Melatonin

TUESDAY, Feb. 25, 2025 -- Night shift workers face an increased risk of cancer, as their disrupted sleep cycle causes wear and tear on their DNA. But taking melatonin might help ward off this risk, a new study suggests. Folks on the night shift taking melatonin had a substantial increase in their urine of a biochemical that indicated better DNA repair while they sleep, researchers reported Feb. 24 in the journal Occupational & Environmental Medicine . “Melatonin supplementation may prove to be a viable intervention strategy to reduce the burden of cancer among night shift workers,” concluded the research team led by Dr. Parveen Bhatti , a distinguished scientist with the BC Cancer Research Institute at the University of British Columbia in Canada. People who work night shifts typically have lower levels of melatonin, a hormone that helps synchronize sleep/wake cycles. Melatonin is produced in response to a person’s exposure to sunlight. This compromises the body’s ability to repair DNA damage that occurs as part of daily life, increasing their risk of cancer, researchers said. To see if boosting a person’s melatonin might offset this damage, researchers recruited 40 night shift workers and randomly assigned half of them to take a 3 mg melatonin pill at bedtime every day for four weeks. The other half took a placebo pill. All the participants worked at least two consecutive night shifts every week, lasting at least seven hours a night for at least six months, researchers said. Researchers then compared urine samples taken at the start and end of the four-week trial to check participants’ levels of 8-hydroxy-2′-deoxyguanosine (8-OH-dG), a chemical produced when cells repair DNA damage. Higher levels of 8-OH-dG indicate that the body is doing a better job repairing damaged DNA, researchers added. Results showed that people taking melatonin had 80% more 8-OH-dG in their urine following daytime sleep. Melatonin has been shown to promote genetic pathways that are involved in DNA repair, researchers said. Low levels of melatonin might affect the body’s ability to recognize and repair damaged DNA. These results warrant further studies in longer-term trials involving more people, researchers concluded. “Assessing long-term efficacy is critical since those who work night shifts for many years would need to consistently consume melatonin supplements over that time frame to maximize the potential cancer prevention benefits,” researchers concluded. Whatever your topic of interest, subscribe to our newsletters to get the best of Drugs.com in your inbox.

In a little more than a weeks time, a drug developed by a small psychedelics company was able to significantly curb hard-to-treat depression in a mid-stage clinical trial.Thats according to high-level results announced Monday. The trial recruited 81 people with treatment-resistant depression and evaluated them via a widely used, 60-point scale where larger scores mean more severe depressive symptoms. The drug, from Ireland-based GH Research, hit the studys main goal by showing that participants taking it had their scores drop 15.5 points more than those who were given a placebo.GH Research said its drug was well-tolerated. No serious adverse events had been reported as of Jan. 22. All treatment-emergent adverse events were mild or moderate, and investigators found no evidence the drug led to flashbacks, suicidal thoughts or behavior, or changes in heart activity. Almost all participants were discharge-ready within an hour of getting their last doses.Additionally, GH Research called the drug ultra-rapid, providing relief just eight days into treatment. By that time, 58% of patients in the drug arm were in remission, compared with 0% in the placebo group. Among 54 patients who then completed an extension portion of the study in which everyone knowingly got the drug the remission rate was 78% at the six-month mark.A novel treatment with such a large and rapid effect, particularly one that may require only infrequent, short 1-3 hours clinic visits, has the potential to be a practice changing treatment, Michael Thase, a psychiatry professor at University of Pennsylvania and a GH Research scientific adviser, said in a statement from the company.The drug is an inhalable form of mebufotenin, one member in a diverse family of molecules that also includes serotonin, melatonin and a psychedelic chemical found in some mushrooms. GH Research studied it in bipolar II disorder as well, and has a different, injectable version of it that went through a small trial of healthy volunteers.The newly released results look highly compelling and the best-in-class for a psychedelic targeting treatment-resistant depression, according to Paul Matteis, an analyst at the investment bank Stifel. While the experiment was not large, and the lack of any signal in the placebo group could be from patients deciphering what arm they were assigned to, Matteis still thinks the study was well run and had no oddities or red flags.Overall, the data look remarkably consistent and are essentially a best-case scenario for GH Research, he wrote in a note to clients.Shares of GH Research nearly doubled on the news. By late Monday morning they were up 81%, trading at over $19 apiece.Biotechnology investors have viewed psychedelics, much like the broader neuroscience field, as a high-risk, high-reward area of medical research. Theres mounting evidence these drugs can be valuable therapies for common conditions like depression, anxiety and addiction.Last year, psychedelics developers Lykos Therapeutics and Reunion Neuroscience each closed fundraising rounds worth more than $100 million.The hope is that these investments lead to products like Johnson & Johnsons Spravato, a form of ketamine used in treatment-resistant depression as well as certain cases of major depression. Sales from Spravato last year totaled almost $1.1 billion. (Matteis, notably, said his team was struck that GH Researchs drug looks much better than Spravato monotherapy in treatment-resistant depression, where the latter therapy showed a roughly 7-point decline in depressive symptoms after 28 days.)Still, the journey to market remains perilous. Psychedelics trials are exceedingly difficult, in part because the mind-altering effects of these drugs can tip off participants to the therapy theyve received, possibly skewing results.This was a key issue for the Food and Drug Administration when it reviewed a request from Lykos to approve MDMA better known to some as the party drug ecstasy for the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder.The FDA went on to reject Lykos application, leading the company to lay off about three quarters of its employees. '