Melatonin – Today, this is one of the most effective drugs for prolonging life. Experiments with animals make it possible to argue that with their help not only can life be extended from 10 to 20 years, but the risk of serious diseases is drastically reduced and the quality of life is significantly improved.
In the brain, a person has a gland, an epiphysis the size of a pea. Melatonin is produced exactly in the epiphysis. In fact, the main function of the hormone melatonin is its ability to control jet lag rights. Output Melatonin is dependent on light: excess light decreases hormone formation and reduction of light increases the synthesis and secretion of melatonin. At night 70% of melatonin production. The synthesis of melatonin activity begins to increase from 8 pm, and the maximum maximum concentration represents 3 am, after that the amount begins to decrease.
It is through melatonin that a person can fall asleep and sleep soundly. However, from about 1960 onwards, scientists began to discover that melatonin still has a range of surprising properties. He first just discovered that animals receding the epiphysis by aging significantly faster than normal animals, and the introduction into the body of conventional animal extracts obtained from the pineal gland, resulting in a significant prolongation of life. Gradually, it was found that melatonin, in addition, significantly prolonging life, has the following important and useful properties.
In recent years, new data on the mechanisms provided by the complex interactions of the nervous, immune and endocrine systems. It is assumed that the integrator of this interaction is the pineal gland and its main hormone: melatonin participates in the regulation of the central and autonomic nervous systems, the endocrine organs and the immune system.
Studies have shown that melatonin has a wide range of physiological functions.
The main physiological function of melatonin:
• Biorhythmological function;
• Thermoregulation and induction of sleep;
• Antioxidant effect;
• Immunomodulatory effect;
• Anti-stress action;
• Regulation of sexual development.
Melatonin mediates all of the most important functions of the pineal gland related to the control of the peripheral endocrine glands and the central nervous system. In normal functional activity the pineal gland is in antiphase with the activity of the pituitary gland. So, if the pituitary gland by tropical hormones activate endocrine function, then the pineal body, on the contrary, slows down. This alternation of these two neuroendocrine brain structures provides a rhythmic circadian functioning not only of the endocrine glands, but of the body as a whole. There are some observations about the interaction between the pineal gland and the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. Cortisol hypersecretion and reduced response to dexamethasone suppression are shown to be combined with decreased melatonin secretion. It directly affects cells and modulates the secretion of other hormones and bioactive substances whose concentration varies according to the time of day, melatonin performs a biorhythmological function. Proven that melatonin inhibits the release of adrenocorticotropic hormone, thus reducing the concentration of cortisol, reduces the production of norepinephrine. Thyroid parenchyma inhibition of melatonin is observed at all stages of its functional activity. Changes in the production of melatonin from photojournalism play a fundamental role in the seasonal reconstructions of the organism.
