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My teenage granddaughters sleep in on weekends but are up early on school days. According to everything known to circadian rhythm science, their master clocks, those mechanisms that calibrate body function timing, should be thrown off. They are not. At least they don’t seem to be. Body functions of people under 30 can defy expectations of science without consequence. Not so for older people whose cells are more sensitive to irregular perturbations of nerve signals.

With age, the human body prefers to follow circadian rhythms. When forced off course, its cells become confused about accidentally doing one thing when they should be doing another. We have evolved on a planet that passes through a 24-hour day/night cycle with cells anticipating a coordinated oscillation timing of enzyme and hormone production for body functions such as temperature, heart rate, and immune responses. Recent research tells us that diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease might be indirectly related to disruptions of circadian rhythms.

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