I‘m taking melatonin since a couple of months, 20mg in the evening before bedtime. Not so much because of better sleep but more because I found a few studies indicating that melatonin can slow down met growth. Any experiences?
Melatonin : I‘m taking melatonin since... - Advanced Prostate...
Melatonin
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Nusch
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I have been taking melatonin for years for the sleep. I have read a few studies about it helping to slow metastasis and lower PSA. For me, anything that is beneficial anyway is useful to me.
Many thx - I started only half a year ago. What’s your daily intake?
I take 3 1/2 mg at bed time. I have found that not all brand are helpful. Some have even made me jittery.
Hi Nusch,
Did you miss the recent threads on melatonin? They will answer your questions & more. The group might be suffering from melatonin exhaustion right now. Here's some melatonin threads:
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-Patrick
I have been experimenting with melatonin. I started with 60 meg capsules and they gave me the runs. Last night I took my first dose of 20 mg. caps and I had the most wonderful dreams -in full color.
I‘m on 20mg, too. During RT I added another 20mg 1 hour before radiation. But after 20 days I stopped because I got really groggy 2 hours after radiation. So 40mg / day seems too much for me. At least when taking half of it during day time.
I started 20 mg nighttime one year ago, increased it to 40 mg, and doing fine. A lot of studies show that it will help improve the immune system.
In spite of the nonsense you may have picked up on this site, none of the studies of melatonin show a causal relationship. Some people don't understand the difference between association and causation. I suspect that better sleep allows the body to fight cancer better. If melatonin helps you sleep better, why not?
Good day, Allen! I have great respect for your opinion in this group and highly appreciate your contribution to the promotion of advanced information for patients like me diagnosed with prostate cancer! But now I would ask you to justify your position on melatonin.. The fact is that a month ago I myself began taking this drug at 3 mg. at night, having studied a retrospective study of Russian doctors who included 955 patients with various stages of prostate cancer (prostate cancer) who received combined hormonal radiation therapy from 2000 to 2019. Complex statistical methods were used to analyze the overall survival of patients with prostate cancer treated with melatonin in different prognosis groups. Results: The overall survival of patients with prostate cancer with favorable and intermediate prognosis, who received or did not receive melatonin, did not differ statistically significantly. In the group with a poor prognosis, the median overall survival in patients taking the drug was 153.5 months versus 64.0 months in patients not using it (p 5-year overall survival in the main and control groups was 66.8 ± 1.9 and 53.7 ± 2.6 (p < 0.0001), respectively. In a multivariate analysis, the administration of melatonin turned out to be an independent prognostic factor and reduced the risk of death of patients with prostate cancer by more than two times! Here is a link to this study: oncotarget.com/article/2775...
How can you comment on this? Thanks!
Retrospective analysis shows association, not causation. Men taking melatonin were taking it because they couldn't sleep. Does sleep improve survival? There is some evidence for an association of sleep with survival in studies of night-shift workers. Or, men taking melatonin may have been more likely to practice good health lifestyles or see their doctors more often. Who knows what the real causes of their increased survival may have been? This is an error called "unmeasured confounders."
I'm sorry, Allen, but I think you haven't even read and delved into the essence of Russian studies that were conducted for 19 years on a sample of patients diagnosed with prostate cancer in the number of 955 people..((Do you think they were given melatonin just because they had trouble sleeping..?? Sorry, but I didn't understand you or you didn't want to hear me... I ask you to read step by step the conclusions of the studies I have provided and, if you wish, comment on the conclusions of Russian doctors.. We can't just "bury" the 955 patients who took part in these 19-year trials!
It was NOT a 19-year clinical trial. It was a RETROSPECTIVE study where the average follow-up of patient records reviewed was about 10 years. I have tried to explain to you the difference between a retrospective study and a prospective trial, between association and causation, and what unmeasured confounders are. You seem unwilling or unable to learn. I suggest you study these principals before commenting further. Your ignorance probably won't harm you if you only take some melatonin, but it could harm you in other cases.
