Seven Key Insights from the Integrative Practitioner Digital Summit on Aging and Longevity

5. Melatonin Plays a Critical Role in Longevity

In addition to its obvious function of facilitating sleep, melatonin has several actions relevant to aging, according to Darley.

“Melatonin helps with bone growth, inflammation, hormone regulation, neuro protection, and oxidative stress in addition to the sleep and circadian rhythm roles that it has,” Darley said. “So, we definitely want people's melatonin to stay on board across the lifespan to aid healthy aging.”

A powerful antioxidant and anti-inflammatory, melatonin increases apoptosis of abnormal cells and blocks pro-inflammatory processes on COX-2 enzymes. In addition, Darley said, melatonin inhibits pro-oxidative enzymes including xanthine and oxidase, while potentiating antioxidant enzymes like superoxide dismutase, glutathione peroxidase, and catalase.

Through its various actions, melatonin helps protect mitochondria, which are closely associated with aging, according to Darley. In addition, the hormone is believed to help prevent dementia through improvement of sleep, neurotransmission, and reduced sundowning.

Melatonin can be regulated by creating an optimal light-dark environment, however, Darley said that is difficult to accomplish when most patients are exposed to light on their phone screens before bed.

“We’re getting inadequate light during the day and then in the night we’re not getting sufficient darkness,” said Darley. “That’s going to negatively impact melatonin.”

For a more realistic strategy to increase melatonin, Darley is an advocate of melatonin supplements. In particular, she said she suggests phyto metatonin which is derived from plants and has approximately 400 times greater free radical scavenging than synthetic melatonin, according to Darley.