Cardiovascular System
Medical Studies on Melatonin – Cardiovascular System
Melatonin plays a key role in cardiovascular health, for example in relation to arteriosclerosis, high blood pressure, coronary heart disease and heart attacks. This hormone has also proven to be a promising treatment method for stroke.
Melatonin as a blood pressure regulator
High blood pressure and the constriction of the blood vessels that this entails may have fatal consequences if the key organs are no longer sufficiently supplied with blood and can therefore no longer be supplied with enough oxygen. The result is a substantial increase in the risk of heart attack or stroke. Studies have demonstrated that melatonin reduces both blood pressure and vascular stiffness and therefore has very positive effects on cardiovascular health.
Melatonin reduces cell damage
Thanks to its highly anti-oxidative and anti-inflammatory properties, melatonin can also significantly reduce the extent of cell damage that often occurs after a heart attack or stroke. Free radicals in particular can affect the severity of these medical emergencies, because the tissue damage that they cause is irreparable.
Protection from dangerous oxidative stress
Melatonin has proven to be highly efficient both in preventing and treating acute diseases. It protects against oxidative stress and establishes a balance between pro-inflammatory and anti-inflammatory cytokines, and can, for example, in the event of a heart attack, even protect the heart from injury after myocardial ischaemia or during essential reperfusion.
Medical Studies on Melatonin – Cardiovascular System
2016-10-18
Melatonin is uncommonly effective in reducing oxidative stress under a remarkably large number of circumstances. It achieves this action via a variety of means: direct detoxification of reactive oxygen and reactive nitrogen species and indirectly by stimulating antioxidant enzymes while suppressing the activity of pro-oxidant enzymes.
2012-01-19
Melatonin is a versatile molecule, synthesized not only by the pineal gland, but also in small amounts by many other organs like retina, gastrointestinal tract, thymus, bone marrow, lymphocytes etc.
2010-11-02
This review aims at describing the beneficial properties of melatonin related to its antioxidant effects. Oxidative stress, i.e., an imbalance between the production of reactive oxygen species and antioxidant defences, is involved in several pathological conditions such as cardiovascular or neurological disease, and in aging. Therefore, research for antioxidants has developed. However, classical antioxidants often failed to exhibit beneficial effects, especially in metabolic diseases.
2010-05-18
The experimental data obtained from both human and rodent studies suggest that melatonin may have utility in the treatment of several cardiovascular conditions. In particular, melatonin’s use in reducing the severity of essential hypertension should be more widely considered. In rodent studies melatonin has been shown to be highly effective in limiting abnormal cardiac physiology and the loss of critical heart tissue resulting from ischemia/reperfusion injury.
2003-05-18
This review summarizes the numerous reports that have documented the neuroprotective actions of melatonin in experimental models of ischemia/reperfusion injury (stroke).
2003-03-16
In both permanent and transient 3-hour middle cerebral artery occlusion rat stroke models, a single intraperitoneal injection of melatonin at 5 or 15 mg/kg given before ischemia was shown to reduce infarct volume at 72 hours. The present study was conducted to examine the treatment time window when melatonin was commenced after onset of ischemia.