Watchman News

By Dr. Mercola

Melatonin is a hormone your body produces at night, and one of its primary roles is to help you sleep. But this benefit, for which it is arguably most widely known, is only one of many.
Did you know, for instance, that melatonin may help protect against heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer’s and migraine headaches? Or that it may help with weight control and strengthening your immune system? It even appears to play a role in cancer prevention.
Yet, because artificial lighting disrupts your melatonin production, many Americans may be lacking in this veritable ‘wonder hormone.’

Melatonin Combats Inflammation, Offers Mood and Anti-Aging Brain Support

Melatonin is a powerful antioxidant and free radical scavenger that helps ‘cool down’ excess inflammation. In fact, melatonin is so integral to the health of your immune system that a lack of it causes your thymus gland, a key component of your immune system, to shrink in size.1

Because melatonin is a strong antioxidant and is able to cross the blood-brain barrier, it is thought to help protect against Alzheimer’s disease as well as brain aging.

In one study, artificially aged mice treated with melatonin had reduced oxidative stress and markers of cerebral aging and neurodegeneration, indicating the melatonin offered both neuroprotective and anti-aging effects.2

In another study, researchers revealed that combining daily exercise with the daily intake of melatonin appeared to have a synergistic effect against brain deterioration in mice with Alzheimer’s disease-associated mutations.3 Improvements in behavior, learning and memory were noted.

Melatonin’s immediate precursor is the neurotransmitter serotonin, which is a major player in regulating and giving a lift to your mood. And, like serotonin, melatonin plays important roles in your physical and mental health. Studies have shown that insufficient melatonin production can set you up for:

Decreased immune function
Accelerated cancer cell proliferation and tumor growth (including leukemia)

Blood pressure instability
Decreased free radical scavenging

Increased plaques in the brain, like those seen with Alzheimer’s disease
Increased risk of osteoporosis

Diabetic microangiopathy (capillary damage)
Depression and/or seasonal affective disorder (SAD)

Melatonin’s Impressive Role in Fighting Cancer

Peer-reviewed and published research has shown melatonin offers particularly strong protection against reproductive cancers. Cells throughout your body — even cancer cells — have melatonin receptors.

So when melatonin makes its nightly rounds (its production peaks during the night), cell division slows. When this hormone latches onto a breast cancer cell, it has been found to counteract estrogen’s tendency to stimulate cell growth.
In fact, melatonin has a calming effect on several reproductive hormones, which may explain why it seems to protect against sex hormone-driven cancers, including ovarian, endometrial, breast, prostate and testicular cancers. GreenMedInfo lists 20 studies demonstrating exactly how melatonin exerts its protective effects against breast cancer.4
But melatonin’s anti-cancer effects don’t stop there. While causing cancer cells to self-destruct, melatonin also boosts your production of immune-optimizing substances such as interleukin-2, which helps identify and attack the mutated cells that lead to malignant cancer.

Through these dual actions, melatonin delivers a one-two punch! The greatest area of melatonin research to date has to do with breast cancer. Some of the more impressive studies include the following:

The journal Epidemiology5 reported increased breast cancer risk among women who work predominantly night shifts
Women who live in neighborhoods with large amounts of nighttime illumination are more likely to get breast cancer than those who live in areas where nocturnal darkness prevails, according to an Israeli study6
From participants in the Nurses’ Health Study, it was found that nurses who work nights had 36 percent higher rates of breast cancer7
Blind women, whose eyes cannot detect light and so have robust production of melatonin, have lower-than-average breast cancer rates8
When the body of epidemiological studies are considered in their totality, women who work night shift are found to have breast cancer rates 60 percent above normal, even when other factors such as differences in diet are accounted for9

Can Melatonin Help You Fight Fat?

