Melatonin and Heart Failure

Cancer / By

My wife and I flew out to Washington, D.C., on Tuesday last week. After we landed, I received numerous messages from my team about a news post on melatonin and heart failure. I have been using melatonin for cancer for years, so I quickly dove into the media blitz.

Dr Nathan Goodyear Melatonin and Heart Failure

First, it is vital to lay the groundwork for melatonin in cancer. There is no place I would rather be in the treatment of cancer patients than in the natural, holistic, and integrative space. We sometimes have to use conventional surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, and systemic immunotherapy, but the less we use them, the better.

Most equate melatonin with sleep; of course, because it is the hormone that helps to regulate the sleep/wake cycle in combination with cortisol. When it comes to cancer, the anti-cancer properties of melatonin are nothing to sleep on. The broad anti-cancer effects include:

• Carcinogenesis inhibition
• Oncostatic
• Inhibits angiogenesis
• Inhibits oncogenic metabolism
• Decreases invasion
• Modulates reduction/oxidation (redox) potential
• Inhibits cell migration
• Immunomodulatory
• Anti-proliferative (anti-growth)
• Pro-apoptotic (programmed-cell death)
• Inhibits estrogen signaling
• Inhibits metastatic signaling and potential
• Reduces cancer stem cell (CSC) activity

Back to the publication in question. The information proposed was that melatonin increased the new incidence of heart failure and increased all-cause mortality. Both are important for physicians prescribing melatonin and for patients using it. A therapy to aid sleep and help target cancer as an adjuvant that increases the risk of heart failure cannot be tolerated. In cancer treatment, we must move beyond collateral damage in the war on cancer. To be clear, we must move beyond the war on cancer because there is no such thing as collateral damage—there is only damage. Collateral, in a way, is a means to justify the damage as peripheral and not really important.

“There is no such thing as collateral damage in war—just damage.”
— Maureen Burdock, Author

When it comes to the science and art of medicine, nothing is more important than the health and wellness of the patient, and an increase in mortality would be a dagger in the heart of many patients’ health and cannot be tolerated.

Many questions remain unanswered because there is no scientific basis for review or debate. What was the degree of insomnia in those patients who saw an increase in heart failure? What were the comorbidities of the patients included in the study? Yes, the abstract claims they evaluated these comorbidities, but I can’t take their word for it. What were the demographics of the patients included? Were these all prescription-based, or were patients using melatonin OTC included? What was the dosing of the melatonin?

There is a problem with this proposed data. It was not a study at all. It was merely an abstract of the yet-to-be-published study. There was no “full” study publication to dissect, study, or debate in the public arena. Science is, after all, the open debate and discourse of ideas. Here, there was no data to debate—just the abstract.

melatonin and heart failure dr goodyear

Turns out, all the commotion, the social media ventilation, the hula bolu, was just a PR piece. Moreover, it is a means to control the narrative on another natural therapy. No science, just abstract, just a PR piece, more: a hit piece on melatonin.

What is the takeaway of this news cycle sensation? Absolutely nothing. There is no science to discuss. It is merely an attempt to draft the narrative on the subject. Of course, the study will drop, and we will dive into that data when it does, but the actual science is irrelevant at this point because the narrative—not the research—has been set. It is marketing. It is a narrative. It is propagating a narrative. It is propaganda. If it were science, the complete dataset from the study would be published with the PR for review and debate. The short attention span and news cycle do not allow the public to wait for the actual science. The PR set the narrative, the scientific publication is irrelevant, and the move is on to the ensuing narrative.

What is the relevance to cancer? At this point—ZERO! No causation can be extrapolated. At best, there is only an association. Again, waiting on the actual study. All we have is an abstract, and an abstract does not equate to science, just as an anecdote does not equate to science.

To sum up, it’s all just clickbait, an attempt to manipulate the narrative, and a smear campaign against yet another natural, holistic, and integrative medicine practice. Keep an eye on the situation as we eagerly await the publication of the genuine scientific report. Before the actual science is published, this PR piece virtually acts as the science to settle any debate. During the pandemic years, we witnessed this scientific nightmare in the form of the typically unscientific “the science is settled” assertion.

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References:

  1. Karadas AK, Dilmac S, Aytac G, Tanriover G. Melatonin decreases metastasis, primary tumor growth and angiogenesis in a mice model of breast cancer. Hum Exp Toxicol. 2021 Sep;40(9):1545-1557. doi: 10.1177/09603271211002883.
  2. Mehrzadi S, Pourhanifeh MH, Mirzaei A, et al. An updated review of mechanistic potentials of melatonin against cancer: pivotal roles in angiogenesis, apoptosis, autophagy, endoplasmic reticulum stress and oxidative stress. Cancer Cell Int. 2021;21:188. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12935-021-01892-1
  3. Nair S, Suresh S, Kaniyassery A, et al. A review on melatonin action as therapeutic agent in cancer. Front. Biol. 2018;13:180–189. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11515-018-1503-5
  4. Das NK, Samanta S. The potential anti-cancer effects of melatonin on breast cancer. Explor Med. 2022;3:112–27. https://doi.org/10.37349/emed.2022.00078
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  7. Talib WH, Alsayed AR, Abuawad A, Daoud S, Mahmod AI. Melatonin in Cancer Treatment: Current Knowledge and Future Opportunities. Molecules. 2021 Apr 25;26(9):2506. doi: 10.3390/molecules26092506.