I attended an interesting talk today about the circadian rhythm of some disease manifestations. For instance, did you know that the incidence of myocardial infarction (heart attack) has a rhythm, with the peak at 10am? They also talked about rhythms in asthma attacks and even fainting episodes.
Out of curiosity, I searched the literature for any evidence of rhythms playing a role in cancer. As it turns out, there is an optimal time of day for receiving chemotherapy. This may seem intuitive; our body shows rhythms in so many ways, so perhaps we are more receptive to therapies at certain times of day. But the putative reason is more precise: cell growth operates on a circadian rhythm, and it is thought that chemo during a certain phase of the cell cycle is most effective at killing tumor cells. Furthermore, it's been shown that clock genes play a direct role in controlling cell proliferation. This suggests that disrupting your body's rhythms (such as irregular sleep!) may play a role in cancer development.
Sources:
Hu et al. PNAS 101, 2004.
Hrushesky. Science 228, 1985.
Fu and Lee. Nature 3, 2003.
Oh no - does doing the "dougie" count as an irregular body rhythm?
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