Our clocks will switch to daylight saving time next weekend, but there continues to be a global silence on finally doing away with the semi-annual time change. We’re making plans, but no one seems ready to fire the first gun.
But after many blockages, a US bill to authorize a permanent change to daylight saving time is back in action. Last week, U.S. Senator Marco Rubio reintroduced the Sunshine Protection Act, which allows for permanent daylight hours.
I have previously written about the health risks of interfering with our circadian rhythms, and there is growing evidence to suggest that suddenly losing an hour of sleep is bad for your health. In the first few days after the change, many suffer from symptoms such as hypersensitivity, lack of sleep, daytime fatigue, and weakened immune function. Injuries are more likely to occur in the first few weeks after the clock change compared to other weeks. .
Health evidence in favor of a permanent standard time transition (no clock changes in the fall) has led many doctors and scientists to oppose legislation that would make daylight saving time permanent.
Apart from the ongoing debate about the health benefits (permanent standard time transition) and economic benefits (daylight saving time transition) of the time change, there is growing interest in chronotherapy. rhythms and cycles of nature. The 2017 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to Jeffrey C. Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael W. Young. This has led to increased research and interest in the relevance of chronotherapy, especially circadian rhythms, to cancer treatment.
[ Households could save €400 on energy if clocks do not go back, Dáil told ]
Circadian rhythms are internal clocks that make the brain cycle between wakefulness and sleepiness. Circadian rhythms are made up of different elements that influence these intervals. Examples include eating habits, body temperature, sleep duration, and even external factors such as darkness and light.
Chronotherapy in oncology synchronizes the timing of anticancer drug administration with the patient’s natural circadian rhythm to maximize drug efficacy while minimizing side effects. This involves administering drugs when healthy cells are least susceptible to the toxicity of these drugs, or when cancer cells are most susceptible to the drugs.
Chronotherapy research is complex. Especially since there are individual differences in circadian rhythms. Its effectiveness is basically related to your chronotype, whether you’re a morning person or a night person. This correlates with our internal molecular activity.
Therefore, chronotherapy should be individualized for each particular patient, even if a specific drug administration time is better for most patients on average.
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Not only do humans have optimal times for drug administration, but drugs themselves have specific times when they are most effective. Because each class of chemotherapy has its own way of killing cells, each drug has a time window when it is most effective. For example, fluorouracil, a chemotherapy drug used to treat many cancers, was noted to be most effective at night, while the drug used to treat advanced colorectal cancer Oxaliplatin was most effective when given in the afternoon.
The potential benefits of chronotherapy are not limited to cancer. Researchers at the University of California found significant benefits in patients with bipolar disorder who took antidepressants at three specific intervals in the circadian rhythm to achieve a sustained response to the drug. .
Perhaps the last thing a patient undergoing chronotherapy needs is a regular change of clock. It may not be important to our health.
