标题:Chronodisruption: Origin, Roots, and Developments of an 18-Year-Old Concept. Comment on Desmet et al. Time-Restricted Feeding in Mice Prevents the Disruption of the Peripheral Circadian Clocks and Its Metabolic Impact during Chronic Jetlag. Nutrients 2021, 13, 3846
摘要:We read with interest the article by Desmet and colleagues entitled “Time-Restricted Feeding in Mice Prevents the Disruption of the Peripheral Circadian Clocks and Its Metabolic Impact during Chronic Jetlag” [
1]. A key focus is “chronodisruption”—used some 18 times as “a disruption of the circadian system”—and the authors refer to “chronodisruptors”, for which they include a reference [
2]. Since chronodisruption (CD) itself is not explicitly referenced, may we complement their work with publications in which the concept was first proposed in 2003 [
3] and systematically developed thereafter?
More generally, CD was conceptualized as a relevant disruption of an otherwise beneficial circadian organization of physiology, endocrinology, metabolism, and behavior by ordered sequences of biological rhythms during sleep and wake cycles. Since the term was coined [
3], CD was—step-by-step—put into thematic and historical context with Pittendrigh’s insights as a nestor of modern chronobiology [
2,
4], included in cancer theory development [
5], investigated in shift workers [
5,
6,
7] and flight personnel [
6], defined in further detail [
2], operationalized as split nexus of internal and external times [
8], included in metrics to compute CD doses (Computing chronodisruption—Computing circadian misalignment—Computing sleep deficiency) [
7,
9,
10], contrasted with the concept of social jetlag [
9,
10], and conceptualized as a ubiquitous causal phenomenon at both work and play [
11] (
Table 1). Beyond epidemiological contexts, the CD concept is increasingly used, and explored, in experimental research and in more and more journals [
12,
13].
Clearly, we appreciate the work by Desmet and colleagues. Equally clearly, that CD is a widely used and useful concept is also evinced by citation statistics: as of 3 December 2021, Web of Science indicates that publications that explicitly regard the topic chrondisruption accumulate an h-index of 40 [
14].
Overall, that our internal 24 h (circadian) timing systems coordinate countless fundamental physiological processes and that their disruptions may lead to adverse health effects such as obesity [
15], diabetes, cardiovascular disease, kidney disease [
16], psychiatric disorders, detrimental pregnancy outcomes [
17], and, plausibly, cancer [
18] can make chronodisruption a prime target for research. An appropriate way to facilitate learning about, challenging, falsifying, or expanding the concept of CD may be to offer source references for its origin [
3], roots, and developments (such as in
Table 1, [
16], and this comment).