Circadian Timekeeping in Health and Disease

Abstract

Part 1 of this review outlined recent advances in characterizing the properties of hypothalamic circadian pacemakers. In Part 2 we describe the implications of this rhythmicity for clinical medicine.Circadian Rhythms in Medical DiagnosisAlmost every physiologic variable that is used as a diagnostic indicator has been shown to exhibit a circadian rhythm.³ One consequence of this has been the gradual alteration of the common perception that physiologic variables are tightly regulated to a fixed set point and that any movement away from this value is equivalent to disease. Such an oversimplification of the concept of homeostasis must be modified . . .