BTW- Many years ago, a similar retrospective study of Vitamin E use found that Vitamin E "benefited" prostate cancer patients. The SELECT randomized clinical trial later found the opposite was true: high Vitamin E intake caused higher rates of prostate cancer. What they had not understood previously was that precancerous cells were killed off by "reactive oxygen species (ROS)" and that the immune system kills cancer cells using ROS. Vitamin E, a powerful antioxidant, interferes with ROS formation.
Well, excuse me for my "ignorance" from your point of view in matters of clinical research in which I am directly involved! Contrary to your opinion, I want to study and I am STUDYING! I suggest that each of us stay with our points of view on these issues for the reason that you, with all your advancement in these scientific terms, could not convince me, just a patient, that melatonin, as well as metaformin, does not affect the processes occurring in prostate cancer! Sorry for taking your time!
I understand perfectly well that you have seized on the phrase "Retrospective analysis" like a pair of pincers, just as I understand the effect of the placebo effect on the results of the overall results.. But we cannot ignore the fact that, all things being equal, patients taking 3 mg of melatonin have lived twice as long for 19 years! The cause of death was considered to be any factor in both groups! Moreover, an unambiguous conclusion was made that melatonin helps only those patients who are at the thermal stage of prostate cancer.. I am sure that the results of the research of Russian doctors in this experiment, at least, leave a lot of questions for the continuation of these studies, before saying that the topic with melatonin is absurd! Excuse me!
But you are mistaken in ascribing their longevity to melatonin. It's like concluding that women live longer than men because they have vaginas. Please study more before responding.
Okay, Allen, this topic is closed for me in a dialogue with you! Amen!
Sorry, Rusland- But, TA is right on the mark with all the comments he made to you regarding the study. Melatonin MIGHT help, but the PROOF that it helps is lacking. Believe as you wish but the points TA made are 100% valid.
Да вообще наша дискуссия с ТА была уже больше о самих определениях, чем о сути ..)) Я думаю, что моя ссылка на метаанализ рандомизированных исследований с мелатонином, проведенных в мире, поставила точку в нашем с ним диалоге о ретроспективных и проспективных исследованиях. Изучите эти объединенные данные о влиянии мелатонина на общую выживаемость при различных типах рака: ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl...
Respectfully, not everyone has the knowledge that you have and I can appreciate that it can be frustrating for you. There's no need to 'educate' people in a manner that highlights them to be ignorant or not trying enough. I'm quite sure that they are trying their best on everything that they can.
True, a retrospective analysis can have severe limitations.
But what about the following review, based on RCT:s indicating considerable efficacy of melatonin, when added to chemotherapy or other therapy, on disease response and survival rates for cancer patients? MLT = melatonin.
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl...
Therapeutic strategies of melatonin in cancer patients: a systematic review and meta-analysis
Further in our meta-analysis, we collected 20 RCTs about the efficacy of MLT in tumor therapy and summarized the data. We found that the study spanned from 1992 to 2014 and concentrated from 1994 to 2002. It was involved multiple tumors (13 lung cancer studies, 11 digestive system tumor studies, seven breast cancer studies, two prostate cancer studies, two kidney cancer studies, one head and neck cancer study, one glioma study, and two melanoma studies).
The interventions were MLT combined with chemotherapy or other treatments as experimental group and chemotherapy or other treatments as control group. Among them, the dosage and the way of taking MLT are mostly 20 mg/day and taken orally and taken at night, respectively. The MLT dosage was 10 mg/day in the study of Lissoni et al.34 The indicators for the study were the disease response rate (CR + PR), survival rate, and the incidence of side effects of chemotherapy and radiotherapy.
Through the combination of the results of the study, it was demonstrated that MLT significantly decreased the tumor remission rate compared to the control group (RR =2.25; 95% CI, 1.86–2.71; P<0.00001). In the survival rate study, 15 studies results were found to be heterogeneous (P=0.006, I2=55%). Therefore, randomized models were applied to pool the results and the combined MLT survival rate was 28.24% (n=294/1,041). Compared with the control group, the survival rate of cancer patients in the MLT group was greatly improved (RR =2.07; 95% CI, 1.55–2.76; P<0.00001).
