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Ah, sleep. Those eight hours of repair that you or don’t get every night actively fight stress while keeping you healthy, alert, and boosting your immune system. This is why there are so many candies, ointments, potions, and other aids that contain melatonin. It is a hormone that humans produce naturally and that regulates sleep. Most of us don’t get enough rest, which is why melatonin is also made artificially and sold over the counter as a natural sleeping pill. Turns out the supplement might actually have an unexpected benefit: A new study from the Cleveland Clinic claims melatonin may help fight the coronavirus.
The study, which was published in October in PLOS Biology, details the patients who went through the clinic until June 2020. Among this group, patients who have used melatonin were nearly 30% less likely to test positive for SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for COVID-19. This was after taking into account variables such as age, race, smoking history, and various illnesses.
Led by scientists at the Cleveland Clinic, the study aimed to identify molecular pathways shared by other diseases and COVID-19. It is believed that drugs that the Food and Drug Administration has already approved to treat these other diseases could act on these shared pathways and therefore also treat COVID-19.
The team found, for example, that proteins associated with respiratory distress syndrome and sepsis, which are two of the leading causes of death in patients with severe COVID-19, were also associated with the proteins that make up SARS -CoV-2. By establishing such associations, the researchers identified 34 drugs already used to treat other conditions that could also treat COVID-19. Melatonin has shown the most promise.
This potential game change was found in one patient’s data analyzed Ex-Machina style: via an artificial intelligence platform. Developed by the Lerner Research Institute, the smarty pants robot looked at all kinds of information about patients entering and leaving this clinic, including the medications they had taken.
Additionally, African Americans, who often have the bottom line when it comes to health care, and who contract – and die – from the coronavirus at higher rates, have something to celebrate in the healthcare industry for one. times. It was found that we may benefit more from melatonin than other races, at 52%. Go ahead, melatonin.
Of course, there are caveats, research on this topic is fairly recent. “It is very important to note that these results do not suggest that people should start taking melatonin without consulting their doctor,” said Feixiong Cheng, staff assistant at the Cleveland Clinic Institute of Genomic Medicine and lead author of the study. Her comments make sense, given that people ran out to get hydroxychloroquine when their future former president rented it out on national television, and that recklessness actually caused at least one death.
A randomized clinical trial on melatonin in patients with COVID-19 would test whether it is really sleep aid that works against the disease, or another variable. So while this data is exciting, it should be taken with a grain of salt, not a sip of over the counter melatonin, please.
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