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Time — A key in experimental and practical medicine

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Abstract

This paper gives an overview on circadian rhythms which governs visibly all biological features. By illustrative examples of circadian rhythms of man and experimental animals it is shown that:

  1. 1.

    The components of all tissues, organs, and blood undergo circadian changes, manifested in dramatic morphologic and chemical differences. These circadian changes simply do not represent minute “physiologic” variations around a 24-h mean.

  2. 2.

    The endogenous nature and the influences of the environmental factors such as food, light, laboratory stress, and seasons acting on circadian rhythms are demonstrated.

  3. 3.

    The different circadian phases determine significantly the in vivo and in vitro results in response to hormones, drugs, and poisons. The neccessity to consider circadian rhythms is shown by chronotoxicologic experiments: mortality rates between 0 and 100% may occur after application of identical doses of a given drug at different day times.

Zusammenfassung

Anhand von Ergebnissen von Versuchstieren und Menschen wird gezeigt, daß:

  1. 1.

    Alle Gewebe, Organe und das Blut unterliegen circadianen Schwankungen, die sich in drastischen morphologischen und chemisch meßbaren Unterschieden äußern. Diese circadianen Schwankungen sind aber aufgrund ihrer Größenordnung somit keineswegs geringfügige „physiologische Schwankungen” um einen 24-Std Mittelwert. Die endogene Fixierung und die Einflüsse von Umweltfaktoren auf die Circadianrhythmik wie Futter, Licht, Laboratoriumsstress und Saisoneinflüsse werden demonstriert.

  2. 2.

    Die unterschiedlichen circadianen Phasen bestimmen signifikant die Resultate von in vivo und in vitro Experimenten bei Hormon- und Medikamentengaben. Die Notwendigkeit der Beachtung circadianer Rhythmen wird anhand von chronotoxikologischen Experimenten verdeutlicht: nach Verabreichung identischer Dosen von Pharmaka zu unterschiedlichen Tageszeiten wurden Mortalitätsratenunterschiede zwischen 0 und 100% beobachtet.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. Anatomy I, Med. Hochschule, Karl-Wiechert-Allee 9, D-3000 Hannover, Federal Republic of Germany

    H. v. Mayersbach

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Read at the Symposium “Relevance of Chronobiology for Toxicology and Pharmacology” held at the 16th Spring Meeting of the Deutsche Pharmakologische Gesellschaft, Section: Toxicology, March 6, 1975, Mainz

Partially supported by research grant Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft — DFG-SFB 146 „Versuchstierkunderd

Heern Prof. Dr. Drs. h.c. Wolfgang Bargmann zum 70. Geburtstag

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Mayersbach, H.v. Time — A key in experimental and practical medicine. Arch. Toxicol. 36, 185–216 (1976). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00340529

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