Then, we analyzed the source of heterogeneity. Sensitive analysis results did not find that a single study had an impact on the heterogeneity of the pooled study results. Stratified analysis was discussed by different tumor types, which effectively reduced the heterogeneity of the pooled study results. There were four RCTs in subjects with non-small-cell lung cancer, and no heterogeneity existed among the results (P=0.55, I2=0%).
The survival rate of MLT group was 27.98% (n=61/218), significantly higher than that of 14.46% (n=24/166) in the control group. And, the pooled RR was 2.13 (95% CI, 1.41–3.24; P=0.0004). There are five clinical studies about a variety of solid tumors, and no heterogeneity was found in these results (P=0.58, I2=0%).
The survival rate in the MLT group is 21.79% (n=144/661), significantly higher than survival rate of 9.39% (n=62/660) in the control group. The combined RR was 2.31 (95% CI, 1.78–2.99; P<0.00001). When the study results were grouped by tumor type, there was no heterogeneity among the results in each subgroup, indicating that the survival rates of patients with different types of tumors were different. Therefore, in the clinical study of MLT-assisted tumor therapy, it is necessary to strictly classify the tumor types and not to sum it up. In the study of reducing side effects of chemotherapy, it was confirmed that MLT can effectively reduce the incidence rate of neurotoxicity (RR =0.30, 95% CI, 0.19–0.45; P<0.00001), thrombocytopenia (RR =0.23; 95% CI, 0.1
Based on the above meta-analysis results, it was concluded that MLT, as an adjuvant for the treatment of tumors, can effectively improve the remission rate and overall survival rate of tumor patients, while reducing the incidence rate of neurotoxicity, thrombocytopenia, and asthenia during chemotherapy. However, most of the included studies were concentrated in 1994–2002 and the latest research date was 2014. In recent years, most of the subjects involved with anticancer effect of MLT were preclinical studies rather than clinical studies. And, 16 of the 20 clinical studies were completed at the same research center, which suggested certain publication bias evident. It was highly recommend that large-scale RCTs about therapeutic effects of MLT in tumors were conducted in multiple clinical research centers for further study.
Thanks for that! I looked at it - there was only one RCT that included patients with prostate cancer (I don't know how many):
link.springer.com/article/1...
It showed that patients who used melatonin with chemo had fewer side effects. Is that because they slept better? I'd love to see a trial comparing melatonin to a sleep aid. Or even a trial that showed the number of hours of sleep of chemo patients taking melatonin vs those who don't. It is incomprehensible to me that the primary use of melatonin, which is a sleep aid, isn't investigated in any of the studies. But why not take melatonin? At those doses and for limited time periods along with chemo -it does not seem to do harm, and may do some good.
The author notes that all trials came from one author - Paolo Lissoni. He is from San Gerardo Hospital, Monza, Italy. Looking him up, he also seems to advocate anti-prolactin therapy (often using tamoxifen).
Right, fewer side effects, but for me it is the significant anti-cancer efficacy indicated by the RCT:s, combined with a benign side-effect profile, that makes it a no-brainer to use melatonin, with 20 mg/day the dose used in most of the trials.
A bonus are other possible benefits, strongest of which in my view are the indications of immuno-strengthening.
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl...
Others on this site are using much higher doses, up to 180 mg/day, and I man experiment with this when intermittently taking a medication that temporarily sharply lowers my lymphocyte count,
I don't see any evidence for efficacy against prostate cancer in any reference you provided. But, if you believe it will work for you, perhaps it will. Be sure to let your doctor know if you take such high doses - he may want to check your liver enzymes.
I understand the difference but didn’t come to your conclusions when reading the studies.
That's because you don't understand how a retrospective study is different from a prospective trial.
