Long-term melatonin treatment attenuates body weight gain with aging in female mice.

Women usually experience body weight gain with aging, which can put them at risk for many chronic diseases. Previous studies indicated that melatonin treatment attenuates body weight gain and abdominal fat deposition in several male animals. However, it is unclear whether melatonin affects female animals in the same way. This study investigated whether long-term melatonin treatment can attenuate body weight gain with aging and, if it does, what the mechanism is. Ten-week-old female ICR mice were given melatonin-containing water (100 μg/mL) or only water until 43 weeks. Melatonin treatment significantly attenuated body weight gain at 23 weeks (control; 57.2 ± 2.0 g vs melatonin; 44.4 ± 3.1 g), 33 weeks (control; 65.4 ± 2.6 g vs melatonin; 52.2 ± 4.2 g) and 43 weeks (control; 66.1 ± 3.2 g vs melatonin; 54.4 ± 2.5 g) without decreasing the amount of food intake. Micro-CT analyses showed that melatonin significantly decreased the deposition of visceral and s.c. fat. These results suggested that melatonin attenuates body weight gain by inhibiting abdominal fat deposition. Metabolome analysis of the liver revealed that melatonin treatment induced a drastic change in the metabolome with the downregulation of 149 metabolites, including the metabolites of glucose and amino acids. Citrate, which serves as a source of de novo lipogenesis, was one of the downregulated metabolites. These results show that long-term melatonin treatment induces drastic changes in metabolism and attenuates body weight gain and fat deposition with aging in female mice.