Melatonin will help treat cancer
Scientists from Russia have discovered new anti-cancer properties of the sleep hormone
The addition of the sleep hormone melatonin to anti-cancer drugs based on vitamin A analogues will enhance their effect and help reduce toxicity. This conclusion was reached by Russian scientists who published an article in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences (Krestinina et al., Melatonin Can Strengthen the Effect of Retinoic Acid in HL-60 Cells).
"We studied how the combination of melatonin and reduced concentrations of retinoic acid affects the development of tumor cells of acute human leukemia. Their combination led to a decrease in the number of tumor cells by 70%, and dividing cells by 64%," says Olga Krestinina from Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Biophysics of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Pushchino, whose words are quoted by the press service of the scientific center.
Melatonin is responsible for the onset of sleep and awakening, thus regulating the daily routine. In addition, the hormone is a strong antioxidant that can neutralize aggressive molecules inside cells.
The main source and consumer of melatonin is the brain, but recent experiments show that the hormone is produced in other parts of the body. Recently, Krestinina and her colleagues discovered that it slows down cell aging and has anti-cancer properties.
Russian biologists have wondered whether it is possible to use sleep hormone as an enhancer of anti-cancer drugs that have serious side effects.
For example, the so–called retinoic acid has similar properties - one of the analogues of vitamin A, which is widely used today for the treatment of blood cancer. Taking this drug in the amount necessary to destroy the tumor leads to the development of fever, swelling and severe shortness of breath, and also causes other life-threatening side effects.
Krestinina and her colleagues reduced the dose of retinoic acid and added large amounts of melatonin to it. Scientists introduced a combination of these substances into the culture of cancer cells obtained from a malignant tumor of a patient who died from acute promyelocytic leukemia.
Experiments have shown that the combination of these drugs effectively destroyed cancer cells even after the concentration of retinoic acid was reduced by 100 thousand times compared to the amount of vitamin A used today in the fight against cancer.
As scientists found out, this was due to the fact that the combination of melatonin and retinoic acid was particularly effective in suppressing the synthesis of Bcl-2 protein. It protects cancer cells from "self-destruction" in the event of DNA failures, and its blocking leads to their mass death.
Similarly, as Krestinina and her colleagues note, it is possible to enhance the effect of other anticancer drugs aimed at combating other types of tumors. Given that melatonin is present in the human body and its effect on the body is well studied, it can be expected that such combined drugs will begin to undergo clinical trials fairly quickly.
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