Can melatonin slow down aging? This precious molecule mitigates the typical degenerative diseases of aging that speed up the process, such as high blood pressure, the degeneration of vessels and arteries (arteriosclerosis), autoimmune diseases and prevents (but does not cure) cancer.
All this is possible thanks to its protective action of the pineal gland. The pineal gland is an essential part of the neuroendocrine system, as it regulates the cyclical production of all hormones. Aging is a clear genetically programmed process in the brain, but occurs via hormonal regulations, and it is in that melatonin carries out it precious messenger function.
Melatonin is produced at night in the pineal gland in two important enzymatic stages, «acetylation» and «methylation», starting with the famous serotonin. Thus, by taking melatonin in the evening, the pineal gland is allowed to rest and therefore does not work to produce melatonin.

 

The acetylic and methylic groups are essential in biological oxidative and growthprocesses: without methylation, an embryo’s or child’s brain may not develop.
So what does the pineal gland do while it rests? It keeps itself young and produces other essential molecules that we, like sniffer dogs, pursue relentlessly as these molecules do not only keep the pineal gland and the body young, but – within possible limits and if it is not too late- will even be able to reverse the aging process that is closely connected with the desynchronization of circadian hormonal cycles (day/night).  The correlation between melatonin and aging is indirect, but it has an essential role in stopping it.

 

Melatonin delays aging, and consequently prolongs life by simply preventing, delaying, and also totally blocking the progressive deterioration (loss of sensitivity and therefore bidirectional response) of central hypothalamus-epiphysis hormonal regulation control, as described in extremely precise detail by the great Russian scientist Vladimir M. Dilman.
However, it has been said that melatonin does not produce these effects directly, with a chemical, biochemical or even hormonal mechanism, and yet this effect has been seen during experiments. Why? The response that we have found is that this molecule keeps the pineal gland young, in rather a brilliant way, outside of biochemical rules.
Night-time administration of melatonin simply prevents the pineal gland itself from producing it, from working and deteriorating. This also explains why there is no problem of overdosage as, one certain physiological levels have been reached, the pineal gland is blocked and the rest is eliminated through the kidneys.

 

This explains why: “Better to have too much melatonin than too little”. Regulating this night-time non-working routine for the pineal gland not only protects our biological clock or “central hormonal manager”, but even recovers its capacity to regulate and modulate hormonal rhythmic cycles (night/day), to the point that the pineal gland regains its youthful functions. It is in this sense, therefore that melatonin can slow down aging.
This has been proven significantly in the experiments carried out by Professor Pierpaoli and his team of researchers, in which a young pineal gland transplanted into a much older recipient produced a life extension (or delay in aging) that are dramatic to say the least.
As the transplanted pineal gland is incapable of producing melatonin itself, due to the fact that it has been dissociated from its normal nervous connections, it is therefore clear that the “central life clock” is located in the pineal gland itself, but its mechanism does not depend directly on melatonin.

 

The aging pineal gland loses its capacity to produce the night-time melatonin peak, and this is a clear sign of the fact that it is aging. Therefore, our studies have shown that administered melatonin, shielding the pineal gland by means of its protective effect on the gland itself (that does not produce melatonin and rests), simply maintains the gland’s capacity to control the cyclical (day/night) release of all hormones, and does so while maintaining and preventing the aging of the pineal gland itself.

 

Therefore, the pineal gland is not only our “central clock”, but actively induces our aging during its own life, with its life, aging and death programs, as proven. It is clear that the mechanisms that have genetically developed in the pineal gland regulate the course of our biological life, and also generate the signs of death at the end of our human life program This has been proven in the experiments reported in a paper some years ago. Therefore, the essential mechanisms of our aging must be searched for in the pineal gland and in its links with the entire neuro-hormonal reticulum in the brain. We age because our “pineal reticulum” is “programmed” to deteriorate. This is the reason why exogenous night-time melatonin helps to maintain the integrity of our “pineal gland clock” and prevent the typical course of aging inside the pineal gland. Only pure, natural melatonin (even if produced by chemical synthesis) can protect the pineal gland from programmed aging.