You assume that in the group of 955 patients in the part that took melatonin, patients lived twice as long as in the group that did not take melatonin only by luck, just because it did not fit into your definitions of a RETROSPECTIVE study.. What should they do? Just write off your luck as a matter of chance and ignore these 19 years of experiments on them? After all, what difference does it make for people who took melatonin and lived twice as long as those people who did not take melatonin? Let it be proved by doctors and all sorts of chemists why patients lived longer! And we mere mortals will assume that God helped us! And we will pray to Him, and let the doctors adjust to our prayers! Amen!
I understand how your fear is protecting what you want to believe is true. Science has been based on evidence instead of passion since the Scientific Revolution. I hope you will look up those things I have mentioned.
I don't have a bit of fear of death! I've died many times already.. I am a military pilot who has gone through more than one war and buried more than one of his comrades! We'll all leave when our time comes! I just want to figure it out and that's the reason I'm here! I also post my own experience on many resources and help people with the same diagnosis, including financially.. So I have no fear! I am a happy person who managed to build a house, plant a tree, raise my children and teach more than 33 students! I sincerely wish everyone to realize this, that you should not be afraid of your own death! Sooner or later, everyone will strike their hour and no one knows when! Amen!
RusLand, TA is not saying that melatonin is not helpful to Prostate Cancer. He’s just saying that retrospective study doesn’t necessarily prove that it is helpful. It may make it more likely if the retrospective study is done as well as a retrospective study can do. Surely you can understand the concept that while it’s possible the melatonin was the reason for the increased survival, it’s also possible that there were other reasons. Take Diet Coke. Someone could take a look at a thousand people that drink Diet Coke and a thousand that drink regular coke. Then see that the thousand that drink Diet Coke are more often over weight. They then conclude that Diet Coke makes you fat. But does it? Or do fat people tend to drink more diet drinks. The only way to know for sure is a double blind clinical trial that gives one group melatonin and the other a placebo. Now I’ve seen those studies you point to and I’ve chosen to use melatonin. I think there’s a decent chance the melatonin was the reason for the increased survival and the downside of using melatonin is small. I use it tho with my eyes wide open knowing full well that the melatonin may do nothing or perhaps even have a negative impact. That’s all TA is saying.
Schwah
Yes, in general, our discussion with TA was already more about the definitions themselves than about the essence ..)) I think that my reference to the meta-analysis of randomized trials with melatonin conducted in the world put an end to our dialogue with him about retrospective and prospective studies. Study these combined data on the effect of melatonin on overall survival in various types of cancer: ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl...
Well unless you lock up generically identical people in a laboratory all their lives, control all their environment and diets and once that is controlled adjust their melatonin, you won’t be be to produce any scientifically proven causation. ALL studies people are reading, melatonin or not, fall under this category. If anyone can find any, please highlight them. I doubt there are any because it would be unethical to do the tests. Personally, I believe that most people fall into this category where they put far too much weight behind these studies.
I’m not suggesting they should be ignored, but I wouldn’t regard them as something I would use as a primary reason to base a treatment on.
Hm, reading studies with care is crucial, agreed. But what you say is true for all studies (as you mentioned, too). But we need some orientation, so I build my own mix. Also because I don’t believe that there is ONE therapy which heals. If healing occurs, it’s the potpourri of different medications plus coincide/luck. So let’s hope that we find the right mix.
Yup, all you said there is good as far as I’m concerned 
I’m totally for finding what’s right individually. I like to look at these things as holistically as possible. I find that people will read a study on melatonin, for example, and target that specific thing aggressively. I bet you get people reading a report on melatonin actually going out and supplementing 100mg straight away. Nothing wrong with melatonin btw, I take it. I think you’ve got to stand back and take a look at the bigger picture though.
