Melatonin, the body’s own hormone that regulates sleeping and waking, has been identified as a potential treatment for the COVID virus in a study by the Cleveland Clinic.
The study used artificial intelligence to comb through the catalog of existing biochemical substances to see which might be used to neutralize SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes the COVID illness.
The AI software returned 34 candidates from among drugs that treat autoimmune, pulmonary, and neurological conditions but ranked melatonin at the top of the list.
The clinicians then sifted records of 27,000 of their COVID patients to see if there was a correlation with melatonin, which many people take regularly as a sleep aid.
The data showed that people who take melatonin were 30 percent less likely to come down with COVID; among African-Americans, a group the virus has hit especially hard, the chance of contracting the illness was 52 percent less.
Melatonin may not actually battle the virus directly, the researchers theorize. Instead, it may quell the “cytokine storm” associated with the disease – the body’s overproduction of defensive biochemicals that then wreak havoc on the body as it tries to fight off the infection. By moderating the body’s reaction to the virus, melatonin may let the immune system work normally to deal with the invader in the usual effective way.
TRENDPOST: Vaccines and drug treatments are key to controlling the virus. But the body’s own chemical arsenal is the best first responder in dealing with and preventing, infection.
