Have you ever taken melatonin to help you sleep? Melatonin is a natural hormone involved in sleep. Our brains react to darkness by synthesizing melatonin, which helps regulate our body clock and body clock. circadian rhythm. However, melatonin has many diverse functions that help maintain our health. It’s more than just a good night’s sleep.
For example, researchers have shown in the past that melatonin is an antioxidant and helps calm inflammation. When our bodies are damaged, the immune system initiates a natural repair response through inflammation, but excessive inflammation can actually harm cells. Scientists have discovered that melatonin has anti-inflammatory properties and can help stop harmful inflammation.
These properties have led scientists to propose that melatonin may also help heal injuries associated with severe inflammation, such as spinal cord injuries. These complex injuries are rooted in the central nervous system and can affect our ability to move, speak, and process information. Healing is very difficult because spinal cord cells cannot regenerate like other cells such as skin cells.
A team of Chinese scientists recently began testing whether melatonin can reduce spinal cord injuries in mice. They hypothesized that melatonin may do so through a biochemical pathway that activates it. anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effects. Nrf2/ARE signaling pathway.
The researchers paralyzed the limbs of 100 mice to simulate spinal cord injury, then injected them with different doses of melatonin. They injected a control group of 25 mice with a placebo and compared their responses to mice receiving melatonin injections.
The scientists took sections of tissue from the spinal cords of mice before and after giving them melatonin. They stained the tissue to see if the cells were dead, dying, or normal. They found that mice injected with melatonin had fewer dead cells than the control group.
To see how the mice responded to these treatments at the cellular level, the scientists also investigated the energy factories in the mice’s cells, mitochondria. They stained the mice’s mitochondria and examined them under a microscope. Scientists have discovered that the mitochondria in mice are fatally affected by paralysis. They observed bubble-like structures within the mitochondria. vacuole, only in mice that did not receive melatonin. This means that the mice’s cells died from lack of energy, just as plants die when they are deprived of water.
The research team confirmed that fewer vacuoles formed within mitochondria in mice injected with melatonin. They suggested that this means that melatonin’s antioxidant properties protect the membranes of our cellular power-generating factories, just as our skin protects us from the elements.
Scientists also tested whether melatonin could prevent inflammation and other changes in the chemical structure of cells by interacting with proteins.a protein called NLRP3 inflammasome Code of inflammation within our body. Scientists predicted that too much NLRP3 could promote injury, cause uncontrolled inflammation, and cause cell death.
The scientists used a gel-based method to separate proteins in tissue samples based on size. western blot, to detect what kind of proteins are made by mice injected with melatonin. They confirmed that melatonin interacted with the NLRP3 inflammasome in these mice through proteins of the Nrf2/ARE signaling pathway and reversed the inflammatory effects of NLRP3. They confirmed that melatonin reduced inflammation in these mice and prevented progression of the simulated spinal cord injury.
The researchers concluded that melatonin may reduce spinal cord injury and provide insight into the recovery process. They suggested that future researchers should test whether melatonin’s antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects could treat other diseases associated with cell death, such as Alzheimer’s disease.
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Source: sciworthy.com
