Abandoning daylight saving time could prevent over 300,000 stroke cases a year in the US, study claims
Abandon the biannual switch to Day reduction time Could prevent more than 300,000 strokes and reduce more than 2 million cases of obesity per year, a new model using data of more than 300 million Americans suggest.
The adoption of permanent standard time (ST) weighs less circadian rhythm – The rough cardiac stimulator of the body 24 hours – that summer time (DST) or the turning point between temporal policies twice a year, found the researchers.
“We cannot propose public policy without data”, co-author of the study Jamie ZeitzerProfessor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of Stanford, told Live Science. The data of this research mark “the start of a conversation,” he said.
Is it time to change?
The DST, which means that the clocks go ahead of each spring, was presented for the first time in the United States in 1918 to save fuel during the First World War.
Our circadian rhythm regulates and coordinates the functioning of each cell in the body. This internal cardiac stimulator is very sensitive to exposure to light and disturbances – for example, when people have to wake up or stay awake during dark hours – creates a “circadian burden” which has been associated with a measurable increase in Negative health resultsIncluding heart attacks, strokes and car accidents at the time of tilting.
Insufficient vertices and a circadian burden are also metabolic stressors Associated with a reduction in energy expenditure and excessive food consumption – risk factors for gaining weight and obesity. As such, the Position of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine is to delete completely and stay permanently in St. Although the health risks of biannual switching are low for individuals, the effects are perceptible at the level of the population, said Zeitzer.
“You are really looking at the risk of lottery tickets. But if 350 million people do it the same day, someone will win the lottery,” Zeitzer told Live Science. “”[It’s] Just not one you want to win. “”
To model the impacts on the health of a gap between the circadian rhythm and the environment, Zeitzer and colleague Lara WeedA bio-engineer at the University of Stanford, calculated the circadian burden associated with each time policy: permanent St, permanent DST and biannual shift.
To do this, they simulated an exposure to artificial light and sunlight for the people of each American county over a year under the three time policies. They supposed regularly sleep Routines (10 p.m. to 7 a.m.) and regular working hours in a well -lit office (9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday to Friday).
The team noted that biannually passing between temporal policies had created the greatest disturbances in circadian clocks and therefore the largest circadian burden.
The researchers then used Data on prevalence at the county of chronic diseases To determine how the different circadian burdens predicted eight health results: arthritis, cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, coronaryDepression, diabetes, obesity and stroke. They controlled various socio -economic and health factors which could also determine the prevalence of diseases, such as high blood pressure, health insurance and unemployment.
Stopping at ST would prevent approximately 2,602,866 cases of obesity and 306,988 cerebral vascular accidents compared to a biannual change. The permanent DST prevented obesity and features to a lesser measure, with 1,705,437 cases of obesity predicted less and 220,092 less strokes on average, compared to the biannual switch.
Their model noted only none of the policies put a statistically significant reduction in the other six health results.
However, research is based on simulations which deliberately included unrealistic hypotheses, in particular a regular universal exhibition and sleep, and it also did not consider the seasonal variations in behavior. In addition, the The data sets on health results relied on self -depressed informationAs with the body mass index (BMI) and whether they had a stroke or not.
In addition, they did not include the race in their model, although there is persistent racial and ethnic disparities in sleep in the United States This exclusion “does not necessarily change the results of the study,” said Karin JohnsonProfessor of neurology at the Umass Chan School of Medicine-Baystate and spokesperson for the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, which was not involved in research.
This means, however, that the increase in the risk of stroke and obesity is likely to be felt mostly by people [namely, Black and Hispanic or Latino populations] Who are “already at risk of sleep disparities from other causes,” Johnson told Live Science in an email.
