Circadian Rhythm

Infections and the Circadian Rhythm: Why You’re More Likely to Get Sick in the Evening

We are exposed to germs almost constantly throughout the day. However, most of us rarely get sick despite this constant barrage of pathogens. The reason for this is the action of our immune systems. Our immune systems are constantly on guard against disease-causing microbes and are usually very effective at protecting us. Yet, new research suggests that there is a connection between infections and the circadian rhythm. Like every other system in our bodies, our immune system has an internal clock that causes it to be more effective at certain times of the day.

How Viruses Infect Cells

There are thousands of types of viruses that cause illnesses ranging from the common cold to Ebola. However, they all infect our bodies in similar ways. A virus first enters through a break in the skin, our mouths, or another portal into the body. From there, they attach to cells and inject the contents of their genome. They then use cell machinery to manufacture more viruses. The infected cell bursts open and new viruses are spilled into the bloodstream.

Our bodies have a variety of complex ways to deal with a potential viral infection. Our immune systems produce macrophages that engulf and deactivate viral particles when they are found in our bloodstream, preventing them from infecting cells. In addition, T lymphocytes can recognize cells infected with viruses and kill them before more viruses can be made. Interestingly, these processes appear to be less effective in the morning, according to recent studies.

Infections and the Circadian Rhythm

Researchers studied groups of mice who were exposed to viruses at different parts of the day. Those who were exposed just before their resting phase (equivalent to evening for humans) had faster viral replication and more symptoms of illness than mice infected at the beginning of their waking phase (equivalent to morning for humans). This difference was not a small one; mice infected in their evening exhibited 10 times as much viral replication as those infected at another point in the day.

This is not the first time researchers have found a link between the severity of infections and the circadian rhythm; previous studies have found that people who have a disrupted or absent circadian rhythm are more likely to get sick, more likely to miss work on a regular basis and even more likely to develop serious and life-threatening diseases such as type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

The Circadian Rhythm of Your Immune System

There are many theories about how your circadian rhythm may affect your immune system. Memory T cells, which are important in recognizing viruses we have encountered before, appear to replicate rapidly in slow wave sleep. This means that we will be able to mount a quicker response to viruses immediately following sleep, which is consistent with the results of this study. In addition, our bodies undergo vital cell repair processes while we sleep, which can improve our immune systems and also help us to recover more quickly from illnesses. Regardless of the exact reason for the link between infections and the circadian rhythm, the evidence is clear: Getting exposed to a virus in the hours before we go to bed is more likely to lead to illness and even cause a more severe illness than if we had been exposed earlier in the day.

Getting Sick Too Much? Sleep May Help

Obviously getting sleep can help give our immune system a needed boost, which is more important than ever as we approach flu season. However, for many people this is easier said than done. Chronobiology experts suggest lowering lights before bed, keeping roughly the same bedtimes every night and taking a melatonin supplement if necessary. On the other hand, even these behavioral changes may not be enough for shift workers and other people whose lives don’t allow healthy sleep patterns. Researchers involved in these recent studies linking infection and circadian rhythm suggest that people who work evenings or nights make sure they get their flu vaccination to ensure they have all the immunity that they can get.

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.

Promising New Connections Between Melatonin and Migraines

Aug 31 by Ewcopywriting Leave a Comment

Migraines are one of the most daunting problems facing modern medicine. There are medications that may help prevent migraines and others that can help with the headaches when they do occur. However, these are not always effective and can have various side effects. This leaves millions of people suffering from the pain, nausea, auras and other effects of this common condition, with no relief in sight. So what is a migraine sufferer supposed to do? According to new research, promoting healthy levels of the sleep hormone melatonin may be the answer for some.

What Is Melatonin?

Melatonin is a hormone produced in your pineal gland and released when your eyes do not sense light. Melatonin is responsible for regulating our sleep cycles and inducing sleep. However, it has a variety of other effects on our bodies as well. Melatonin has been implicated as playing a major role in GI health and may even help protect against certain types of cancer.