A new study by Spanish scientists suggests that reducing unhealthy weight gain can now be added to melatonin’s impressive roster of benefits. They found that consuming melatonin stimulates the appearance of ‘beige’ fat, which, similar to brown fat, is a heat-generating type of fat that helps your body to burn calories rather than store them. This, the researchers believe, may explain why melatonin helps control body weight, along with its metabolic benefits.
Science Daily reported:10

“The study… showed that chronic administration of melatonin sensitizes the thermogenic effect of exposure to cold, heightens the thermogenic effect of exercise and, therefore, constitutes excellent therapy against obesity.

The fact is that one of the key differences between ‘beige fat,’ which appears when administering melatonin, and ‘white fat,’ is that ‘beige fat’ cell mitochondria express levels of UCP1 protein, responsible for burning calories and generating heat.”

Though this wasn’t discussed in the study, it’s also well proven that lack of sleep is linked to obesity, while if you’re not getting enough sleep, there’s a good chance your melatonin production is not up to par either. The disturbance to your melatonin levels caused by lack of sleep may be one more reason why it leads to weight gain, and this could have far-reaching impacts on your health.

Help for Heart Disease, Headaches, Diabetes and Osteoporosis?

Newer areas of research surrounding melatonin include its role in heart and bone health. Specifically, research suggests it may have beneficial effects for heart disease, including reducing the severity of high blood pressure, limiting the frequency of heart failure and protecting against drug-related damage to the heart.11Also noteworthy, research has shown that taking melatonin before bed reduced the frequency of migraine headaches by half (or more) after three months,12 as well as may be useful for restoring imbalances in bone remodeling to prevent bone loss.13 Finally, recent research showed that people who secrete lower levels of melatonin have double the risk of developing type 2 diabetes compared to those with the highest levels,14 suggesting a protective role for the hormone with this disease as well.

If You Turn On a Light at Night, You’re Stopping Your Melatonin Production

Given its myriad of invaluable benefits, you certainly want to do all you can to protect your body’s natural production of this hormone. In humans as with all mammals, your biological clock resides in the suprachiasmatic nucleus of your brain (SCN), which is part of your hypothalamus. Based on signals of light and darkness, your SCN tells your pineal gland when it’s time to secrete melatonin. Light comes in through your eyes and travels up your optic nerves to the SCN, which is exquisitely sensitive to cycles of light and darkness.

When you turn on a light at night, you immediately send your brain misinformation about the light-dark cycle. The only thing your brain interprets light to be is day. Believing daytime has arrived, your biological clock instructs your pineal gland to immediately cease its production of melatonin. Whether you have the light on for an hour or for just a second, the effect is the same — and your melatonin pump doesn’t turn back on when you flip the light back off.

Since humans evolved in the glow of firelight, the yellow, orange and red wavelengths don’t suppress melatonin production the way white and blue wavelengths do. In fact, the range of light that inhibits melatonin is fairly narrow — 460 to 480 nm. If you want to protect your melatonin, when the sun goes down you would shift to a low-wattage bulb with yellow, orange or red light. Dr. Russel Reiter suggests using a salt lamp illuminated by a 5-watt bulb in this color range.

How to Improve and Protect Your Melatonin Production

If you’re wondering how to ensure that you’re getting enough melatonin, supplementation may be beneficial but it is FAR more beneficial and certainly less expensive to have your body produce its own melatonin. Small quantities are also found in foods like Goji berries, almonds, sunflower seeds, coriander and cherries, but, again, when you optimize your own production you will get the “perfect” dose of melatonin for you. The way to do this is to improve your sleep hygiene, which will in turn help you optimize your melatonin production. For a comprehensive sleep guide, please see my article “33 Secrets to a Good Night’s Sleep.”

