Melatonin as a cancer adjunct
Melatonin helps some people sleep and is safe at usual doses, but the claim that high-dose melatonin improves survival rests on a series of small unblinded trials from one group that has never been reproduced elsewhere. It is not a cancer treatment.
Overview
Melatonin, the pineal hormone that signals night, has antioxidant, immunomodulatory and antiproliferative effects in laboratory models. A 2012 meta-analysis of randomised trials of 20 mg melatonin alongside chemotherapy reported improved one-year survival and reduced toxicity, but almost all included trials came from a single Italian group, were unblinded and small, and independent trials have not replicated the survival effect. Better-conducted trials of melatonin for sleep, delirium and fatigue in cancer patients are mixed, with some benefit for sleep quality and little for fatigue. Low-dose melatonin is a reasonable short-term sleep aid in survivors when behavioural therapy is unavailable. High-dose melatonin as an anticancer adjunct is unproven; it may interact with sedatives and anticoagulants.
How it works
Melatonin acts on MT1 and MT2 receptors and as a free-radical scavenger, with circadian and putative oncostatic effects observed mainly in vitro and in rodents.
- Safe and cheap
- Plausible for sleep disturbance
- Survival trials from a single unblinded source
- No independent replication
- Fatigue trials negative or mixed
Latest papers
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