Chronotherapy

The Dawn Phenomenon: Understanding the Circadian Rhythm of Blood Sugar

Diabetes is one of the fastest growing health problems in the United States and Western World, with around a third of the American adult population currently diabetic or showing signs of developing diabetes. While this disease can be difficult to manage, it can often be treated or even prevented by controlling blood sugar. An increasing body of research suggests that your circadian rhythm may be an incredibly important factor in blood glucose levels and diabetes management. Understanding the way your blood sugar changes over the course of a day is crucial to taking proactive steps to prevent wide fluctuations.

What Is Diabetes?

Diabetes is a disease in which the body has chronically high blood sugar levels due to defects in blood glucose metabolism. In type 1 diabetes, the pancreas does not make insulin, a hormone that is critical to getting blood glucose out of the bloodstream and into cells where it is needed. In type 2 diabetes, the problem is more complicated: Although there may be normal or even high insulin levels, the cells have become insulin resistant. This means that they do not let blood sugar into the cell even when there is enough insulin. With both types of diabetes, blood sugar remains in the bloodstream where it is very destructive, while cells often starve for fuel.

Diabetes has increased in modern times to the point that it is now considered an epidemic. It is one of the most pervasive and expensive health problems in the United States. Even more distressing, rates of this disease and related disorders of the metabolism are expected to continue increasing for the foreseeable future. Americans have too much access to carbohydrate-rich foods; in fact, these are often the most accessible and affordable.

The Dawn Phenomenon and the Circadian Rhythm of Blood Sugar

Recent research indicates that circadian rhythm is a very important part of how our bodies metabolize blood glucose. Whether you are diabetic or not, your blood glucose likely follows a rhythm known as the “dawn phenomenon.” In this phenomenon, hormones released in the morning drive cortisol levels high. Cortisol is released, which decreases insulin and increases glucagon. This causes blood sugar to increase, ensuring that we are conserving energy to be used after we awake.

This hormonal release appears to be an important link between the circadian rhythm and blood sugar. Although this phenomenon is troublesome mainly for people with diabetes and other metabolic diseases, it occurs in almost all people. This is partially due to the influence of glucocorticoids such as cortisol. When researchers studied mice who had been administered glucocorticoids, they found that these hormones increased the activity of three different genes linked to circadian rhythm. In addition, the mice’s blood sugar levels increased.

Maintaining Healthy Blood Sugar Levels Naturally

Whether you have type 2 diabetes or are in perfect health, maintaining stable blood glucose will help you to feel better and actually be healthier. There are several ways that you can accomplish this, including:

Lose weight. Even getting a few pounds closer to a healthy weight can level out your blood sugar.
Exercise for at least a half hour a day. Late night exercise can be especially beneficial if you often wake up with high blood sugars.
Choose carbs wisely. People with diabetes can still eat carbs, but they should choose carbs mixed with fiber and other macronutrients rather than white sugar and white flour.
Eat carbs at strategic times. There are likely times of day when you need a blood sugar bump, but eating carbs at night can lead to waking up with high blood glucose.
Eat small and regular meals with balanced amounts of carbohydrates.
Avoid nicotine and caffeine, which contribute to blood glucose fluctuation.
Get eight hours of sleep a night, taking care to go to bed and awaken at roughly the same time. A healthy circadian rhythm contributes to better glucose metabolism.
Eat a wide range of antioxidants.
Follow your doctor’s recommended regimen, if you have one. It is important to take medications at the correct times and in the correct amounts.
Take a multivitamin with plenty of antioxidants.
Know your triggers. Every person reacts uniquely to different foods. It is important to know both your triggers and your safe foods.

There are also several healthy and natural supplements that can be used to keep blood sugar under control. Consider taking a supplement designed to support healthy blood sugar with ingredients such as chromium picolinate, N-acetyl cysteine, bilberry fruit, banaba leaf, vanadium, Gymnema, fenugreek and bitter melon. These ingredients each work in a different way to support healthy blood glucose and maintain metabolic balance. Magnesium has also been shown to protect against the development of diabetes.

While diabetes is common, there are many healthy and natural ways that people can prevent and even treat it. Maintaining control of your blood sugar will help you to feel better and actually be healthier, both now and over the course of your life. Understanding your circadian rhythm and how it affects your blood glucose is an important piece of this puzzle.

