Does taking melatonin supplements delay puberty?

This blog is part of my series on “Should I Give My Child with Autism Melatonin to Sleep?” The goal of my series is to help you figure out if melatonin is right for your child.

One common question that parents ask about melatonin supplements is whether they delay puberty.

Do melatonin supplements delay puberty? Children who have not yet gone through puberty have higher levels of natural melatonin in their bodies compared to those who have gone through puberty. Natural melatonin levels drop around the time of puberty. Melatonin supplements raise the level of melatonin in children’s bodies. If melatonin levels are high, will that prevent puberty from starting? This line of thought assumes that a drop in melatonin is the cause of puberty.

You may have heard the saying “Correlation doesn’t equal causation.” This means that a drop in melatonin can happen at the same time as puberty starting, but does not mean that the drop in melatonin is the cause.

Puberty is a complex process, and likely other hormones are at play causing puberty to happen, beyond simply a drop in melatonin.

There are other ways to answer this question. You can measure hormone levels and see if they change when kids take melatonin. My team collected these hormone levels in children taking melatonin who had not yet gone through puberty. Their levels of hormones, like estrogen and testosterone, were normal. This suggested that melatonin supplements don’t affect hormones. We also did physical exams on children taking melatonin supplements in a study. We found that the signs that go along with puberty, like breast development and pubic hair growth, did not slow down or speed up by taking melatonin supplements.

There is one key fact to be aware of. The source of the data on pubertal development that we worked with came from a company that made a supplemental melatonin product. You could argue that it is in the company’s best interest to show that melatonin does not affect puberty. We need more studies not funded by drug companies to settle the question. Based on the facts that we have, puberty is not delayed in children taking melatonin supplements.

I hope you will read more of my blogs, and learn how to decide if melatonin makes sense for your child.