5 ms·

I was just going to mention melatonin related to this. I know that heavy doses of melatonin slow or kill cancer[citation needed]. And you have to think this is

I was just going to mention melatonin related to this. I know that heavy doses of melatonin slow or kill cancer[citation needed]. And you have to think this is somehow related to this research. Although you would expect the opposite of cancer growing at night, when melatonin is ostensibly at its highest (does it peak or start at 8PM?).

pazimzadeh 4y ago
It would be good to know what the immune system is doing during sleep. As I understand it, metastasis is caused by a local depletion in nutrients or stress to the tumor cells, which then try to find a new environment to occupy. If tumor-killing activity of the immune system happens primarily at night, that could explain why metastasis is also primarily at night, and may explain the discrepancy on melatonin which you just mentioned, where this study found that higher melatonin levels correlated with higher circulating tumor cell numbers, but the literature suggests that melatonin helps kill tumors.
- hun3 4y ago
  > where this study found that higher melatonin levels correlated with higher circulating tumor cell numbers, but the literature suggests that melatonin helps kill tumors. Looks like a feedback cycle
weberer 4y ago
>I know that heavy doses of melatonin slow or kill cancer Melatonin is an antioxidant, which destroys chemicals known to cause cancer. I can't find info on it destroying cancer cells directly.
- pdimitar 4y ago
  Well, FINALLY a scientific explanation about "sleep from 22:00 to 6:00, you'll be healthier" thing that is being constantly peddled! It really pisses me off when people just keep repeating stuff and never support them with evidence. This here however -- your tidbit -- is something I can work with and might prompt me to change my habits. Any idea if taking melatonin pills while still going to bed at 4:00 is having the same, or at least some effect? Or does it not work at all then?
  - chmod775 4y ago
    The problem is that sleep does so much, that even trying to create a list seems impossible, but some try: https://www.healthline.com/health/why-do-we-sleep https://www.healthline.com/health/why-do-we-sleep Sleep has been researched heavily (but far from conclusively), and there is an insane amount of diseases that people who don't get enough sleep are a risk group for. And some of those correlations are quite pronounced, like being ~30% more likely to get dementia if you don't get enough sleep in your 50s and 60s. In some cases nobody can conclusively say whether there's causation, because we don't fully understand diseases like alzheimer or some of the processes happening during sleep, but in the meantime it seems prudent to sleep a healthy amount.
    - TaupeRanger 4y ago
      If you have the causation backwards in your phrasing, that implies that perhaps some people simply can't get good sleep even though they might try. You could say: you're 30% more likely to have sleep problems in your 50s and 60s if you're in the very early stages of developing dementia. Perhaps the disease process makes the sleep problems unavoidable and trying sleep more won't help.
      - paulryanrogers 4y ago
        Possibly. Without controlled trials we may never know certainly enough to satisfy some. But considering the lifestyle loss from dementia I'd rather risk losing some waking time instead.
  - vimy 4y ago
    The hour you go to bed doesn’t matter. You need a regular sleep schedule with enough sleep and that’s it. What people mean, without realizing it, when they say the hours before midnight count double is that your first hours of sleep are the most important. Your sleep consists of several cycles, +- 90 minutes long. There are several stages of sleep in each cycle, deep sleep is the most important one. You are probably most familiar with the last stage, REM sleep. You get the most deep sleep in the first cycles, so in the first hours of sleeping. But it doesn’t matter when those first hours are, the body has no concept of midnight.
- pazimzadeh 4y ago
  A lot of the literature suggests that it boosts the effects of chemotherapy. However chemotherapy damages host cells as well. It's unclear if melatonin promotes sparing of healthy cells that are dividing or simply boosts the effect of chemo everywhere. REVIEWS: Melatonin, a Full Service Anti-Cancer Agent: Inhibition of Initiation, Progression and Metastasis https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5412427/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5412427/ The melatonin immunomodulatory actions in radiotherapy https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28510090/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28510090/ Usefulness of melatonin as complementary to chemotherapeutic agents at different stages of the angiogenic process https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-61622-x https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-61622-x Role of melatonin in cancer treatment https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22753734/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22753734/ Melatonin, a natural programmed cell death inducer in cancer https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22612707/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22612707/ Cancer metastasis: Mechanisms of inhibition by melatonin https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27706852/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27706852/ Melatonin and its ubiquitous anticancer effects https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31451998/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31451998/ PRIMARY LIT: Melatonin inhibits Warburg-dependent cancer by redirecting glucose oxidation to the mitochondria: a mechanistic hypothesis https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31970423/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31970423/ RNA-Seq transcriptome analysis shows anti-tumor actions of melatonin in a breast cancer xenograft model https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30700756/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30700756/ Effect of melatonin on T/B cell activation and immune regulation in pinealectomy mice https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0024320519311191 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S002432051... Melatonin inhibits nuclear factor kappa B activation and oxidative stress and protects against thioacetamide induced liver damage in rats https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14672618/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14672618/ *This is significant because one of the side effects of chemotherapy is increased NFkB, which can induce to tumor growth/resistance* Melatonin-mediated downregulation of thymidylate synthase as a novel mechanism for overcoming 5-fluorouracil associated chemoresistance in colorectal cancer cells https://academic.oup.com/carcin/article/40/3/422/5257709 https://academic.oup.com/carcin/article/40/3/422/5257709 Melatonin enhances sensitivity to fluorouracil in oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma through inhibition of Erk and Akt pathway https://www.nature.com/articles/cddis2016330 https://www.nature.com/articles/cddis2016330 Melatonin inhibits AP-2β/hTERT, NF-κB/COX-2 and Akt/ERK and activates caspase/Cyto C signaling to enhance the antitumor activity of berberine in lung cancer cells https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4823085/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4823085/

pazimzadeh 4y ago

It would be good to know what the immune system is doing during sleep. As I understand it, metastasis is caused by a local depletion in nutrients or stress to the tumor cells, which then try to find a new environment to occupy. If tumor-killing activity of the immune system happens primarily at night, that could explain why metastasis is also primarily at night, and may explain the discrepancy on melatonin which you just mentioned, where this study found that higher melatonin levels correlated with higher circulating tumor cell numbers, but the literature suggests that melatonin helps kill tumors.

