Some doctors believe that sleep hormone helps with coronavirus
It appears that in the list of potential treatments COVID-19, which the researchers proposed for several months of the pandemic, another replenishment: melatonin. A doctor in Texas says he has already treated 400 coVID-19 patients with this drug. How? Can melatonin, also known as the "sleep hormone," have any effect on coronavirus? It is still difficult to answer this question, as the doctor has not provided any results of clinical trials. However, scientists believe that if melatonin played any role in treatment, it was not the only factor.
It is noted that melatonin treatment also provided patients with vitamin C. None of these vitamins qualifies as a proven and scientifically sound treatment of SARS-CoV-2. Yet many scientists are investigating whether melatonin can actually affect coronavirus treatment
So far, THE treatment of SARS-CoV-2 with melatonin is not supported enough by medical institutions, says Cesar Borlongan, a neurologist at the University of South Florida. "Much more thorough research is needed to determine whether this hormone can do more than regulate sleep and wake cycles.
Melatonin is common. Released by the gland in our brain, this hormone helps prepare the body for sleep - melatonin levels rise at night and fall during the day. Melatonin is often bought in pharmacies because it is believed that a couple of tablets containing this hormone, or establish a wakefulness cycle. Studies show that this hormone is probably useful in jet lag, but there is not yet enough evidence that melatonin can help with insomnia or other sleep disturbances.
Melatonin helps to establish a cycle of sleep and wakefulness
As for the treatment of coronavirus, here is not so clear. In the process of studying the effects of melatonin on COVID-19, scientists focus not on how this hormone helps us sleep, but on how it interacts with our immune system. Studies show that melatonin can actually help fight inflammation and other reactions that occur in our bodies when the immune system detects a threat. Some degree of inflammation is sometimes beneficial for recovery, but this reaction can also become excessive, for example, when it leads to plaques on the walls of blood vessels.
Some health experts suspect that an over-immune response in COVID-19 patients also causes health problems. According to Russell Reiter, who studies the aging process at the University of Texas Medical Sciences center in San Antonio, melatonin reduces this immune response. The scientist wrote that he and his colleagues in the Philippines published an article in which 10 hospitalized patients with COVID-19 had symptoms improved after several days of taking drugs containing melatonin.
Reuters is very much in trust in melatonin, and if proven to be effective, this hormone will prove to be a cheaper treatment option than other ways to fight COVID-19. Clinical trials examining the effects of melatonin on coronavirus are still ongoing and doctors have not yet reached a conclusion.
Basically melatonin is taken to sleep better. But no one has studied its effectiveness from other diseases
Other researchers suggest that melatonin may be useful for certain neurological problems.
You can follow this logic and assume that if melatonin helps to fall asleep or reduces inflammation, the hormone can prevent stroke - and perhaps some patients with COVID-19 may reduce the risk of brain damage if they take melatonin.
According to scientists, if inflammation does decrease, it means that melatonin works. If patients just sleep better, then it is more about simple rest, not hormone.
As well, melatonin is still to prove its effectiveness in the fight against coronavirus. The good news is that researchers are studying it, and very soon we'll find out how our natural hormone affects COVID-19. And does it affect at all.