Timing is Everything: Using Chronotherapy in Cancer Treatment

Nov 03 by Ewcopywriting Leave a Comment

Cancer is one of the most deadly diseases in the world, killing an estimated 7.6 million people every year. While there is a constant flow of new treatments, the number of deaths nonetheless demands more research and, hopefully, an eventual cure. Many people use all available treatments but still die of this disease. For many, the treatment itself is part of the problem, as chemotherapy side effects can be quite serious. Until there are ways of stopping cancer in its tracks, we may be able to improve outcomes and reduce the tide of deaths by using chronotherapy in cancer treatment.

What Is Chronotherapy?

Every cell in our bodies runs on an internal clock called a circadian rhythm. Chronotherapy is the practice of timing treatments so they are taken at the most effective time of day. Giving medications at the right time can increase efficacy while reducing the actual amount of medication that patients need. For example, if a person who has high blood pressure primarily at night takes their medication before bed, not only will it be more effective, they will also need less medication than if they took it in the morning or another random time of day. This, in turn, reduces side effects, medication interactions and the chances of developing toxicity from high levels of medication.

We do not currently know all of the diseases that respond best to chronotherapy. However, research suggests that allergies, heart disease and a wide range of illnesses may be treated more effectively when treatments are given at specific times. According to new research on chronotherapy in cancer treatment, chemotherapy may be among the growing number of medications where timing is everything.

Using Chronotherapy in Cancer Treatment

Chemotherapy aims to kill cancer cells, but unfortunately kills many of the patient’s healthy cells as well. Balancing side effects and toxicity is a major challenge for both doctors and patients. What if there were a way to increase the efficacy of chemotherapy while decreasing side effects and toxicity? It appears that chronotherapy may be the answer.

A recent study found that chemotherapy and other cancer treatments are more effective when timed to coincide with the most active times of the circadian rhythm of cancer cells. In other words, timing the medications to stop growth exactly when the tumor is actively trying to grow. This study did not discover only a small difference in efficacy; the chemotherapy administered at the right time of day was actually twice as effective in treating cancer. The perfect time to give a drug depends on the type of cancer and the type of medication, but there appears to be a perfect time for most cancer drugs. Giving medications at carefully-determined times also reduces side effects and toxicity, which are two major reasons that patients often cannot continue with an otherwise successful treatment.

The Circadian Rhythm of Cancer Cells

How can timing the administration of a drug make such a difference? Cancer cells tend to have a circadian rhythm that is different from that of healthy cells. They have often lost many of the checkpoints to growth that are present in healthy cells, which means that they can grow almost continuously. While they may grow faster at certain times of day, they are growing or preparing to do so almost constantly. On the other hand, human cells grow only for very small periods of time during the day.

With many types of cancer, it is possible to identify a time when cancer cells are extremely active while normal cells are not. When a drug attacking that part of the cell cycle is administered at these times, it is likely to have a huge impact on cancer while affecting normal cells very little, which means fewer side effects.

Your Circadian Rhythm and Your Health

While most people are not aware of their circadian rhythm, your internal clock plays a huge role in your health. The amount you sleep—or don’t—can affect whether you feel rested but also your risk of developing serious diseases. Because a poorly-regulated circadian rhythm is essential to health, it makes sense that working with your own innate timing would play a role in recovery from serious diseases such as cancer.

If you or a loved one are facing a battle with cancer, chronotherapy may give you an advantage. It’s important to talk to your doctors about the best time to take your medications to maximize treatment and reduce adverse effects.

Melatonin for Jet Lag: Reset Your Body Clock Naturally When Travelling Across Time Zones

Oct 20 by Ewcopywriting Leave a Comment

Modern life requires travel. Americans and Western Europeans have become more mobile than ever, which means that seeing family and building a career often means some type of travel is involved. As a result, jet lag is not just a problem for executives anymore. Millions of people find their circadian rhythm is disrupted by the busy schedule of modern life. Luckily, there are safe, natural ways to get your internal clocks back on track.

What Is Jet Lag?

Jet lag, or desynchronosis, is a state in which your inner clocks are not aligned with the external time. People can get jet lag from traveling across time zones. There is also a phenomenon called social jet lag, in which people have to be awake for work or other obligations during hours that don’t sync with their circadian rhythm.

Regardless of the reason for jet lag, it can have devastating effects on health. People with jet lag feel fatigued, yet often have trouble sleeping. They can feel mentally fuzzy and suffer from lower cognition and memory. Jet lag also puts people at higher risk of suffering from adverse health events such as infections. Despite the huge number of physical and psychological effects of jet lag, modern medicine offers very few solutions to this common problem.

