We fight cancer better at dawn

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The time of day influences the immune system and its ability to mobilize

Would we treat cancer better in the morning? It would seem so! This reinforces the idea that our biological rhythms play a major role in our health…

The ability of tumors to take hold and grow depends on how well the immune system fights them. Scientists from the universities of Geneva (Switzerland) and Munich (Germany) show that the antitumor activity of the immune system – and the effectiveness of immunotherapies against cancer – varies according to the time of day. Previous studies have already shown that the activation of the immune system is modulated according to the time of day, with a peak of effectiveness early in the morning in humans.

This rhythmicity has a hitherto unsuspected impact on tumor growth, as well as on the efficacy of immunotherapy treatments. The scientists demonstrated this in mice: they injected groups of mice with tumor (melanoma) cells at six different times of the day, then they followed the evolution of the tumors for two weeks. They observed that the latter developed more slowly when they had been implanted at the beginning of the night than during the night or the day, when the immune system of the mouse, which is a nocturnal animal, is at its maximum efficiency.

In humans, diurnal animals, it is the opposite. Previous studies, also from Switzerland, have recently shown that tumor cells tend to grow at night, during sleep. In this study ⁽¹⁾, the scientists retrospectively re-examined the data of a dozen patients treated with therapeutic vaccines against melanoma. It is little, but enough to be able to observe that their lymphocytes T specific against melanoma – essential elements of immune activation – responded better to treatments given early in the morning.

Patients could therefore soon benefit from this “circadian medicine” that a certain number of doctors are calling for ⁽²⁾a medicine that takes into account the biological rhythms of the human body in order to intervene in the most appropriate way!

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