More important for migraine sufferers, it has been found to be effective at soothing minor pain and is beginning to be used to help in cases of cluster headaches. Melatonin appears to have a modulating effect on nerve pathways that carry pain signals, preventing overactivity in these circuits.

Links Between Melatonin and Migraine

Sleep plays an important role in migraines. Migraine sufferers who have disrupted sleep are more likely to get headaches more often and to suffer from worse pain when they have these migraines. There is significant evidence that people who get migraines often have sleep disorders linked to a lack of melatonin. People who have low levels of melatonin have a lower stimulation threshold in their trigeminal nerve, which is the nerve that is most commonly implicated in migraine pain. The link between melatonin and migraine is clear, but could promoting healthy levels of this natural substance really help?

Could Sleep and Melatonin Help Your Migraines?

There is significant research maintaining healthy levels of melatonin through supplementation and other means may be helpful for many migraine sufferers. Melatonin has been shown to be more effective than popular preventive medications, and it comes with a much lower risk of harmful side effects. In addition, taking melatonin at the onset of a migraine may help reduce some of the symptoms once they have begun. Melatonin slightly lowers the rate of nerve firing in the neural pathways that carry pain signals, especially those in the head, face and neck. This includes the trigeminal pathway, which has been repeatedly implicated as a major source of migraine pain.

These discoveries were made after scientists observed that people who suffer from migraines are less likely to get them at night and also have lower levels of pain during night migraines. If the melatonin made by our brains protects us partially from the symptoms of a migraine, it’s possible that a melatonin supplement could have the same effect. In addition, melatonin is safe and has no side effects for many people.

Stopping Migraines the Natural Way

If you suffer from migraines and are trying to find natural solutions that might be helpful, there are a few things that you can try. First, even low dose melatonin taken at night before sleep may have a positive effect, especially on your quality of rest. In addition, taking measures to improve your own melatonin production without supplements also can help. Reduce your light exposure at night and practice good sleep hygiene, including going to bed at the same time every night. These measures may help protect against a migraine, but also leave you feeling better rested in the morning. As with all lifestyle changes, it is important to discuss these changes with your doctor before making them.

Research suggests that supporting healthy melatonin production and getting a good night’s rest are both a potential solution for many people who have been suffering from this debilitating disorder.

Researchers Uncover the Intricate Relationship Between Sleep and Memory

Aug 24 by Ewcopywriting Leave a Comment

Many neurological processes, such as remembering to breathe without even thinking about it, are well-understood. However, there are a few areas where modern science is just beginning to discover the truth. Sleep and memory are two such areas. We know a lot about the basics of these two important activities, but there are a myriad of details that we do not totally understand. New research suggests that there may be a link between these two mysteries of the brain.

How Do We Form Memories?

On the surface, memory seems like a simple process. Humans remember vast numbers of details, from their children’s names to how to scramble an egg. However, there is a complex mechanism underlying the simple task of remembering. The first step is memory acquisition, in which we transform our perceptions into a set of sensations that can be sent to the brain. This occurs mainly in the hippocampus of our brains and places each memory in short-term memory. If we encounter the same information again and again, the memory then undergoes consolidation, during which it gets stored in our long-term memory. In consolidation, the memory is moved from the hippocampus to the prefrontal lobe. The final stage is recall, in which we pull up the memory as needed.

Not only are there different stages involved in forming a memory, but there are different types of memory as well. These memories are each stored in different ways and processed at different times. For example, declarative memory is the memory of “just the facts” and is processed in the REM and slow-wave phases of sleep. This is the type of memory that allows you to remember your address. Procedural memory is the memory of how to do something, such as how to get from your job to your home. This also is processed in REM and slow-wave sleep, although it appears to be processed at different times during these sleep phases. Because sleep is important when it comes to processing these two different types of memory, it makes sense that sleep and memory are somehow linked.