You can have any beliefs you want, and if you just do it for yourself, that is your prerogative. My concern is with people who use Dr Google to reinforce unfounded beliefs that they try to sell to others. This is called "pseudoscience," and unfortunately, it is very popular these days (e.g., bleach, ivermectin). See:
We have a wonderful tool called a "randomized clinical trial" for accomplishing this. Because of randomization, both the treatment group and the control group are identical. You tell only the treatment group to take melatonin pills, and you ask the control group to refrain. After a number of years, you see if their prostate cancer survival is different. This has been done with many supplements.
Sorry, but I disagree. They are not identical - randomized or not. Not even close. To me, this is pseudo science.
First, the people in the trial have different genomes, different gene expressions and have different environments, have different life stresses, some have children and everything else you can think of. Their diets will be different and are not controlled in any way. In fact is really difficult to find criteria where the are identical.
Next there's no control on the actual taking of the melatonin. People who have missed their doses will not necessarily state the truth.
There is no way that you say that any changes in prostate cancer are as a result of taking the melatonin. It's just not possible, there are an infinite number of variables here. You may infer some form of incidence, that's fine. But that's all you'll get from this.
I'm not debating whether you should do the trial or not. It may be a reasonable thing to try. I also don't debate many supplements have done this type of trial before. But it will in no way prove that melatonin was responsible for the changes in PCa.
I'm not being critical for this particular trial, this is the same for all the trials - although some are better than others.
Sure, do your trial, read the results and come to your own conclusions, but to me it will not prove anything. All it will show is the incidence of taking melatonin on PCa in an environment with thousands of changing variables.
This is why I say that these tests are extremely limited and you need to exercise caution into what you read in them. Most people will not be capable of reading the report correctly and will rely on the abstract.
No offense intended, just my opinion.
Everyone is entitled to their opinions, but there is only one set of facts. Science is concerned with establishing facts.
You fail to understand what randomization accomplishes. Any ONE person can have a different genome (call it Genome A), life stressors (call it Life Stressor B), diets (Call it C),etc. vs any other person. But when, say 200 people are randomized to a treatment or a control, A is equally found in treatment or control, B is equally found in treatment or control, etc. This is because all the factors you mentioned are "normally" distributed across the population. Any attribute lands about equally in the treatment or control. Therefore, any attribute other than the treatment itself is irrelevant in deciding whether the treatment had any effect.
The way the researchers insure compliance is by phone calls and by blood tests (as in the MEAL RCT.
nature.com/articles/bjc2013725
Makes me wonder how many of the reports available are actually using this method.
Glad you're learning!
I'm actually pointing out some limitations of this wrt cancer. But still, it would be interesting to know the actual amount that use it. That I don't know. I bet its low because this is a significant cost.
I'm aware of the limitations of RCTs. They have to be well done. That's what GRADE is:
cebm.ox.ac.uk/resources/lev...
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl...
Still, it has always been and will always be the Gold Standard. Retrospective studies can only generate hypotheses.
Every competent doctor relies on it, as do their professional organizations, so does the FDA in the approval of all new therapies.
Yes, I am aware it is the 'gold standard'. But it's not good enough is my point. Like I said previously its not that they shouldn't do this type of thing. It's limited though.
And, yes they use it because its the best they can do.
We await your improvement with bated breath.
For my health results personally? An N=1 has no statistical power, whatever the result. Wouldn’t determine if I’ve found some potential treatment or just god lucky. Still, it would be quite relevant to me. 😎
Hi TA I'm interested in the supplements your referring to I would appreciate if you could provide the list. and any links to the studies. I think that would be very helpful to all of us on this site. I talk with my MO regarding supplements I hear about to get his opinion. There are a lot of supplements people say will help but I usually want to see more than one study and also look closely at who did the study/ studies. I have had a lot of assistance from my MO at UCSF and the " Cancer Symptom Clinic there and the Osher Center at UCSF. Always appreciate you sharing comments and links to the different studies and treatments. I know we're all looking for the Golden Ticket Cure to bring an end to this adventure we're all on or at least lessen the extreme ups and downs that we and our families are going through. Thanks for helping shine a light on the road we are all on and the different forks in the road the we have to choose from.