hun3 4y ago
> where this study found that higher melatonin levels correlated with higher circulating tumor cell numbers, but the literature suggests that melatonin helps kill tumors. Looks like a feedback cycle

weberer 4y ago

>I know that heavy doses of melatonin slow or kill cancer Melatonin is an antioxidant, which destroys chemicals known to cause cancer. I can't find info on it destroying cancer cells directly.

pdimitar 4y ago
Well, FINALLY a scientific explanation about "sleep from 22:00 to 6:00, you'll be healthier" thing that is being constantly peddled! It really pisses me off when people just keep repeating stuff and never support them with evidence. This here however -- your tidbit -- is something I can work with and might prompt me to change my habits. Any idea if taking melatonin pills while still going to bed at 4:00 is having the same, or at least some effect? Or does it not work at all then?
- chmod775 4y ago
  The problem is that sleep does so much, that even trying to create a list seems impossible, but some try: https://www.healthline.com/health/why-do-we-sleep https://www.healthline.com/health/why-do-we-sleep Sleep has been researched heavily (but far from conclusively), and there is an insane amount of diseases that people who don't get enough sleep are a risk group for. And some of those correlations are quite pronounced, like being ~30% more likely to get dementia if you don't get enough sleep in your 50s and 60s. In some cases nobody can conclusively say whether there's causation, because we don't fully understand diseases like alzheimer or some of the processes happening during sleep, but in the meantime it seems prudent to sleep a healthy amount.
  - TaupeRanger 4y ago
    If you have the causation backwards in your phrasing, that implies that perhaps some people simply can't get good sleep even though they might try. You could say: you're 30% more likely to have sleep problems in your 50s and 60s if you're in the very early stages of developing dementia. Perhaps the disease process makes the sleep problems unavoidable and trying sleep more won't help.
    - paulryanrogers 4y ago
      Possibly. Without controlled trials we may never know certainly enough to satisfy some. But considering the lifestyle loss from dementia I'd rather risk losing some waking time instead.
- vimy 4y ago
  The hour you go to bed doesn’t matter. You need a regular sleep schedule with enough sleep and that’s it. What people mean, without realizing it, when they say the hours before midnight count double is that your first hours of sleep are the most important. Your sleep consists of several cycles, +- 90 minutes long. There are several stages of sleep in each cycle, deep sleep is the most important one. You are probably most familiar with the last stage, REM sleep. You get the most deep sleep in the first cycles, so in the first hours of sleeping. But it doesn’t matter when those first hours are, the body has no concept of midnight.
pazimzadeh 4y ago
A lot of the literature suggests that it boosts the effects of chemotherapy. However chemotherapy damages host cells as well. It's unclear if melatonin promotes sparing of healthy cells that are dividing or simply boosts the effect of chemo everywhere. REVIEWS: Melatonin, a Full Service Anti-Cancer Agent: Inhibition of Initiation, Progression and Metastasis https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5412427/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5412427/ The melatonin immunomodulatory actions in radiotherapy https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28510090/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28510090/ Usefulness of melatonin as complementary to chemotherapeutic agents at different stages of the angiogenic process https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-61622-x https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-61622-x Role of melatonin in cancer treatment https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22753734/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22753734/ Melatonin, a natural programmed cell death inducer in cancer https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22612707/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22612707/ Cancer metastasis: Mechanisms of inhibition by melatonin https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27706852/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27706852/ Melatonin and its ubiquitous anticancer effects https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31451998/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31451998/ PRIMARY LIT: Melatonin inhibits Warburg-dependent cancer by redirecting glucose oxidation to the mitochondria: a mechanistic hypothesis https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31970423/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31970423/ RNA-Seq transcriptome analysis shows anti-tumor actions of melatonin in a breast cancer xenograft model https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30700756/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30700756/ Effect of melatonin on T/B cell activation and immune regulation in pinealectomy mice https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0024320519311191 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S002432051... Melatonin inhibits nuclear factor kappa B activation and oxidative stress and protects against thioacetamide induced liver damage in rats https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14672618/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14672618/ *This is significant because one of the side effects of chemotherapy is increased NFkB, which can induce to tumor growth/resistance* Melatonin-mediated downregulation of thymidylate synthase as a novel mechanism for overcoming 5-fluorouracil associated chemoresistance in colorectal cancer cells https://academic.oup.com/carcin/article/40/3/422/5257709 https://academic.oup.com/carcin/article/40/3/422/5257709 Melatonin enhances sensitivity to fluorouracil in oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma through inhibition of Erk and Akt pathway https://www.nature.com/articles/cddis2016330 https://www.nature.com/articles/cddis2016330 Melatonin inhibits AP-2β/hTERT, NF-κB/COX-2 and Akt/ERK and activates caspase/Cyto C signaling to enhance the antitumor activity of berberine in lung cancer cells https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4823085/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4823085/