A Link Between Sleep and Memory

There have been several studies indicating a link between sleep and memory. One experiment looked at memory recall after taking a nap. People who had more REM sleep and higher levels of change in autonomic activity had better recall of a video they had seen earlier in the day. Interestingly, the change in autonomic activity such as heart rate seemed to predict memory abilities better than the amount of REM sleep.

While the waking brain is optimized to collect information, our sleeping brains appear to be best at processing and storing it. So how does lack of sleep, a condition suffered by millions in the United States alone, affect your memory?

Can Sleep Deprivation Affect Memory?

Unsurprisingly, losing sleep either from a busy lifestyle or a sleep disorder can affect your memory intensely. This appears to be due to a resulting lack of memory consolidation, the process of moving items from short-term to long-term memory. If you seem to have to look up the same information over and over or cannot remember a coworker’s name despite seeing them regularly, memory consolidation (and by extension a lack of sleep) may be the issue.

People who miss out on sleep fail to make new memories but also fail to recall old ones. Research has found that sleep can affect the function of the prefrontal lobe, and people who do not get enough sleep on a regular basis have been found to have changes in prefrontal lobe. Coincidentally, or not, these people also experience a dip in memories and begin suffering from the memory loss seen in dementia. Your sleep may be one of the most important factors in how easily you remember the details and facts that make up your memories and knowledge base.

Are you getting enough sleep? If you are like many people in the Western world, the answer is an emphatic no. However, you may not have realized that this may be causing a variety of mental and physical health issues. Getting enough sleep, both in quality and quantity, is not only essential to healthy cognitive function and memory, it’s crucial to leading a healthy and happy life.

The Effects of Office Lighting on Productivity, Sleep and Your Circadian Rhythm

Aug 19 by Ewcopywriting Leave a Comment

There was a time when people lived by the rising and setting of the sun. Now, many people in the West live by the alarm clock and the punch of a time card. Between punches, we are left beneath the glow of artificial office lighting. While we all long for that corner office, many are left in the central cubicle. Why do we all covet the office with huge windows? More importantly, what effect does exposure to constant bright artificial office light have on our circadian rhythm?

Sunlight vs. Office Lighting

Humans evolved under the light of the sun by day—and the lack thereof at night. It is deeply ingrained in us to be active while the sun shines and then to settle down to sleep when dusk hits. However, now the lines have blurred. For most of us, the cold glare of fluorescent lights dominates our lives. Not only are we trapped under bright lights all day, but we are chained to smartphones and other devices that emit artificial light as well.

How does this affect human health? According to a new study, the effects may be subtle and insidious. Researchers set out to study people who were exposed to natural light compared with those who spent their days under artificial lights. In a nutshell, it was found that people who have little exposure to natural light throughout the day have a lower quality of life in general.

How do we know that these cubicle workers have a lower quality of life? Researchers studied groups who worked in offices lit by windows and compared them to those who work in areas without windows. People who live without natural light rate their sleep quality and even their quality of life lower. There is a good reason people fight for that corner office; it improves their physical and mental health.

The Grim Reality of Office Lighting

In nature, light changes in tone and color throughout the day. This change in color is registered by your brain and used as information to guide your circadian rhythm. On the other hand, artificial light remains the same all day. This may affect our circadian rhythms in ways we previously did not know. Your body has a harder time sensing whether it should be preparing to be alert or preparing for a nap. While constant artificial light can have an adverse effect on your health, there are ways you can mitigate the effects of working in a cubicle. Experts recommend that people with low exposure to daytime light make an effort to get outdoors, sit near a window and otherwise expose themselves to the healthy benefits of natural sunlight.

Is a Daytime Nap the Answer?

For many cubicle workers, early afternoon comes with a decrease in energy and alertness. Taking a short nap could increase your productivity in ways we previously did not realize. The circadian rhythm takes a short dip in the afternoon, an effect that is more noticeable in people without natural light exposure. Taking a nap when the urge strikes you could increase alertness and creativity in the hours before you clock out.