Seriously, you’re going to read a study, and I say this respectfully with no malice, not really understand the data enough to understand the reasons why the data is misleading. You’ll read another study the next day and you’ll get the opposite result. Don’t eat dairy one day, whatever you do make sure you eat dairy the next. The list is endless. People will tell you that ‘they know how to pick out the right ones’. Guess what someone else will tell you the same bit with an opposite view.
Most people end up reading the abstract.
You’re going to end up in a big circle and probably try the supplements that you read and thought were good.
No supplement will have such an effect to change your cancer journey to what you want. If there was such a supplement, it would be proven. There is no panacea.
If I were you I’d use my time at looking holistic treatments than an individual approach.
You are asking which supplements have been the subject of randomized clinical trials? There are many - Vitamin E, Vitamin D, omega 3s, EGCG, pomegranate juice, sulforaphane come to mind. Some are still in trial.
I’m not interested in any online disagreement series of threads with anyone. By saying I don’t understand randomization is prejudiced. You don’t know what I know, how could you?
I stand by all that I have stated previously. Pseudo science for the reasons I have stated. Regardless how you want to define it. If you disagree fine, no problems with me.
Well, if you understood randomization, you wouldn't have made the incorrect statements that you made. It is not a matter of opinion that randomization corrects for variances across the population - that is precisely what randomization does. To deny it is to take a position contrary to math and science.
Wow. Well done sir. You’ve identified a way to solve the issue of testing the population with an infinite number of changing variables and isolating the results for a chosen variable. No need for any more lab rats or cells in dishes or anything like that. I wonder why we didn’t use this for ldl cholesterol? Keep up the good work! 👍
I can't take credit for inventing randomized clinical trials. But that is certainly the gold standard, especially when confirmed. Lab tests are only useful for generating hypotheses- not for proving anything. You may be interested in learning about "levels of evidence" and GRADE:
cebm.ox.ac.uk/resources/lev...
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl...
You remind me how counterintuitive statistics are and the patience that doctors must have with patients who think they understand what they read on the Internet.
TA- Some people just don't understand BASIC science and don't want to. Not that much you can do about that.
"...and don't want to." Yes, a number of people have the attitude of "don't confuse me with the facts."
Like I said though, maybe you should let everyone know what your onto here. Ldl cholesterol? We can prove it. Diabetes? Done.In fact you can change the whole debate on every health issue people discuss. Pick a condition, contact TA and it’s problem over. Can’t believe we haven’t used this before. I mean there wouldn’t be any debates anymore eh? 👍
Just a thought. Did you consider you could use this method on curing your own prostate cancer? Let me know how you get on.
You've totally lost it dude.Did someone hit a nerve.
Are you realizing your "seems like", "maybe", "points to" click bait studies that you adhere to comparing one maybe to another maybe and getting a yes in your mind are crumbling down before you?
Are you Now realizing you really do need a randomized trial showing level one evidence to have confidence in substances and treatments efficacy.
Seriously, what are you talking about?
He’s talking science and logic. Even the best clinical studies can be wrong for various reasons. . But the chances that they are wrong are far less than conclusions from retrospective studies being wrong . Surely you understand that? Are you arguing that point?
Schwah
There are no more debates when there is Level 1 evidence. All professional researchers know it, and if you would actually read those links, you might know it too. Indeed, I joined a clinical trial to cure my prostate cancer. It worked!
Good for you. So you’re cured and not taking any medication? No conditions or side effects?
Actually can I ask what you classify as cured?
You’re actually claiming you’ve cured cancer, right?
I haven't cured cancer. My doctor cured my prostate cancer.
Like I said, I’m glad it’s worked out for you. But can I ask what you mean by ‘cured’? Do you mean managed with drugs and / or some form of treatment or are you drug free?
No drugs. No treatment other than 11 years ago. PSA low and stable. I consider myself cured.
Well that’s as close to ‘cured’ you can get I suppose. Good for you.
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