Women, wake up !
Dr. Walter Pierpaoli
Who is afraid of melatonin ?
Since the publication in New York in August 1995 of the American bestseller « The
Melatonin Miracle » (Simon and Schuster, 1995, authors W. Pierpaoli and W.
Regelson with Carol Colman), now translated into 17 different languages, an
oppressive air of suspicion and conspirational silence descended in old
Europe upon the word « melatonin », only broken from time to time by isolated
flashes of light, which in turn are immediately clouded by untimely, clumsy,
overhusty interventions of the « insiders » of the press and television. In
fact, the simple and clear scientific reality of the matter is not to be
classed with day-to-day « disposable products ». It took millions of years
for Mother Nature to elaborate its logical strategy, which we are only now
starting to perceive and interpret. Few people read and try to learn and
understand before opening their mouth, particularly newsmen and reporters.
They must produce an inexhaustible supply of exciting news daily, while Mother
Nature, fortunately for us, does not measure time or regard fashions. As my
mother, a woman of central Italy, used to say : « They open their mouth and
give out breath ! ». She was referring to politicians and their mental and
personal deficiencies.
The basic question is : « Why
do we age ? » The answer is simple to the point that it sounds provocative
and strange, and for many of my colleagues outrageous, as did the
straightforward observation of Galileo to the Fathers of the Catholic Church
in the Vatican: «And yet (the earth) it moves ! ». We age in a way
similar to that in which we grow ! But then, what is melatonin needed for ? It
inhibits aging . Why ? Simply because it prevents aging of the remarkable « switchyard »
in the pineal gland (which truly is not a typical gland !). Nocturnal
administration of melatonin prevents the pineal from deteriorating, from
decaying into a heap of scrap, and thus from becoming unsuitable to deliver the
precise signals which regulate the natural rhythms of day and night. These
precise messages keep us constantly synchronized, through the hormonal system,
with the environment in which we live. If and when we stray this natural pathway,
we develop diseases and age more rapidly. The so-called reality of the world in
which we live escapes our sensorial and psychological consciousness simply
because we are an integrant part of it ! We navigate in a dimension whose nature
and boundaries we ignore. Our only reference marks are the rhythms scanned by
day, night and seasons. It would be like asking a fish to describe air, or a
bird to say what life in the water looks like.
But is not melatonin a true hormone? No. Can it produce damage ? No, melatonin is produced and secreted by different tissues and organs, but at night only by the pineal gland. Even at huge dosages and for very long periods, melatonin is totally harmless. Well documented data for this exist, but they are never mentioned ! However, a few (at most 3) milligrams of melatonin suffice to put the pineal at "night rest » and thus to protect the pineal, our hormonal switchboard center, from aging ! If the pineal does not age, we cannot possibly age or at least the aging process will never again be as we have seen and experienced it until now.
Why Do I Address Women ?
I wish to speak to women because they are more
adaptable and flexible and thus rightly live longer. They read more and are able
to ponder what they hear and read. They are the vehicles of family peace and
serenity, the true basis of our daily life. They have endured the dominance of
men for millennia, and can thus better help destroy a world of ignorance, lies
and egoism. For this reason, two years ago we started a long, expensive,
wearisome and unannounced investigation under the guidance of Dr. Giulio
Bellipanni and his co-worker Pierluigi Bianchi at the Menopause Center of the
« Madonna delle Grazie » Clinic in Velletri near Rome, using accepted strict
scientific criteria, aimed at answering the most obvious and urgent question
concerning the aging of women : What is menopause ? Can it be prevented,
delayed or modified ? If melatonin is able to decelerate or even to stop aging,
what more suitable model is there than menopause ? We now have the answer, and
it is extremely convincing.
Our findings have been
elaborated and are now in press. Nocturnal melatonin alone can deeply modify
the hormonal and psychosomatic conditions in the perimenopausal years, which can
extend from 40 to 60 years of age. Here we do not anticipate what will be
published in official scientific journals, but only wish here to inform women
about it in order to alleviate the countless problems they face daily in
family and society. Menopause is simply the end of the hormonal «fertility
program » of women, but this program is perfectly amenable to modification. It
is not true that « the ovaries are depleted » ! They simply atrophy according
to their
« genetic program ». But the
expression of that program is purely hormonal, and we can restore the juvenile
hormonal control of the ovaries. Certainly conditions of the juvenility and
health of women are linked to maintenance of a juvenile hormonal status, which
can be obtained with nocturnal melatonin administration. In perimenopausal
women, melatonin in the most striking fashion reconstitutes the juvenile
hormonal conditions and produces a rapid regression of all the neurovegetative
and psychic alterations of menopause, in particular the states of nervousness,
anxiety and depression. In addition, we can now address the issue of an
impressive combination of melatonin with zinc. Zinc is a basic mineral in the
body and essential for the function of over 200 enzymes that are fundamental
for the respiration of all cells in the body. The combination of melatonin and
zinc dramatically accelerates the effects of melatonin and boosts a depressed
immunity. This is all documented. The answer to our queries is clear, simple
and strictly scientific. Nocturnal administration of melatonin can resynchronize
the entire hormonal system and, by protecting the pineal from aging, can
maintain the juvenility of the pineal and its capacity to synthesize other
very remarkable molecules. We found one of these molecules, TRH (thyrotropin
releasing hormone), but it must be studied in detail before being used. (We
found it 10 years ago, but it is not yet ready for use). At the present time
only melatonin is available, which is better if associated with zinc, according
to our studies This is all published in excellent scientific journals. Nothing
is casual and extemporized !
Enough of trivial
reservations regarding jet-lag and sleep, together with threats of « hormonal
side-effects » : Melatonin is, as I said recently in a BBC interview in London,
a « gift of God » and can harm only those who do not take it. People (especially
women) are now able to appreciate what hormonal and metabolic aging means, and
thus also to prevent it. All others, let them wait to have « youth genes »
inserted! At present, , 3 milligrams of melatonin and zinc are sufficient for me
and all those dear to me before switching off the light and sinking into
refreshing sleep….. Who is right? We shall see in a few years !