Body Clock
Many of my patients have a medicine cabinet that looks like a scene from a potion class gone wrong: a jumble of bottles, some with contradictory cryptic instructions.
Take this one before meals, this one at night, and the other one on an empty stomach.
Some patients are playing a frantic game of pharmaceutical roulette.
I recently stumbled upon “chronotherapy” ” the science of aligning medication with your body’s natural rhythms.
Did you know your body has rhythms that affect how well your medicines work?
This essay will share what I discovered about biohacking meds with the power of your body clock.
Chronotherapy
Imagine getting more out of your medications without popping extra pills.
A new study suggests there might be a way to do this: taking them based on your sleep schedule.
Whether you’re an early bird or a night owl doesn’t matter.
This approach — chronotherapy — tailors medication timing to your body’s natural rhythms.
Evidence
The new study focused on blood pressure meds. Here’s what University of Dundee (UK) researchers discovered:
Giving medication based on whether you are a morning person or a night person might reduce the chance of having a heart attack.
This finding is exciting because it suggests chronotherapy could be a game-changer for many medications.
Chronotherapy Study Details
This research is part of a larger study on blood pressure medication timing. Here’s the breakdown in simpler terms:
- The original study (Treatment in Morning versus Evening (TIME)) compared taking blood pressure medication in the morning to evening.
- Researchers added this sub-study to the original one. They asked participants to complete a questionnaire to determine whether they were morning people (early birds) or night owls (late sleepers).
- Researchers studied how the timing of medication impacts heart health, including the risk of heart attacks and strokes.
They wanted to see if matching medication time to your natural sleep pattern has additional benefits.
My Take – Biohacking Your Health
The results suggest that people who are night owls (later sleep schedule) might benefit from taking their medication in the evening instead of the morning.
This innovative circadian rhythm-based approach could potentially lower their risk of heart attacks.
More research is needed to confirm this, but it’s an exciting finding! In the future, doctors might consider your sleep habits when prescribing blood pressure medication to get the best results.
Final Thoughts – Biohacking Your Health
Think about it: you could get better results from treatments for depression, pain, and even cancer, all by taking them at the right time.
While this research is promising, my colleagues and I have yet to consider it.
Hopefully, that’ll change soon.
Your doctor might ask about your sleep habits to optimize your treatment plan and prevent sleep problems.
Summary – Biohacking Your Health
Here’s a brief summary:
- Your body has a natural rhythm. Imagine your body like a well-oiled machine with different processes happening at different times of the day. You feel most alert in the morning and sleepy at night, and your digestion works best after meals. This natural rhythm is called your biological clock.
- Medications work differently depending on the time: Chronotherapy considers this rhythm. It studies how your body responds to medications at different times of the day. For example, some blood pressure medications might work best when taken in the morning when your blood pressure naturally rises.
- The goal is to get the most out of your meds: By understanding how your body’s rhythm affects medications, doctors can aim to:
- Boost the effectiveness of your treatment.
- Reduce unwanted side effects.
Thank you for reading “Biohacking Your Health.”
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