In fact, some of the world’s most productive employers encourage taking naps when the urge strikes. With over a third of American workers not getting enough sleep, even a short nap can make work more productive and more bearable. In fact, there is a coordinated effort to make nap time part of the American workplace due to the pervasive sleep deprivation that can make it difficult to be productive during this dip in the circadian rhythm.

Old Bodies in a New World

While we now live under bright lights, this is not how we evolved. If you are looking for ways to be more productive in your day, it might be time to get in touch with your evolved self. Find ways to be more active. Seek light during the day and darkness at night. In short, try to live as our ancestors did as much as possible. These simple lifestyle changes often allow us to walk the fine line between the demands of our biology and the demands of modern life.

Many people live without natural light in their days. However, there are ways to mitigate the damage to your circadian rhythm. By seeking sunlight wherever possible and taking naps when needed you will likely be able to walk the line.

Artificial Light Could Be Making You Sick

Aug 17 by Ewcopywriting Leave a Comment

Life on earth evolved in the presence of light. We depend on the sun to provide energy for the plants we eat, to warm our planet to a safe temperature and to regulate our sleep-wake cycles. However, most life also requires a similar ratio of dark. Humans in ancient times sought the shade at midday and enjoyed long hours of dark at night. However, times have has changed. We now live in a world of perpetual artificial light, which is not just constantly present but also a different wavelength than natural light. New research suggests that this may be harming our health in more ways than previously realized.

The Dangers of Artificial Light

Artificial light does not produce the same frequencies of light as light from the sun. It is usually brighter, a higher color temperature and higher intensity than light found in our natural environment. How does this affect our health? According to researchers, it can have a huge effect on the circadian rhythm. Our retinas sense light and pass signals to the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) of the hypothalamus, which in turn regulates our circadian rhythm and a variety of biochemical and cellular processes.

The effects of disrupting the circadian rhythm extend far beyond sleep. People who have a disrupted circadian rhythm from artificial light suffer from an increase in a variety of health risks including inflammation, immune overreaction and even bone and muscle loss. An out-of-sync circadian rhythm can also cause dermatological disorders and autoimmune disease.

Light and Aging

While constant artificial light has long been known to affect health in a variety of ways, new research suggests that it may affect us in a much more visible way as well. Artificial light appears to accelerate aging, both externally and internally. Animal studies suggest that not only may people exposed to high levels of man-made light develop fine lines and wrinkles more quickly, they may also have accelerated aging of their bones, muscles and organs. In studies, the mice exposed to artificial light 24 hours a day aged much more quickly.

While this is bad news for many modern people, there is good news as well. The mice in the studies partially recovered from the effects of the accelerated aging within two weeks of being returned to a normal sleep-wake cycle. If you are feeling over-tired and generally older than you should feel, you may be able to improve your appearance and health by reducing light exposure and stabilizing your circadian rhythm.

Is It Possible to Escape Artificial Light?

The problem for many modern people is that reducing light exposure can be a difficult task. We have televisions and devices that can be turned off, but these are not the only contributors to an increasingly light world. Many streetlights are high color temperature LED lights, which cause a huge range of negative health effects. In fact, the American Medical Association has warned communities not to use high color temperature streetlights, although many areas continue to do so.

In addition, light pollution is a major issue in many parts of the world. Even if you turn off your own sources of artificial light, the world is simply lighter and brighter than ever before. Sometimes there is no escaping this pervasive light.

Restoring Your Own Natural Rhythm

Even if you cannot completely escape ambient light in the environment, there are a few ways that you can encourage a healthy circadian rhythm. Turn off lights in your house at night, including devices and electronics that produce light. Go to sleep and wake at roughly the same time so your body can develop a set sleep pattern. Close your curtains and blinds to keep light pollution outside. You can also take a melatonin supplement in the evening to help your body prepare for a good night of restful sleep.

Artificial light is everywhere and may present a danger to the public health. However, there are ways to reduce and compensate for the negative health effects of this light. Getting your circadian rhythm on track is the first step to living a healthier and happier life.