CLEVELAND (WJW) — A recent Cleveland Clinic study found that melatonin could be helpful in the prevention and treatment of coronavirus.
As COVID-19 continues to spread at high rates, researchers have been looking at ways to repurpose drugs that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has already approved to fight the virus — including melatonin, a hormone that many use as an over-the-counter sleep aide.
The clinic reports patients who used melatonin were 30% less likely to test positive for COVID-19 (with adjustments for race, age, and health backgrounds). African Americans using melatonin were 52% less likely to test positive, the clinic said.
“It is very important to note these findings do not suggest people should start to take melatonin without consulting their physician,” Feixiong Cheng, Ph.D., one of the study’s authors said in a statement. “Large-scale observational studies and randomized controlled trials are critical to validate the clinical benefit of melatonin for patients with COVID-19, but we are excited about the associations put forth in this study and the opportunity to further explore them.”
Read about the full report (and artificial intelligence platform used) published in PLOS Biology here.