Avoid watching TV or using your computer in the evening, at least an hour or so before going to bed. These devices emit blue light, which tricks your brain into thinking it’s still daytime. Normally, your brain starts secreting melatonin between 9 pm and 10 pm, and these devices emit light that may stifle that process.
Make sure you get BRIGHT sun exposure regularly. Your pineal gland produces melatonin roughly in approximation to the contrast of bright sun exposure in the day and complete darkness at night. If you are in darkness all day long, it can’t appreciate the difference and will not optimize your melatonin production.
Sleep in complete darkness, or as close to it as possible. Even the slightest bit of light in your bedroom can disrupt your biological clock and your pineal gland’s melatonin production. Even the tiniest glow from your clock radio could be interfering with your sleep, so cover your clock radio up at night or get rid of it altogether. Move all electrical devices at least three feet away from your bed. You may want to cover your windows with drapes or blackout shades, or wear an eye mask when you sleep.
Install a low-wattage yellow, orange or red light bulb if you need a source of light for navigation at night. Light in these bandwidths does not shut down melatonin production in the way that white and blue bandwidth light does. Salt lamps are handy for this purpose.
Keep the temperature in your bedroom no higher than 70 degrees F. Many people keep their homes too warm (particularly their upstairs bedrooms). Studies show that the optimal room temperature for sleep is between 60 to 68 degrees F.
Take a hot bath 90 to 120 minutes before bedtime. This increases your core body temperature, and when you get out of the bath it abruptly drops, signaling your body that you are ready to sleep.
Avoid using loud alarm clocks. Being jolted awake each morning can be very stressful. If you are regularly getting enough sleep, you might not even need an alarm.
Get some sun in the morning, if possible. Your circadian system needs bright light to reset itself. Ten to 15 minutes of morning sunlight will send a strong message to your internal clock that day has arrived, making it less likely to be confused by weaker light signals during the night. More sunlight exposure is required as you age.
Be mindful of electromagnetic fields in your bedroom. EMFs can disrupt your pineal gland and its melatonin production, and may have other negative biological effects as well. A gauss meter is required if you want to measure EMF levels in various areas of your home.

By Dr. Mercola

Statin cholesterol-lowering drugs are among the most widely prescribed drugs on the market, bringing in $20 billion a year.1 They are a top profit-maker for the pharmaceutical industry, in part due to relentless and highly successful direct-to-consumer advertising campaigns.
One in four Americans over the age of 45 now takes statins, typically for the primary prevention of heart attacks and strokes. Traditionally, primary prevention usually involves healthy lifestyle choices that support heart health, things like eating right and exercising, yet here we have millions of Americans taking pills instead.
Has anyone unbiased stopped to find out if these drugs are really the best method for heart attack prevention? After all, as researchers noted in the Open Journal of Endocrine and Metabolic Diseases (OJEMD):2

“…naive indiscriminate acceptance of novel mainstream therapies is not always advisable and prudence is required in unearthing harmful, covert side effects.”

This is precisely the task that researchers from Ireland took on by completing an objective review of Pubmed, EM-BASE and Cochrane review databases.3 Their results speak volumes…

“It is beginning to dawn on some clinicians that contemporary treatments are not only failing to impact on our most prevalent diseases, but they may be causing more damage than good. A perfect example of such an issue is the statin saga.”

The Evidence Is In: Lifestyle Trumps Statins for Primary Heart Attack Prevention

For a drug therapy that appears to offer little by way of primary prevention, the risks were alarming. For every 10,000 people taking a statin, there were:

307 extra patients with cataracts
23 additional patients with acute kidney failure
74 extra patients with liver dysfunction

The landmark review revealed “a categorical lack of clinical evidence to support the use of statin therapy in primary prevention.” They also found that statins actually increase cardiovascular risk in women, the young and people with diabetes. The review also showed that statin therapy increased:

Muscle fatigabilty by 30% with more than 11% incidence of rhabdomyolysis (a life-threatening muscle condition) at high doses
Coronary artery and aortic calcification
Erectile dysfunction, which is 10 times more common in young men taking the lowest dose of statin.
Diabetes
Cancer

The researchers noted:

“There is increased risk of diabetes mellitus, cataract formation, and erectile dysfunction in young statin users, all of which are alarming. Furthermore there is a significant increase in the risk of cancer and neurodegenerative disorders in the elderly plus an enhanced risk of a myriad of infectious diseases. All side effects are dose dependent and persist during treatment.

