Permanent Standard Time?
Many clinicians, including Aldasouqi and Sullivan, argue a better solution to these challenges would be to end DST.
In their Clinical Diabetes article, they also cited other health risks associated with clock changes such as fatigue, headache, and loss of attention and alertness that can result in injuries.
But a permanent time change is a “politically charged issue, and it continues to be debated nationally and at the state level,” they wrote.
At least 30 states also considered measures this year related to DST, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. A pending Senate bill intended to make DST permanent has the support of 8 Democrats and 11 Republicans, including Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala).
“It’s amazing how many phone calls we get over this one topic. People across America agree that changing our clocks back and forth twice a year really makes no sense,” Tuberville said last year on the Senate floor. “People call and say they’re just sick of it.”
These federal and state efforts have stalled to date on the key question of whether to make either standard time or DST permanent, the National Conference of State Legislatures noted. A shift to permanent DST might have benefits for some agricultural and recreational industries, but many physicians say it would be bad for people’s health.
The American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) argues strongly for moving to permanent standard time. In a position statement published in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, the group said the acute transitions from standard time to DST pose harms, citing research indicating increased risks for adverse cardiovascular events, mood disorders, and motor vehicle crashes.
The solution is to end shifts in time and opt for standard time, which best aligns with the human biological clock, AASM said.
AASM noted that there already was a failed experiment in the United States with a shift to permanent DST. Congress established this in response to the 1973 OPEC oil embargo, expecting that allowing more evening hours with light would lead to energy savings. That didn’t pay off in the expected reduction in energy and the policy was highly unpopular, especially in rural areas, AASM said.
“After a single winter, the policy was reversed by an overwhelming congressional majority,” wrote Muhammad Adeel Rishi, MD, and other authors of the statement. “The unpopularity of the act was likely because despite greater evening light, the policy resulted in a greater proportion of days that required waking up on dark mornings, particularly in the winter.”
Karin G. Johnson, MD, professor of neurology at the UMass Chan School of Medicine, Worcester, Massachusetts, told this news organization that a shift to permanent DST would rob many people of the signals their bodies need for sleep.
“Sunrises and sunsets are later and that creates a desire for our body to stay up later and have more trouble getting up in the morning,” Johnson said. “You’re all but making it impossible for certain segments of the population to get enough sleep” with permanent DST.
Johnson, Sullivan, and Aldasouqi had no relevant financial disclosures.
A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.