Factors That Can Make Jet Lag Better… Or Worse

You may have noticed that you do not get jet lag every time you step on or off a plane. This is because there are a variety of factors that can make jet lag better or worse. For instance, researchers have found that traveling east causes worse jet lag symptoms than traveling west. It ends up that our natural internal rhythms are actually set for slightly longer than 24 hours, so it is easier to add time to our day by moving to an earlier time zone than to subtract hours in the day. Staying hydrated and eating healthy also can keep jet lag from being as severe. The healthier your body is, the more likely it will be to adjust to challenges such as travel quickly and seamlessly.

Even if you are traveling east, there are several ways that you can mitigate the effects of jet lag. Drinking lots of water helps, as travel is dehydrating and this can make jet lag symptoms worse. Avoiding caffeine, alcohol and other substances also help your body to get back on track more quickly. Ensure that you eat a wide variety of healthy foods to get the vitamins your body needs and that you get plenty of exercise. Last, do things that help your body to adjust to your new time zone. Make sure you get plenty of light exposure during the day and eat at set times.

Melatonin for Jet Lag: A Safe, Natural Treatment

Research on melatonin for jet lag has found that this supplement can make a huge difference in helping people to get both the quality and the quantity of sleep they need. Melatonin is naturally produced by your body in preparation for sleep. If you are planning to travel, scientists recommend trying to slowly adjust to the new time zone before you leave by either going to bed progressively later or taking melatonin so you can go to bed earlier. Our bodies take approximately one day per time zone to adjust, but this process can be done before travel to make the transition easier.

There are also other safe, natural remedies besides melatonin for jet lag. Stanford researchers have developed a mask that can be controlled by your smartphone intended to help treat jet lag. It uses light to help your body adjust to changes in time zone. There is also a Stop Jet Lag app that can guide you in preparing for and undergoing a large trip without being devastated by fatigue and other symptoms. The Anti-Jet Lag Calculator is a similar app that helps you to align your circadian rhythm with a new time zone by carefully planning when you eat meals and perform other daily tasks.

Unfortunately, jet lag is a fact of modern life. However, you do not have to live with the fatigue, clouded thinking, insomnia and other effects of this disorder. There are many different ways of helping your body to adjust to a new time zone with as few physical effects as possible. Taking charge of your circadian rhythm is taking charge of your health.

Vitamin D and Asthma: Supplementation Found to Lower Risk of Severe Attacks

Oct 10 by Ewcopywriting Leave a Comment

Most of us take breathing for granted. While everyone must breathe to stay alive, it happens unconsciously and we only notice it when we have a cold or another illness that makes breathing difficult. Asthma is a health problem affecting millions of people in the United States alone. While there are medications available, many people with asthma still suffer from debilitating symptoms and even have to seek emergency medical care just to stay alive. New research on vitamin D and asthma suggests that taking this supplement along with your current medications can reduce your daily symptoms, your number of asthma attacks and the amount of rescue medication that you need to breathe.

The Physiology of Asthma

Although many people have asthma, it is often misunderstood. Asthma is not a minor disease, but rather one that can lower your quality of life and even cause death when left untreated. Asthma is a disease affecting the passages that carry air to your lungs. Asthmatic people have airways that are prone to inflammation, which can reduce the amount of air that both enters and exits the lungs. Many asthmatics have low level chronic inflammation, but also sometimes experience an asthma attack. In an asthma attack, the inflammation increases quickly and compromises the ability to breathe. In many cases, this can be life-threatening.

The symptoms of asthma are primarily caused by inflammation of the airway passages. Symptoms include wheezing, shortness of breath and coughing. Some people can identify triggers that cause an asthma attack to happen, such as seasonal allergies, dust, or aerobic exercise. Although the risk of having an asthma attack is 100 times greater during the night, for many asthma sufferers, the attacks appear to happen randomly. While treatment regimens vary for each unique individual, they usually include daily medication to reduce chronic inflammation as well as rescue inhalers that can be used when an attack is beginning. When these medications fail, steroids are used to immediately open airways. While many people can manage their disease effectively with modern medicines, others struggle with symptoms regularly and live in fear of a deadly attack.

Vitamin D and Asthma Attacks

Because asthma can be difficult to manage effectively and the medications have intense side effects, many people are searching for natural remedies to help them breathe easily. New research on vitamin D and asthma suggests that this vitamin may help to prevent severe attacks. People who add vitamin D to their current asthma treatment regimen may see their number of attacks reduced by half. Six percent of people in this study using just their standard medications had to get medical care for an attack while three percent of the group that took additional vitamin D required this help. In addition, people taking vitamin D needed steroids less often.

