Memory Loss That Happens When Your Body "Forgets" To Sleep

Melatonin is a hormone that until recently wasn't well known or understood. Now, researchers believe that melatonin is critical for setting our sleep cycles (telling us when to go to sleep and when to wake up). A number of factors, such as light cycles and other hormones, can affect melatonin secretion in the body.

Any disruption of normal melatonin cycles can cause sleep disturbances and a resulting fatigue that may affect memory or mental acuity. Melatonin also appears to prevent certain types of severe chronic memory loss as well.

An important clinical study found that patients with memory loss had extremely low melatonin levels — and that the lower the levels, the worse their conditions. In fact, one scientist has proposed that melatonin can actually guard against disease, by preventing the loss of memory function that occurs when brain cells are damaged by free radicals. Besides being a sleep hormone, melatonin is one of the body's most powerful antioxidants.

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References:

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2. Dollins AB, Zhdanova IV, Wurtman RJ, Lynch HJ, Deng MH. Effect of inducing nocturnal serum melatonin concentrations in daytime on sleep, mood, body temperature, and performance. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 1994;91:1824-1828.
3. Jan EJ, O'Donnell ME. Use of melatonin in the treatment of paediatric sleep disorders. J Pineal Res 1996;21(4):193-9.
4. Magri F, Locatelli M, Balza G, Molla G, Cuzzoni G, Fioravanti M, et. al. Changes in endocrine circadian rhythms as markers of physiological and pathological brain aging. Chronobiol Int 1997;14(4):385-396.
5. Maurizi CP. The mystery of Alzheimer's disease and its prevention by melatonin. Med Hypotheses 1995;45(4):339-340.
6. Maurizi CP. Loss of intraventricular fluid melatonin can explain the neuropathology of Alzheimer's disease. Med Hypotheses 1997;49(2):153-158.

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