COVID-19: More on Supportive/Adjuvant Treatments: Focus on Melatonin
Hello once again everyone:
We all hope that you are doing well and living a supportive/preventive lifestyle while we all endure this pandemic crisis. Here is some more information that you can use to improve your immune and overall health. As you are probably aware, when a corona virus infected individual goes into a ‘cytokine storm’ is when things get life-threatening, so strategies that may possibly mitigate such an event are worthy of consideration. It is not a long article and worth the read, but here are some quotes from the article that seem the most pertinent:
Selected quotes from this article:
“This article summarizes the likely benefits of melatonin in the attenuation of COVID-19 based on its putative pathogenesis.”
Melatonin, a well-known anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidative molecule, is protective against ALI/ARDS caused by viral and other pathogens. Melatonin is effective in critical care patients by reducing vessel permeability, anxiety, sedation use, and improving sleeping quality, which might also be beneficial for better clinical outcomes for COVID-19 patients. Notably, melatonin has a high safety profile. There is significant data showing that melatonin limits virus-related diseases and would also likely be beneficial in COVID-19 patients.
“Melatonin is not viricidal but it has indirect anti-viral actions [ 3 ] due to its anti-inflammation, anti-oxidation and immune enhancing features.”
“Although there is obviously no report related to the use of melatonin in COVID-19 patients, in subjects with other diseases and an increased level of inflammation, the application of melatonin showed promising results regarding the attenuation of circulating cytokines levels.”
“A recent meta-analysis of a total of 22 randomized controlled trials suggested that a supplementary use of melatonin is associated with a significant reduction of TNF-α and IL-6 level [ 61 ]. This clinical evidence suggests that the use of melatonin as a supplement may effectively reduce the levels of circulating cytokines, and may potentially also lower pro-inflammatory cytokine levels in COVID-19 patients.”
“The possible beneficial effects of melatonin as adjuvant use in COVID-19 in anti-inflammation, anti-oxidation, immune response regulation has been repeatedly demonstrated in respiratory disorder models induced by infections and associated complications. Melatonin has a high safety profile. Although the direct evidence of melatonin application in COVID-19 is unclear, both its use in experimental animal models and in studies on humans has continuously documented its efficacy and safety and its use by COVID-19 patients predictably would be highly beneficial.”
Bottom Line:
As part of your overall health promotion efforts, you might want to consider melatonin. Remember that melatonin is NOT a treatment for COVID-19, it is another component of supportive care and does not replace medical care. If you are considering taking melatonin, it is better to start it now when you are not sick and use it as part of your overall health building and preventative strategies. Here is another quote from the article related to dosages:
“As reviewed previously, short-term use of melatonin is safe, even in those given high doses, and the reported adverse effects are limited to occasional dizziness, headache, nausea and sleepiness; in general melatonin’s safety in humans is very high [ 72 ]. In clinical trials, doses of 3 mg, 6 mg and 10 mg of melatonin oral intake by patients in ICU showed satisfactory safety when compared to placebo [ 70 , 73 , 74 ]. Also, even when melatonin was given to humans at dose of 1 g/d for a month, there were no adverse reports of the treatment [ 75 ]. Finally, there were no adverse effects recorded after the use of melatonin in ALI/ARDS animal studies [ 3 , 4 , 28 ]. While the safety of melatonin has been verified in many human studies, its effect when given to COVID-19 patients should be carefully monitored despite the very high safety profile of melatonin.”
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