Is Daylight Saving Time Bad for You?
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Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes "Time Magazine reports that according to experts on circadian rhythms, the hour shift in sleep schedule from Daylight Savings Time can have serious effects on some people's health, particularly in people with certain pre-existing health problems with one study finding that men were more likely to commit suicide during the first few weeks of Daylight Saving Time (DST) than at any other time during the year and another study showing that the number of serious heart attacks jumps 6% to 10% on the first three workdays after DST begins. Dr. Xiaoyong Yang, an assistant professor of comparative medicine and cellular and molecular physiology at Yale University, theorizes that shifts in biologic rhythms could trigger harmful inflammatory or metabolic changes at the cellular level, which these individuals may be more susceptible to. "Most people don't have much of a problem — they can adjust their body clock quickly. Eventually, after a couple of days, they already can adapt to the new schedule," says Yang. "But for some groups of people — people who have depression or a heart problem — there's some research that suggests that [they] have a higher risk of suicide and heart attack.""
