The circadian rhythm is about your biological clock and how well it is synchronized with your sleep-wake cycle. Perfect timing is the essence of your body clock and is a key to your health parameters. Circadian rhythm test can be achieved by a draw of blood to have an insightful comprehension of your internal body clock. Once you understand its rhythm you can bring its functioning to near perfection for overall good health.
The principle of this test is to have an in-depth perception of the way your biological clock is ticking. Gene expression markers are put into the system and studied to get a picture of timing of your internal clock. It is then juxtaposed against the timing of the outside world.
Modern procedures require only two blood draws against multiple draws performed earlier over a time stretch to decide on a person’s inner clock. Circadian rhythm test that gauges 40 varied gene expressions in the blood is open to conducting it anytime. It is not impacted by the patient’s circadian model.
Benefits of Circadian rhythm test:
The time signature test devised by scientists at North Western Medicine, a flagship player in quality healthcare has great health significance. It helps locating the pattern of your biological clock, determines the right time to take medicines, and keep diseases at bay.
Thoughts contributed by Melissa A St Hilaire, PhD and instructor in medicine at Harvard Medical School point at startling facts. There are sufficient medical corroborations to establish a link between your inner clock and your performance. A good synchronization between the body’s inner clock and planning your actions has a bearing on health.
Top of the line time niches exists for completing your eating and sleeping habits and other chores depending upon inner clocks. Rhythm of this clock is not the same for all. The timing of inner clock may stand out of phase by as much as 5 hours.
The implication is that if someone finds 7 am to be the best for bedtime, others may find 12 noon to be appropriate. Sleep as per the dictates of your circadian clock or else you won’t find satisfactory sleep, St Hilaire further observes.
Circadian rhythm test is the secret to your happiness:
Health and happiness are synonymous. If circadian rhythm and sleep-wake cycles are not pulled together by the command of your biological clock, health issues are afoot. You may suffer disorders like irregular sleep, obesity, depression, asthma or even cardiac diseases.
The circadian rhythm test opens up a library of information from our blood samples. It will guide patients to take medications at an optimal time to achieve the best results. Optimal time becomes known from the body’s inner clock and the pattern of its run. Causes wrecking the circadian rhythm may be linked to mood swings and neurodegenerative issues. Even diabetes can be traced to such disruptions in the rhythm.
Ensuring a placid biological clock:
To resolve irregular sleep pattern, you need to set your biological clock on a smooth track. One way of doing it is to go to bed at night and wake up every morning at the same time. No sooner you wake up, get some exposure to the soft morning sunlight.
Another suggestion for achieving a smoothly running inner clock is not to engage in electronic gadgets before bedtime. Eating and workout habits should be devoted to a particular time of the day. If these keep fluctuating, your inner clock will be thrown out of equilibrium. Your health will be at stake.
 The sample blood test:
The core biological clock inside you steers the circadian rhythm present in every single cell of your body. This clock is positioned at suprachiasmatic nucleus region in your brain. This clock ticks and the circadian rhythm pulsates even when your blood sample is collected in a petri dish. A highly advanced scientific computational formula exists for measuring inner clock rhythm from sampling two blood collections.
Devising a potent circadian rhythm test:
A gene signature biomarker needs to be cultured to get a highly precise and easy to read time signature. In a test, a group of healthy adult subjects was selected and thousands of measurements were taken at an interval of every two hours. The measurement indicated the level of activity of genes present in the test blood sample for each person throughout the day. Confirmed data from three other measurements were collected.
An innovative machine learning method called time signature was also developed. This would explore through data pool and locate and bring out a small set of biomarkers disclosing the time of the day. A collection of 41 genes were recognized as being the best markers.
A significant feature to note that all the signature genes identified are a part of the biological clock. Many are determinants of other biological functional systems like the immune system. It is controlled by the clock to vary over the day so far as its functional aspects are concerned.
This highlights the importance of circadian control and its bearing on other processes. This relationship is so powerful we can use these processes to have a grip on the clock. The gist of circadian rhythm and its effect on entire scheduling of activities and health profile rests on one line wisdom ‘Timing is everything ‘.
If your inner clock is thrown out of gear, you are exposed to illness. Perhaps the most fascinating feature is the body clock timing. It is so important that if you do not set it right and listen to its signals, you are in for trouble. The study of inner clock of a group of people practically helps in predicting who is prone to illness and who isn’t.
Irregular sleep cycle, its diagnosis and treatment:
The diagnosis of an erratic circadian rhythm can be done by a professional expert where your habits divulge a lot. Irregular sleep schedule is an indicator. Failure to honor relationships and discharging duties and responsibilities can put you on a suspect list for circadian order disruption.
Another behavioral feature by which this disorder can be diagnosed is your tendency to go in isolation, cutting out social contacts. You feel secured inside a protective cocoon.
The issue can be diagnosed with an inclination towards alcoholism where the patient unsuccessfully tries to solve issues arising out of a disturbed circadian rhythm.
As a diagnostic procedure, the doctor will ask the suspect patients about their:
- Medical symptoms
- Neurological symptoms
- Sleep habits
- Medication routine
- Alcoholism habits
- Genetic history
Be transparent to all his/her queries to have an effective diagnosis ending in proper treatment.
A successful circadian rhythm test should end in successful treatment. The idea for a remedial solution is to enhance the fillip to revise the sleep clock located in brain. The objective is to attain an unbroken long sleep time at night, followed by a long wake time during the day.