Melatonin And Cancer

Melatonin is the most powerful natural antioxidant we make naturally in our bodies. But the most important of melatonin''s many virtues is its vital role in the prevention and treatment of cancer. As the most powerful natural antioxidant we make naturally in our bodies, melatonin can mop up free radicals five times more effectively than vitamin C and twice as well as tocopherol (Vitamin E). Melatonin can enter every cell in our body.

The UK Government Ban On Being Healthy
What has been the politico-medical response to this astounding supermolecule? Why to ban it of course! It interferes with the pharma companies'' growing market for sleeping pills. Since it cannot be patented and the synthetic versions are incredibly easy to make (Nestle even found it was an unwanted by-product of chocolate manufacture), few pharmaceutical companies are prepared to research its benefits, so most of the research has been conducted within Universities. Consequently in Britain you cannot buy melatonin over the counter (OTC), as you can in some other parts of the world like Poland and the US. The ban is fatuous: those in the know simply order it from the US via the Internet.

Paradoxically you can legally buy its precursor tryptophan in Britain, (though in limited amounts, in the same way as vitamin C is now dose-limited). Tryptophan was recently liberated for OTC sale again after a long period of its suppression on the false grounds that it might be toxic, - a daft idea arising from one bad batch which caused minor adverse effects some decades ago.

In our lab we probably know more about melatonin than most others in the UK. The first thing we discovered was that synthetic melatonin pills at pharmacological levels (in milligram doses) do not retain their efficacy for long. They may be fine for jet lag, but after a while their ability to improve sleep wears off. By contrast at physiological levels (in micro or even nanogram doses) melatonin''s effects remain beneficial indefinitely.

Melatonin reduced the nasty side effects of this intervention, especially in childhood leukaemiasNext we reviewed the literature and found that melatonin as made by plants could be used just like the melatonin made in our bodies. From this we developed a product called Asphalia  based on edible plants with high melatonin content, and have recently filed a UK patent application to protect the invention, now on the OTC market, provided we do not include the word melatonin on the pack or mention its name in articles like this! Furthermore as an adjuvant during chemotherapy we found that melatonin reduced the nasty side effects of this intervention, especially in childhood leukaemias. The 75 year-old Cancer Act (1931) prevents anyone from making any claims that this supermolecule is even beneficial in cancer treatment however.

Nevertheless the scientific evidence is prodigious. A trawl of internet databases produced some 950 studies from around the world reporting melatonin''s use in cancer prevention and treatment.

Clearly there are grounds for not only giving precautionary advice (including organic melatonin supplementation at physiological doses) regarding EMF exposures (particularly the less well researched but more insidious E-fields), but also there is an urgent need to investigate further melatonin''s twin radioprotective and oncostatic roles. Without the promise of any lucrative (i.e. patentable) rewards for this research, however, the prospect of pharmaceutical industry attention remains distant.

Products related to this article

Asphalia for natural sleep