Primary prevention clinical results provoke the possibility of not only the lack of primary cardiovascular protection by statin therapy, but highlight the very real possibility of augmented cardiovascular risk in women, patients with diabetes mellitus and the young. Statins are associated with triple the risk of coronary artery and aortic calcification.

These findings on statins’ major adverse effects had been under-reported and the way in which they [were] withheld from the public, and even concealed, is a scientific farce.

… Cardiovascular primary prevention and regeneration programmes, through life style changes and abstaining from tobacco use have enhanced clinical efficacy and quality of life over any pharmaceutical or other conventional intervention.”

If You Take Statins, Your Vision Could Be at Risk

The featured review found an increased risk of cataracts with statin use, and this was supported by a new JAMA study,4 which further revealed that the risk of cataracts is increased among statin users, compared with non-users. As a main cause of low vision among the elderly, cataract is a clouding of your eye lens.
It has previously been hypothesized that statin antioxidant effects may slow the aging process of the lens, but the current study revealed that they, instead, raise cataract risk, again calling into question the usefulness of statins for primary prevention of heart attacks. The researchers concluded:

“The risk-benefit ratio of statin use, specifically for primary prevention, should be carefully weighed, and further studies are warranted.”

Certain Statins May Impair Your Memory and May Even Lead to Amnesia

Still more research revealed that rats taking the statin Pravachol (pravastatin) had impaired learning, with lower abilities to perform simple learning and memory tasks.5 This isn’t exactly news, as in 2012, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced it would be requiring additional warning labels for statins, one of which warned that statins may increase the risk of memory loss and confusion. The warnings, particularly the one for memory loss, came as the result of anecdotal reports compiled over the previous year…
Interestingly, the animal study found no association between another statin drug, Lipitor, and impaired memory in the rats. But Dr. Duane Graveline, a medical doctor and former astronaut, has written an entire book on this very topic, titled Lipitor: Thief of Memory.
In my interview with him, Dr. Graveline shared his powerful story about how Lipitor caused him severe global transient amnesia, which is what brought him out of retirement to investigate statins. There have been thousands of cases of transient global amnesia and other types of cognitive damage associated with statin use, reported to the FDA’s MedWatch site. It is believed that statin drugs damage your brain by creating a cholesterol deficiency.
Insufficient cholesterol results in your brain not having the raw materials it needs to make biochemicals critical for memory and cognitive function, including coenzyme Q10 and dolichols, the latter of which carry the genetic instructions from your DNA to help create specific proteins in your body that are crucial for cognitive function, emotions and mood.

High Cholesterol Levels May Be Protective

Any discussion of statins would be incomplete without a discussion of cholesterol – the ‘villain’ that these drugs mercilessly lower. Many buy into the conventional belief that lower cholesterol equals a lower risk of heart disease, but this is not always the case. And, in fact, high cholesterol levels are indeed protective in some cases, whereas low cholesterol levels are very clearly linked to chronic disease. Writing in OJEMD, researchers explained:

“Cholesterol is crucial for energy, immunity, fat metabolism, leptin, thyroid hormone activity, liver related synthesis, stress intolerance, adrenal function, sex hormone syntheses and brain function. When prescribing HMGCoA reductase inhibitors [statins] one needs to be cognizant of the fact that the body had increased its’ cholesterol as a compensatory mechanism and investigate accordingly.

We seem to have fallen into the marketing trap and ignored the niggling side effects with regard to the HMGCoA reductase inhibitors. The only statin benefit that has actually been demonstrated is in middle-aged men with coronary heart disease. However, statins were not shown to best form of primary prevention.

… In actual fact, high cholesterol levels have been found to be protective in elderly and heart failure patients and hypo-cholestereamic [low cholesterol] patients had higher incidence of intra-cerebral bleeds, depression and cancer. … We are observing the revealing of the utmost medical tragedy of all time. It is unprecedented that the healthcare industry has inadvertently induced life-threatening nutrient deficiency in millions of otherwise healthy people. What is even more disparaging is that not only has there been a failure to report on these negative side-effects of statins, there has actually been active discouragement to publish any negative studies on statins.”

