteoporosis. It is been shown that women who have worked night-shifts for greater than 20 years have increased risk for wrist and hip fractures. Night-shift workers have lower nocturnal melatonin levels than people who do not work the night-shift. The addition of exogenous melatonin suppresses bone marker metabolism. In human stem cells taken from bone marrow, melatonin increases the activity of bone-forming cells called osteoblasts. It is hypothesized that melatonin will improve bone health, menopausal quality of life and sleep compared to placebo in perimenopausal women. In particular, the investigators expect perimenopausal women taking melatonin to show an improvement in overall bone health as revealed by a reduction in bone marker turnover since bone resorption increases more so than bone absorption in this population compared to those women taking placebo. We also expect that perimenopausal women taking melatonin to have better control over their menopausal symptoms, better quality of life and less sleep disturbances when compared to their placebo controls since melatonin is known to modulate estrogen levels in the body and regulate sleep. The data from these studies may provide novel and alternative uses for melatonin; in particular its use for the prevention and/or treatment of osteoporosis.