Total darkness at night key to success of cancer treatment

Exposure to light at night, which shuts off nighttime production of the hormone melatonin, renders breast cancer completely resistant to tamoxifen, a widely used breast cancer drug, says a new study by Tulane University School of Medicine cancer researchers. The study is the first to show that melatonin is vital to the success in treating breast cancer.

In the first phase of the study, they kept animals in a daily light/dark cycle of 12 hours of light followed by 12 hours of total darkness (melatonin is elevated during the dark phase) for several weeks. In the second study, they exposed them to the same daily light/dark cycle; however, during the 12 hour dark phase, animals were exposed to extremely dim light at night (melatonin levels were suppressed), roughly equivalent to faint light coming under a door.

Melatonin by itself delayed the formation of tumors and significantly slowed their growth.

These findings have potentially enormous implications for women being treated and also regularly exposed to light at night due to sleep problems, working night shifts or exposed to light from computer and TV screens.

High melatonin levels at night put breast cancer cells to ‘sleep’ by turning off key growth mechanisms. But when the lights are on and melatonin is suppressed, breast cancer cells ‘wake up’ and start growing. The study could make light at night a new and serious risk factor for developing resistance to anticancer drugs and make the use of melatonin in, administered at the optimal time of day or night, standard treatment for breast cancer patients.

-Cancer Research

Dr. Keith & Laurie Nemec’s comments on “Total darkness at night key to success of breast cancer ”:

This powerful study showed how the strong antioxidant, sleep hormone melatonin suppresses cancer growth. In the study when they had very dim light in the room equivalent to some light shining under the door, this was enough light to shut off melatonin’s immune stimulating effects.

What this means is if you want to boost your immune system to a very high level where it can suppress cancer cell growth then you must do two things:

1. Sleep in total darkness so as not to suppress melatonin production.
2. Get to sleep as early as possible (8 PM is best) because the more premidnight hours of sleep the more stimulating and effect in strengthening the white blood cells to kill cancer cells.

What this study does not imply is that everyone should take melatonin supplements. There is a balance in all things and if melatonin like all other nutritional and hormonal is too high or too low it can encourage cancer cell growth. So what is the best way to know? Have it tested. We do a complete hormonal workup on all of our patients at Total Health Institute so we know exactly who needs melatonin and who does NOT.

What I liked most about this study is that God’s way is always the BEST way if we would just get back to HIS basics for health. When did God design the human body to go to sleep? When the sun went down. When did He design the human body to wake up? When the sun came up. Very simple. Follow the rule and health will be the byproduct.