How can vitamin D make such a difference in the number of asthma attacks? The exact mechanism remains unclear, but previous studies have found that vitamin D deficiencies are linked to worse asthma symptoms. It is possible that many asthma sufferers are suffering from a vitamin deficiency that worsens their symptoms, which is easily treated. Researchers noted that it is not clear whether vitamin D supplements will reduce attacks in people who already have high levels of this vitamin in their bodies.

Natural Approaches to Treating Asthma

Because asthma is difficult to treat even with the best modern medication regimen, many people are turning to natural remedies to improve their breathing. Antioxidants such as vitamin C and vitamin E may help by reducing overall inflammation levels in your body. Caffeine can help some asthma sufferers, as it dilates air passages. While some of these supplements may be effective, every asthma sufferer is different and has a treatment plan tailored to their needs. It is important to talk to your physician before adding a new treatment to your current plan.

A variety of modern studies are finding that chronic diseases, even potentially deadly ones like asthma, can be effectively treated with safe and natural remedies. Vitamins and minerals are essential to our health, so supplements can often make a huge difference. Getting a wide variety of essential vitamins may be a breath of relief for many asthma sufferers.

Cancer and the Circadian Clock: Recent Insights Offer New Hope

Sep 29 by Ewcopywriting Leave a Comment

Cancer was once a dreaded death sentence. New research, specifically studies on cancer and the circadian clock, are offering new understanding and new hope.

Around half of all people will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime, making it one of the most common diseases in the modern world. While cancer once had a very high mortality rate, many people are now able to survive this disease and thrive with the help of modern therapies and treatments. The emerging science of chronobiology may hold the key to understanding and treating many common types of cancer.

Cancer and the Circadian Clock

Cancer cannot grow and metastasize without sabotaging the “checkpoints” on cell division and metabolism that exist in healthy cells. The circadian rhythm is intricately entwined with these checkpoints. Every cell in our body lives, functions and dies by a rhythm set by our internal clocks, which are in turn set by light levels, the times we eat, and a variety of other factors. In cancer cells, these rhythms are often disrupted so the cell can divide without normal controls.

In a recent study of liver tumors, the cancer cells were found to not only divide inappropriately, leading to tumor growth, but also to interfere with the normal function of the liver as a whole. The liver is responsible for a wide range of metabolic activities, which include glucose regulation and toxin removal from the blood. When liver cells turn cancerous, they act erratically. A small liver tumor can disrupt the entire body’s metabolism by disrupting how glucose is regulated.

Marching to the Beat of Its Own Drum

In many ways, cancer cells act like “hijackers,” taking over normal bodily functions and performing them in an erratic way. However, not all tumors function independent of the circadian rhythm. Some cancers, such as certain types of leukemia, depend on circadian rhythm genes to survive. A recent study found that normal stem cells in the blood can survive even without BMAL1, a crucial gene that regulates the circadian rhythm of each cell. On the other hand, stem cells with leukemia die when this gene is “knocked out.” This insight may present a new method of treating leukemia by genetically modifying cells with this cancer so they don’t express a gene that is important to their survival.

The Circadian Rhythm

Liver cancer and leukemia are not the only two cancers to show a link to the circadian rhythm in research. Breast cancer also appears to be associated with a circadian rhythm gene. Because breast cancer in itself is not life-threatening, metastasis is generally its biggest threat. Cancerous cells can eventually leave the breast and travel to the brain, the lungs, or the bones, where they can interfere with more necessary tissue. Having even small mutations in a circadian rhythm gene called Arntl2 is an important predictor of breast cancer death. The reason for this increased morbidity is that tumors with a functioning Arntl2 gene are unlikely to metastasize.

Sleep Disorders: A Cancer Risk Factor?

The link between cancer and the circadian clock is especially clear when you examine the relationship between sleep and cancer outcomes. Regardless of the type of cancer, having sleep apnea (and possibly other disorders that interfere with sleep) is a risk factor for poor cancer outcomes. People with sleep apnea suffer from decreased oxygenation during their sleep, which increases levels of VEGF, or vascular endothelial growth factor. VEGF is crucial for the survival of cancer cells because it creates new blood vessels, allowing them to get the nutrients they need to grow out of control. While we associate sleep apnea with poor sleep and snoring, it may have even greater effects on our health in the long run.

