Clinical applications of magnetic drug targeting.

https://www.gastrojournal.org/article/0016-5085(87)90913-9/pdf

Circadian variation in gastric emptying of meals in humans

Chronobiology, drug delivery, and chronotherapeutics.

https://doc.rero.ch/record/327355/files/alb_mnd.pdf

Medicine in the Fourth Dimension.

Medical practice and research in the United States and other countries are pervaded by the traditional concepts of homeostasis. As a result, the time of day or year when a diagnostic or therapeutic procedure is performed or a drug is administered is not considered important. However, during the last three decades, the science of chronobiology has revealed the importance to medicine of the rhythms that exist in the biologic functions and processes of humans. This article reviews the basic concepts of human chronobiology and discusses the rhythm dependence of certain disease states and the pharmacodynamics of medications frequently prescribed for their treatment. Special reference is made to the nocturnal exacerbation of asthma and the use of chronobiologic principles in its treatment.

https://www.amjmed.com/article/0002-9343(88)90240-9/pdf

Biological rhythms and medicine

Circadian (approximately equal to 24 hours) and other endogenous biological rhythms, detectable at all levels of organisation, constitute a temporal structure in all animal species, including man. Circadian, circannual, and other rhythmic changes in biological susceptibility and response of organisms to a large variety of physical and chemical agents, including medications and foods, are rather common phenomena. A better understanding of periodic and thus predictable changes in drug effects can be attained through consideration of three complementary concepts: the chronopharmacokinetics of a drug (rhythmic changes in its pharmacokinetics), the chronesthesy (rhythmic changes in susceptibility of target biosystems to the drug), and the chronergy (the drug-integrated overall effects). The chronopharmacokinetics of many drugs have been evaluated in man including sodium salicylate, aspirin, indomethacin, paracetamol (acetaminophen), phenacetin, amidopyrine, theophylline, digitalis, propranolol, clorazepate, hexobarbitone (hexobarbital), lithium, phenytoin (diphenylhydantoin), nortriptyline, ethanol, erythromycin, ampicillin, sulfasymazine, sulphanilamide, cisplatin (cis-diammine dichloroplatinum), d-xylose, ferrous sulphate, potassium chloride, hydrocortisone and prednisolone, among others. The roles presumably played by circadian rhythms in drug metabolising liver enzymes and kidney function are summarized, and the practical implications of chronopharmacokinetics, aiming both to improve in a quantitative manner the metabolic fate of a drug and its effectiveness, are discussed.

A. Reinberg

Papers

Circadian Changes of Drug Disposition in Man