Not only from insomnia
Melatonin effectively protects against the effects of ionizing radiation
In the work of scientists from the Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Biophysics of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Pushchino, it was found that melatonin, now used as a drug that normalizes circadian rhythms, is able to significantly reduce the damaging effect of ionizing radiation. This makes its use in radiotherapy and during manned space flights promising. The study is reported in the press release of ITEB RAS.
Ionizing radiation is widely used in the treatment of various types of tumors, the issue of reducing radiation damage to normal tissues during radiotherapy remains critical. The impact of cosmic radiation on astronauts is also a critical factor for flights beyond Earth orbit. In this case, scientists believe, the main risks are associated with the possible consequences of radiation exposure to the central nervous system and the spleen, which is fraught with potential neurological disorders, degenerative effects, decreased performance of the immune and other systems. A significant proportion of preclinically studied drugs are compounds of antioxidant action, since the development of a radiation reaction in irradiated cells is associated with the induction of intracellular oxidative stress.
Melatonin (N-acetyl-5-methoxytryptamine) is considered one of the promising antioxidants in this field. In the current work, scientists have conducted a comparative assessment of damage markers in the tissues of the cerebral cortex and spleen after irradiation of the entire body of mice with X-rays and the possibility of modulating these injuries with the introduction of melatonin before (radioprotection mode) and after (radiomitigation mode) their irradiation. As the results of the research of the International Commission on Radiation Protection show, the victims of nuclear disasters (Chernobyl and Fukushima) would have significantly less radiation effects if they used not only radioprotectors, but also reliable radiomitigators.
The main markers of radiation damage and their modulation were damage and repair of nuclear and mitochondrial DNA, biogenesis and mutagenesis of mitochondrial DNA, the level of ATP (as a marker of energy status), the level of generation of hydrogen peroxide (as the most stable and able to migrate over long distances of the active oxygen form) to assess the induction of oxidative distress, lipid peroxidation, estimated by the content of malondialdehyde, and a decrease in antioxidant activity by the level of reduced glutathione. As a result, it was shown that melatonin more effectively reduces various radiation damage when administered to mice after their irradiation (in the mode of a radiomitigator). Despite the fact that the tissues of the spleen and cerebral cortex of mice differed in the initial control values of the analyzed markers, it was shown that the antiradiation potential of melatonin is successfully realized in both tissues.
The results of the work are published in the journal Antioxidants (Abdullaev et al., Radioprotective and Radiomitigative Effects of Melatonin in Tissues with Different Proliferative Activity).
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