Melatonin And The Pineal Gland

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Term Paper Title	Melatonin And The Pineal Gland
# of Words	2032
# of Pages (250 words per page double spaced)	8.13

Melatonin And The Pineal Gland

Melatonin And The Pineal Gland

     Set deep in our brains is a tiny gland called the pineal gland.  This tiny
gland is in charge of the endocrine system, the glandular system that controls
most of our bodily functions.  The pineal runs our Œbody clocks', and it
produces melatonin; the hormone that may prove to be the biggest medical
discovery since penicilin, and the key to controlling the aging process.  The
pineal gland controls such functions as our sleeping cycle and the change of
body temperature that we undergo with the changing seasons.  It tells animals
when to migrate north and south, and when to grow or shed heavy coats.  By
slowing down and speeding up  their metabolisms, it tells them when to fatten up
for hibernation, and when to wake up from hibernation in the spring.
     Melatonin is the hormone that controls not only when we feel sleepy, but
the rate at which we age, when we go through puberty, and how well our immune
systems fend off diseases.  Being set in the middle of our brains, the pineal
gland has no direct access to sunlight.  Our eyes send it a message of how much
sunlight they see, and when it's dark.  The sunlight prohibits the gland from
producing melatonin, so at night, when there's no sun, the sleep-inducing
hormone is released into our bodies.  Because of the pineal gland and melatonin,
humans have known to sleep at night and wake during the day since long before
the age of alarm clocks.
     Humans don't produce melatotin right from birth; it is transfered in utero
to babies through the placenta.  For their first few days of life, babies still
have to receive it from breast milk.  Our levels of melatonin peak during
childhood, then decrease at the beginning of puberty, so that other hormones can
take control of our bodies.  As we get older, the amount of melatonin we produce
continues to decrease until at age 60, we produce about half as much as we did
at age 20.  With the rapid decrease from about age 50 on, the effects of old age
quickly become more visible and physically evident.  With what scientists have
recently discovered, we may very soon be able to  harness melatonin to slow down
aging, fend off disease, and keep us feeling generally healthy and energetic;
not to mention the things melatonin can do for us right now like curing insomnia
and regulating sleeping patterns, eliminating the effects of jet-lag, and
relieving every day stress.

     Melatonin is known as the "regulator of...

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