INSIGHTS | 3. Biologic Clock & Immune Dysfunction

Plants, Fungi, and animals have evolved in relationship to the sun. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that there is a direct relationship between the rhythm of light-dark exposure and health.

Photo by Jeremy Perkins on Unsplash

Article: https://clinicalmolecularallergy.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12948-018-0080-0

Context

Circadian comes from the roots circa (around) and diem (day). Due to the relationship between the Sun and the Earth, this happens to revolve (no pun intended) around a 24-hour cycle.

Thus, every living thing on the surface of the earth has evolved over millions and billions of years in direct balance between changes in light-night cycles.

Observations of changes in living creatures with the day-night cycle have been documented for thousands of years.

In 2017, Jeffrey C. Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael W. Young won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their contributions to the discovery of a network of genes and proteins which regulate circadian rhythms based on this 24-hour light cycle.