Your doctor tells you how many times a day you should take a pill, and whether to take it with or without food – but they very rarely tell you the exact time at which it has to be taken. Chronopharmacology (also known as chronotherapy or circadian medicine) – the idea that a pill popped at exactly the right time has maximum benefit – could be a major influence on the future of medicine. Increasing studies are showing that what time of day we treat disease can be crucial, and that it’s possible to pinpoint the time of day when certain disease is at its worst.
In 1997, doctors in Denver split 59 asthmatics into three groups. The first group used steroid inhalers at 8am every day for four weeks. The second used the same inhalers, but much later in the day, at 5.30pm. The third group dosed four times a day at 7am, 12 noon, 7pm and 10pm – at the time, this was believed to be the optimal regime.
