quantitative
Analysis v1
Strong Support
When you swallow melatonin pills, your liver breaks down most of it before it can actually enter your bloodstream, meaning only about 2.5% of the dose actually works. Because so much is lost this way, you might need to take much higher oral doses to get the same effect as an injection.
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Evidence from Studies
Supporting (1)
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Community contributions welcome
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Pharmacokinetics of oral and intravenous melatonin in healthy volunteers
Cohort Study
Human
2016 Feb 19The study confirms that when men take melatonin by mouth, only about 2.5% of it actually enters the bloodstream because the liver breaks most of it down first. This matches the claim that oral melatonin has very low bioavailability.
Contradicting (0)
0
Community contributions welcome
No contradicting evidence found
Gold Standard Evidence Needed
According to GRADE and EBM methodology, here is what ideal scientific evidence would look like to definitively prove or disprove this specific claim, ordered from strongest to weakest evidence.