New Treatments and New Hope

Because cancer is so dependent on the circadian rhythm, some people may benefit from taking medications that attack cancer cells at certain times of day. Treating a disease at a particular time of day, a practice known as chronotherapy, ensures that cancer cells are hit with the right drugs at the right time—the time when they are most likely to deliver optimal effects. This practice can also lead to fewer side effects, as treatments can be targeted to times when they have the least impact on healthy cells. While normal cells undergo growth and metabolism only at certain times of the day, cancerous cells that have lost their checkpoints tend to divide without any set time frame or even a pause. They are in constant growth phase. Taking medications at times of the day when healthy cells are not active (but cancer cells are!) allows drugs to hit cancer cells alone while sparing healthy ones.

While treatment for cancer was once limited to surgery, radiation and chemotherapy, new research has brought forth new medications and treatments that kill malignant cells by disrupting their growth and other key metabolic processes. Understanding more about the relationship between cancer and the circadian clock will allow doctors to attack cancer more aggressively while yielding better outcomes for the people who suffer from this disease. Because all of us will suffer from cancer or love someone who does in our lifetimes, this is truly life-changing research.

Chronotherapy and Disease: Harnessing the Circadian Rhythm for More Effective Treatment

Sep 02 by Ewcopywriting Leave a Comment

Around 60 percent of American adults take a prescription drug and even more take over-the-counter medications as well. Could recognizing the link between the time of day we take our medications and their efficacy in treating disease, a groundbreaking practice called chronotherapy, make our meds more effective?

Your prescription bottle lists the name of your medication, dosage and whether the medication is to be taken with food or not. However, many medications work best when taken at certain times during the sleep-wake cycle. In fact, new studies indicate that timing of administration may be one of the most important factors in determining how well many medications work and how often we suffer from side effects. In the future, your prescription bottle may soon tell you when to take your meds for the best effects.

What Is Chronotherapy?

In simple terms, chronotherapy is the science of timing medications so they are present at the times of day when they are likely to be the most effective and/or cause the fewest negative effects. Our bodies run by internal clocks that control not just when we sleep and wake but also when we make lipids, when our cells divide and more. Timing medications when they are present during crucial parts of our metabolism can mean more therapeutic effects at lower doses.

How does this work in real life? Consider, for example, the common example of medications for hypertension, also known as high blood pressure. Blood pressure has its own circadian rhythm, typically peaking in the morning, when cortisol is at its highest. But in many people with high blood pressure, their blood pressure also fails to decrease at night. Because of this, many people may benefit from taking their hypertension medications at bedtime for best effects. In fact, a study of hypertension medications found that taking at least one anti-hypertensive medication at bedtime can improve control of hypertension and reduce the risk of a future cardiovascular event. Hypertension medications are not the only ones that may have a greater effect when taken at certain times; treatments for osteoarthritis, heartburn and other medications have been found to work best when taken at certain times of the day.

When Does Timing Matter?

The time of day affects much more than whether we are awake or sleeping. Every cell in the human body runs on a circadian, or 24-hour, clock. When our eyes stop perceiving light, our bodies make melatonin that helps us to sleep and also tells the body that it is time for critical repair of our cells and DNA. In the early light of dawn, our bodies begin to make cortisol, a hormone associated with stress but also involved in wakefulness and mental function.

What does this mean for our medications? Medications that are meant to target rapidly multiplying cells, such as immune cells and cancer cells, may work best when taken when these cells are dividing most rapidly. In addition, as seen in the example of hypertension medications, taking meds at the point in our daily hormonal cycle that we need them most may allow patients to get the same effects with a lower dosage and with fewer side effects. We have only just begun to discover how timing may affect the efficacy of medications, leading many researchers and physicians to request further study in this area.

Timing Is Everything

In medications, as in comedy, timing may indeed be an important factor in how we respond to treatments that both make us more comfortable and extend our lifespans. Timing also is important when it comes to leading a healthy lifestyle. People who eat late at night, for example, reset the circadian clocks in their livers and pancreases. This can mess up their circadian rhythms for days to come.

Taking medications at the wrong time may have the same effect, although this matter definitely needs more study in order to get a definitive answer. Our circadian rhythm affects the cells of our body, but our cells also affect our circadian rhythm. The communications between different cells and systems are so well-regulated that even small changes can have huge systemic effects. Stifling the liver by eating at odd times of day can lead to increased lipids in the bloodstream and thus to higher cholesterol and triglycerides, which in turn can cause damage to the heart and blood vessels. The cells in our bodies function independently but also as parts of a whole. Understanding this back-and-forth play between different systems will be essential to figuring out how chronobiology may improve our lives in the future.

Most of us do not plan to be dependent on prescription medication, but most of us will be taking it at some point in our lives. New discoveries on how timing affects medication metabolism and effects may allow us to take lower doses and get more effects in the very near future. Chronotherapy just may be the future of pharmacology.