Since childhood, we have heard that it is better to go to bed and get up, have breakfast and lunch at the same time. Why? How can this be explained from the point of view of the science of biorhythmology?
Biorhythmology is the science of the biorhythms of the human body
What natural rhythms affect the human body and how?
Nature, creating living beings, also came up with mechanisms that help them survive. One of these mechanisms is biorhythms: alternation of periods of activity and passivity of processes occurring in living organisms. The hormone melatonin regulates these processes.
The human body is controlled by several types of biorhythms: ultradian – less than a day, infradian – lasting more than 24 hours, including weekly, monthly, seasonal, annual… And circadian (or circadian) rhythms – associated with the change of day and night. The latter are the most important rhythms for us and the most studied, they are determined by the movement of the Earth around the Sun.
Obeying these rhythms, we fall asleep at night and wake up in the morning, and night in the middle zone for us comes at about 11 p.m., morning – at 6-7 a.m. During daylight hours, our body temperature rises, blood circulation improves, gastric juice is secreted, which helps to process food … And at night, our body produces the hormone melatonin, which is also responsible for deep and restful sleep.
Rhythms determine both the time of our maximum activity during the day, and the time of daytime decline in strength and afternoon drowsiness…
In the weekly rhythm, the peak of both mental and physical activity occurs on Thursday.
Seasonal rhythms influence the exacerbation of many chronic diseases. In unstable seasons – autumn and spring (and autumn in our latitudes for the body begins in mid-August and ends by December, spring – from mid-February to the end of April) – chronic gastritis, peptic ulcer, mental, cardiovascular, and pulmonary diseases are exacerbated.
During years of solar activity, man-made disasters are more often observed and epidemics occur; this was established by our outstanding scientist, biophysicist A.L. Chizhevsky.
Lunar cycles have virtually no effect on humans, but they have a major impact on coastal animals, whose lives are closely linked to the ebb and flow of the sea, which depend on the position of the moon.
How does disruption of biorhythms affect health?
We are social creatures, and much in our lives depends on where we work and who we are. We often have to disrupt our biological rhythms: stay awake at night, fly from one continent to another and live in a new place at a new time… Then the body malfunctions, and it has to be protected.
For example, people living in the Far North have a hard time with both the polar night and the polar summer with its never-setting Sun. In Sweden, a prosperous country, there is a high suicide rate in winter, when daylight lasts 3-5 hours. To protect people from insomnia, hysteria, and mental disorders that are common in polar night conditions, Swedish doctors place patients with seasonal depression in rooms with very bright electric light of 2.5 thousand lux. It is enough to conduct such sessions lasting one hour several times a week for patients to feel the effect.
During the polar night, there should also be a special diet: lots of omega-3 fatty acids in the diet. The diet of those who live in the North should be close to the diet of indigenous peoples – with a lot of fatty fish.
During the polar day, which lasts for several months, you need to take melatonin, a hormone that is produced at night and controls sleep. A lack of melatonin weakens the immune system and leads to the formation of tumors. By the way, it is also useful for older people to take melatonin: with old age, all rhythms in the body slow down, sleep worsens. At 70, the body produces 2 times less melatonin than at 20-30 years old.
Melatonin should also be taken during long-haul flights that disrupt the normal daily rhythm. For example, after multi-hour flights from one continent to another, the rhythms of all processes occurring in the body are restored only after a month.
The influence of biorhythms on the action of drugs
Should biorhythms be taken into account when taking medications?
It would be great if medications were taken taking into account the body’s biorhythm, since the sensitivity of all organs and tissues to medications changes throughout the day. To do this, we must know how long after taking the medication it begins to act, when its peak concentration in the patient’s blood occurs, and when during the day the disease worsens, in order to combine these periods. It is difficult to calculate, but possible.
We suggested to the Russian Ministry of Health to introduce the basics of chronopharmacology into medical school programs, but we received no response. Doctors still recommend taking many drugs 3 times a day, but such a method does not provide a targeted effect and burdens the body with unnecessary doses of drugs.
For example, academician V.A. Tabolin back in the 60s of the last century suggested that children with rheumatic inflammation of the joints, with bronchial asthma should be given prednisolone in the morning, and not 3 times a day, and achieved the same effect with half the dose. Cardiac glycosides – herbal preparations from foxglove and adonis for acute and chronic heart failure – should also be taken in the morning, and not in the evening.
Liver cells divide and regenerate at night. This means that medications that support liver function should be taken at a time when the peak effect of the medications occurs at night.
Digestive enzymes should be taken during meals, and proton pump inhibitors (drugs that reduce the secretion of gastric juice) should be taken before meals, in the morning and evening.
Our research has shown that 3-4 days before the exacerbation of peptic ulcer disease, the rhythm of the cells of the gastric mucosa already changes, although the person does not yet feel any symptoms of the disease. And after the exacerbation has been relieved and all symptoms of the disease have disappeared, the rhythm of the cells remains “sick” for about another month. This means that it is worth sticking to a gentle diet for another month after the exacerbation.
