Melatonin to Reduce Death Toll Due to COVID-19: From Innate to Adaptive Immune Response

1. A recent paper published by Dr. Jan Tesarik in Global Journal of Medical Research presents arguments in favor of the use of melatonin to ...


1. A recent paper published by Dr. Jan Tesarik in Global Journal of Medical Research presents arguments in favor of the use of melatonin to prevent and treat COVID-19. Melatonin is free of any harmful side-effects, even at high doses, and is beneficial for many other aspects of human health, independent of COVID-19, namely the prevention of different types of cancer and their metastases, of different complications during pregnancy and of Alzheimer disease. In this situation, the opinion of Dr. Tesarik is that melatonin should be used even without wasting time by building and interpreting randomized control trials (RCTs). “We are all aware of the fact that RCTs represent a gold standard for any new therapeutic procedure. However, does gold weigh more than any single human life?” asks Dr. Tesarik. And continues: “In the case of the outbreak of Ebola disease, six years ago, WHO made an important statement questioning the ethics of losing time with RCTs and “sacrificing” part of patients by using them as control group.”

“This crisis is so acute”, WHO declared at that time, “that it is ethical to offer interventions with potential benefits but unknown side effects”. “What are we waiting for then?”, asks Dr Tesarik. And adds: “The history of melatonin as an agent attenuating different respiratory diseases is more convincing than the data available for drugs suggested for the treatment of Ebola disease, and its side effects are null, without taking into consideration the other beneficial effects of melatonin for human health. Please disseminate this information as quickly as possible so as to stop further deaths from occurring in vain”.

2. and 3. This work is a result of my long-time experience with the use of melatonin in the treatment of human disease. In particular, I noted that melatonin attenuates symptoms of endometriosis and adenomyosis, two important causes of infertility in young women, by modulating their immune system. By the same mechanism, it reduces the risk of miscarriage in predilected cases. Although it might appear strange, these effects are caused by the same molecular action of melatonin as those attenuating the consequences of respiratory diseases. By the way, none of the women who were taking melatonin as part of the treatment of their infertility problems has contracted COVID-19 by now.

4. Melatonin is cheap and easily available. I should thus be distributed free among people professionally exposed to the risk of COVID-19 contagion. And why not in discotheques and other places of people concentration. Moreover, it could serve as an adjuvant in people vaccinated against common flu or replace the vaccination in those in whom the vaccine cause serious side-effects.

5. The relationship with the GJMR during the preparation of the article was excellent.

6. Wikipedia links:

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Tesarik (in spanish)

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Histeroscopia (in spanish)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intracytoplasmic_sperm_injection (in english)

7. About author : Dr. Jan Tesarik obtained his MD degree in 1979 and PhD in 1982. He realized the world´s first successful Gamete Intra-Fallopian Transfer (GIFT), in 1982, and the first childbirths after oocyte fertilization with round spermatids  (ROSI) and with in-vitro cultured elongating spermatids (ELSI), in 1995 and 1998, respectively. He developed an original technique for nuclear transfer in mature human oocytes (2000), currently popular as the “3-parent-baby technique”. He described  beneficial effects of growth hormone on oocyte quality in women of >40 years old and on uterine receptivity in women with recurrent implantation failure. Since the outbreak of the current coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) pandemic, he has been investigating into different anti-COVID agents, with particular reference to the preservation of fertility and protection of pregnant women. He is author of >400 scientific publications, including 307 highly influential publications listed in Semantic Scholar.  He worked at the Purkyne University (Brno, Czechoslovakia) and later at the American Hospital of Paris (France). At present he is Director of MARGen (Molecular Asssisted Reproduction and Genetics) Clinic in Granada (Spain).