Effects of exogenous melatonin on human pituitary and adrenal secretions. Hormonal responses to specific stimuli after acute administration of different doses at two opposite circadian stages in men.

We evaluated the effect of an acute oral administration of 2 dosages (100 and 1 mg) of melatonin (MT) vs placebo (PL) on pituitary release of LH, FSH, TSH and PRL after GnRH + TRH and on the adrenocortical release of cortisol, aldosterone and progesterone after ACTH in healthy adult males. We carried out a double blind study on 6 volunteers in winter-early spring, at 2 opposite phases of the circadian cycle: 08(00) and 20(00). Injection of GnRH (100 micrograms), TRH (200 micrograms) and ACTH (10 micrograms of the synthetic analogue ACTH 1-17, alsactide) was performed 1 h after MT or PL ingestion. The measurement of plasma MT levels confirmed its effective gastrointestinal absorption after both doses. The hormonal patterns were superimposable after MT and PL. A higher response of FSH, PRL, cortisol and aldosterone was observed in the evening vs morning protocols independently of previous treatment (MT or PL). Our data demonstrate that the acute oral administration of 2 different doses of MT at 2 opposite circadian stages is ineffective as to the modification of a variety of pituitary and adrenocortical responses in human male subjects. The circadian chronosusceptibility of pituitary and adrenocortical cells to specific stimuli deserves interest to future investigation.