Melotonin?
Melanin?
Define Pineal Gland Activation Explained!
The pineal gland, also known as the pineal body, conarium or epiphysis cerebri, is a
small endocrine gland in the vertebrate brain.
It produces melatonin, a serotonin derived hormone, which affects the modulation of sleep
patterns in both seasonal and circadian rhythms.
Its shape resembles a tiny pine cone (hence its name), and it is located in the epithalamus,
near the center of the brain, between the two hemispheres, tucked in a groove where
the two halves of the thalamus join.
The pineal gland was once dubbed the “third eye,” which originated for many reasons,
ranging from its location deep in the center of the brain to its connection to light.
Also, the French philosopher and mathematician René Descartes was fascinated with the pineal
gland.
He even regarded it as the “principal seat of the soul, and the place in which all our
thoughts are formed.”
However, his observations have been widely rejected.
And while researchers are still learning about the full purpose of the pineal gland, they
believe it most likely concerns melatonin—the only hormone that the gland is known to produce
and release or is it?
Melatoninis a hormone found in animals, plants, fungi and bacteria.
It is synthesized in animal cells directly from the amino acid tryptophan, but in other
organisms through the Shikimic acid pathway, in response to dark-light periods (photoperiod).
In animals, melatonin controls the daily night-day cycle, thereby allowing the entrainment of
the circadian rhythms of several biological functions.
Melanin is a broad term for a group of natural pigments found in most organisms (arachnids
are one of the few groups in which it has not been detected).
Melanin is produced by the oxidation of the amino acid tyrosinase, followed by polymerization.
The pigment is produced in a specialized group of
cells known as melanocytes.
In the 1990s, a British scientist, Jennifer Luke, discovered that fluoride accumulates
to strikingly high levels in the pineal gland.
(Luke 2001).
While it is not yet known if fluoride accumulation affects
pineal gland function, preliminary animal experiments found that fluoride
reduced melatonin levels and shortened the time
to puberty.
(Luke, 1997).
Based on this and other evidence, the National Research Council has stated that “fluoride
is likely
to cause decreased melatonin production and to have other effects on normal pineal function,
which in
turn
could contribute to a variety of effects in humans” (NRC, 2006, p. 256).