Abstract

CHRONOTHERAPY: A REVIEW OF CIRCADIAN RHYTHMS AND BIOLOGICAL CLOCKS

Shubhangi Bichewar*, Indrayani Patil, Pratiksha Patil, Vaibhavi Patil and Bhagwat Pawar

Abstract

Chronotherapy involves using rhythmic cycles—such as circadian, ultradian, infradian, seasonal, or others—as part of therapeutic treatment. Many diseases have a circadian rhythm, and there are benefits to scheduling and modifying medicine delivery following the disease’s circadian cycle. It is the practice of using medications to target specific areas in correlation to the circadian cycle. To optimize therapeutic outcomes and minimize the toxic effects of drugs, the present review discusses approaches to chrono pharmaceutical, which identifies existing technologies, and studies recent chrono pharmaceutical drug delivery systems for managing a variety of Chronic diseases including asthma, arthritis, cancer, diabetes, hypertension, and various types of cancers in relation with their biological rhythms. Chrono-pharmaceutical drug delivery systems have recently gained significant importance in pharmaceutical technology for product development. These systems are designed to deliver drugs in alignment with the body’s biological rhythms, targeting specific diseases at their peak activity times. By doing so, they help reduce dosing frequency and toxicity while enhancing drug efficacy and patient compliance. This review centers on elucidating the concept of chronotherapy, the primary obstacle that lies ahead in its development, existing methodologies, assessments, recent developments, challenges and prospects, and its potential future uses in drug delivery for treating diseases with circadian rhythms.

Keywords: Chronotherapy, circadian cycle, pulsatile drug delivery system, chronic diseases, stimuli regulated system, target specific areas.