March 18, 2021 general

On the Healthy by NatureShow March 13, 2021, investigative health journalist, Jeff T Bowles, discussed his book, Extreme Dose! Melatonin The Miracle Anti-Aging Hormone Anti-Alzheimer’s Hormone Anti-Baldness Hormone Menopause Reversal Hormone.

This supplement is a hormone that you may have heard about as a help for sleep and jet lag. It does that, but we learned about some of its other benefits noted in the subtitle of his book. There are more such help with migraine, depression, blood pressure and cancer.

A timely connection is that melatonin is being studied as an adjunct treatment for covid-19. (Incidentally, President Trump was taking it  during his brief bout with the coronavirus.) The head of our affiliate network, ACN, kindly sent me this message: “A study done by a team of researchers at the Cleveland Clinic found that melatonin may help prevent illness from COVID-19. It found that use of the sleep aid is ‘strongly associated with a 28% reduced likelihood’ of a positive COVID-19 test. For African Americans, the reduction in likelihood goes up to 52 percent.” Conveniently, melatonin has also been shown to support lung health.

The chart at the top illustrates how nighttime levels of melatonin decline as we age. That is a clue to why Jeff considers melatonin an under-appreciated help with age management. Melatonin controls other hormones. He said that a study in Europe found that 75 mg daily was effective birth control for women. (That is way higher than the 1-3 mg usually used for sleep and I don’t recommend relying on that method.)  When Jeff was taking high doses of melatonin, his blood levels of progesterone went up. (I consider that a good thing.)

I apologize for not going in greater depth and for cutting off Part 1 of this story here rather abruptly. Frankly, with taxes and other stuff, I just got really behind this week and ran out of time. Next week, I will review the Bowles interview and my notes from a previous professor’s lecture and tidy things up.