This is, in large part, why so many people are completely unaware that statin drugs have been directly linked to over 300 side effects,6 which include:

Cognitive loss
Neuropathy

Anemia

Acidosis

Frequent fevers

Cataracts

Sexual dysfunction

An increase in cancer risk

Pancreatic dysfunction

Immune system suppression

Muscle problems, polyneuropathy (nerve damage in the hands and feet), and rhabdomyolysis, a serious degenerative muscle tissue condition

Hepatic dysfunction. (Due to the potential increase in liver enzymes, patients must be monitored for normal liver function)

Ask Yourself – and Your informed Physician — if You Really Need to Be Taking Statins

I’ve long stated that the odds are very high — greater than 100 to 1 — that if you’re taking a statin, you may not even need it, as cholesterol is NOT the cause of heart disease. To further reinforce the importance of cholesterol, I want to remind you of the work of Dr. Stephanie Seneff, who works with the Weston A. Price Foundation.

One of her theories is that cholesterol combines with sulfur to form cholesterol sulfate, and that this cholesterol sulfate helps thin your blood by serving as a reservoir for the electron donations you receive when walking barefoot on the Earth (also called grounding). She believes that, via this blood-thinning mechanism, cholesterol sulfate may provide natural protection against heart disease.

In fact, she goes so far as to hypothesize that heart disease is likely the result of cholesterol deficiency — which of course is the complete opposite of the conventional view. So if your physician is urging you to check your total cholesterol, know that this test will tell you virtually nothing about your risk of heart disease, unless it is 330 or higher. HDL percentage is a far more potent indicator for heart disease risk. Here are the two ratios you should pay attention to:

HDL/Total Cholesterol Ratio: Should ideally be above 24 percent. If below 10 percent, you have a significantly elevated risk for heart disease.
Triglyceride/HDL Ratio: Should be below 2.

Additional risk factors for heart disease include:

Your fasting insulin level: Any meal or snack high in carbohydrates like fructose and refined grains generates a rapid rise in blood glucose and then insulin to compensate for the rise in blood sugar. The insulin released from eating too many carbs promotes fat production and makes it more difficult for your body to shed excess weight, and excess fat, particularly around your belly, is one of the major contributors to heart disease
Your fasting blood sugar level: Studies have shown that people with a fasting blood sugar level of 100-125 mg/dl had a nearly 300 percent increase higher risk of having coronary heart disease than people with a level below 79 mg/dl
Your iron level: Iron can be a very potent oxidative stress, so if you have excess iron levels you can damage your blood vessels and increase your risk of heart disease. Ideally, you should monitor your ferritin levels and make sure they are not much above 80 ng/ml. The simplest way to lower them if they are elevated is to donate your blood. If that is not possible you can have a therapeutic phlebotomy and that will effectively eliminate the excess iron from your body

Try This Instead for Primary Heart Attack Prevention

Make no mistake about it, statin drugs are some of the most side effect-ridden medications on the market, and they frequently do more harm than good. Of utmost importance, statins deplete your body of CoQ10, which accounts for many of its devastating results. Therefore, if you take a statin, you MUST take supplemental CoQ10, or better, the reduced form called ubiquinol. If you are interested in optimizing your cholesterol levels (which doesn’t necessarily mean lowering them) and lowering your risk of heart disease and heart attacks, there are natural strategies available for doing so.

Reduce, with the plan of eliminating, grains and sugars in your diet, replacing them with mostly whole, fresh vegetable carbs and healthy fats. Also try to consume a good portion of your food raw.
Make sure you are getting enough high-quality, animal-based omega-3 fats, such as krill oil.
Other heart-healthy foods include olive oil, coconut and coconut oil, organic raw dairy products and eggs, avocados, raw nuts and seeds, and organic grass-fed meats.
Optimize your vitamin D levels.
Exercise daily, especially with high-intensity interval training (HIIT) exercises.
Avoid smoking or drinking alcohol excessively.
Be sure to get plenty of good, restorative sleep.